Live data from Hacker News

Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

twitter.com

281–290 of 451 posts

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply cost. If the plants started in the early 2000s would have been delivered on time and budget they would be a huge part of the transition today. Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and is simply not relevant. > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. If land use is what you measure impact based on a much better target is the beef industry…

>Now nuclear costs 3-5x more and is simply not relevant. Compared to what ? Energy prices have jumped 2-3x in some places so far, and it's not even winter yet. Comparing renewable prices as averages or whatever is fine if you like blackouts ?

This is the CORE of the energy debate..

People throw out whatever nonsense they like to support their position.

"Nuclear costs 3-5x" and as you point out, compared to what?

The cost of sitting around for 20 years debating this and not taking any action at all has lead to much worse problems - power shortages.

These "anti-nuclear" types fail to apply logic to their debate.

I asked how much power is produced by solar during the long winter months, i suspect they will not respond as it is against their view - solar is NOT viable in cold-weather climates. You need a reliable "base" system and nuclear is very well suited for this. Our plants (CANDU) can be refuelled while producing near-full power greatly reducing the need to shut them down.

The reason the temperatures fall below zero during the winter where i live is obvious.. The energy we receive from the sun has been greatly reduced.

How would solar power address the reduction in available solar energy, and the increased demand for energy for heating?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#282
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Eastern Europe? Romania (pretty balanced and not reliant on gas) and Poland (mostly coal, locally mined) are self sufficient. Baltics maybe?

Re Poland locally mined - i dont know wtf went wrong but we went from having huge reserves to buying from India within a year... A lot of homes rely on coal to be available by the time the winter comes and apparently they are left with nothing. People stand in line for a few days (literally, husband/wife/kid rotation in the queue) just to get the ticket for the coal. The ticket guarantees you to get the coal once the…

When the Covid hoarding panic set in someone bought all yeast in my local super market. Couldn't get any for weeks becouse people started hoarding when it hit the shelves.

I guess some of your neighbours have years worth of coal ... and toilet paper, of course.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#283
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charge higher rates for essential. Offer rebates for certain users with life safety requirements for uninterrupted power.

> Charge higher rates for essential. This makes ZERO sense.. I live in a cold climate.. Our furnace is "essential" to prevent my family and i from freezing to death. Under your plan we should pay more for this? And those who cant afford it? Let me guess, government rebates, making a complex program even more complex? Any time your solution requires "rebates".. it is flawed from the start.

You can also write “Charge higher rates for essential” as “Offer cheaper electricity that has lower quality of service guarantees”.

If seen that way, you wouldn’t pay more; you would have to he choice to get cheaper electricity.

I foresee high demand for electronics that seamlessly switch from the lower quality of service feed to the ‘essential’ one when that cheaper feed stops working, though.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#284
post #170

We need more nuclear power plants and we need them yesterday, there is no other mid term solution for the ongoing/coming energy crisis. The problem is that replacing old nuclear power plants (or building new ones) takes many years, time we don’t have… Let’s see how this situation evolves.

Yeah... about that. I was completely pro-nuclear until very recently, when I learnt that: - the summer droughts caused nuclear reactors to stop due to the lack of water - russia provides ~40% of ALL nuclear fuel - even France is getting their from Kazahstan So in light of these: more solar and wind, combined with possibly metan generation to store it as per https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/07/22/were-going-to-…

These are very weak arguments. Uranium is plentiful all over the world, it just isn't currently mined in the West because it's so cheap to buy. And Nuclear reactors can be designed to work without large supplies of fresh water.

Even if they were good arguments, Nuclear isn't just slightly better than solar/wind, so some problems don't change the conclusion.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#285
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charge higher rates for essential. Offer rebates for certain users with life safety requirements for uninterrupted power.

> Charge higher rates for essential. This makes ZERO sense.. I live in a cold climate.. Our furnace is "essential" to prevent my family and i from freezing to death. Under your plan we should pay more for this? And those who cant afford it? Let me guess, government rebates, making a complex program even more complex? Any time your solution requires "rebates".. it is flawed from the start.

It would make sense to have say your stage 1 heating that could keep your house livable but rather cold on essential, and your stage 2 heating which made things comfortable on the less available feed. I'd also put refrigerators and minimal lighting on essential.

The alternative as presented was some sort of compliance program hoping people wouldn't just run everything off the 'essential' feed regardless of need, or rolling blackouts as currently practiced.

It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much more value to you and others, but you're not willing to pay the value?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#286
post #226
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well if they're reliable, why is France in this world of hurt right now? This an exceedingly intellectually lazy argument which shows that you're either horribly biased (and never engaged with the reading material properly) or didn't even spend a minute thinking through what you're asking. It's somewhere on the level of "well, why is there snow in New York if global warming is happening HUUUUH?!". (Not to mention t…

Erm, EDF. I'm in favour of nuclear, but EDF/Hinckley Point are how not to do it (I think the only residential consumers they have left have failed to do any sort of shopping around/don't care about the cost - very possibly different for business/vested interests).

That’s not the whole story. EDF is a very competent company which have everything needed to provide cheap electricity to the whole country while making money.

The point is (and I think it’s a scandal) that EDF is forced, by law, to resell its nuclear electricity to its competitors at an under the market price.

EDF is also required to offer an electricity plan with a law fixed price. Which is a good thing because historically, it allowed end users not to suffer from market price fluctuations.

Now what is happening is that all those fake competitors that did resell EDF electricity cheaper than EDF offerings, took their margin for more than a decade and are now asking their customer to unsubscribe and to go back to the EDF fixed-by-law offer.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is also "pro-nuclear" it is upsetting to see this take place. The "anti-nuclear" camp has won, but based on what sort of logical argument? Fear? what about Chernobyl? It is one thing to be "anti-nuclear" but they failed to provide alternatives. "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. Now millions face rolling blackouts and energy shortages whe…

Simply cost. If the plants started in the early 2000s would have been delivered on time and budget they would be a huge part of the transition today. Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and is simply not relevant. > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. If land use is what you measure impact based on a much better target is the beef industry…

A bit of Googling suggests that Switzerland doesn't have a beef industry. Steak costs more in Switzerland than pretty much anywhere else in the world, as it has to be imported (no local industry), and the tariffs on it are also very high.

Of course, they have cows, for milk, for the cheese industry that they do have. But raising dairy cattle has only a fraction of the impact that beef cattle do (as you're not constantly slaughtering them and feeding up new ones.)

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#288

The situation in Italy is bleak - due to widespread NIMBY-ism it's basically impossible to build anything. Even hooking up a LNG FSRU temporarily in an emergency situation like the current one is a monumental feat of burocracy and fighting against everyone and everything. There's a non zero chance that, together with the inevitable far right government that will come out of today's elections, the country will collaps…

What does the far right government have to do with the "inevitable collapse"? I'm not choosing sides but if the prior government's policies have led to this moment I don't see the logic here. I can imagine there are distasteful things about such leadership, but I'm curious about the economic and NIMBY aspects only.

Italy is not in a situation to pull itself out of its problems - it's paralyzed due its chronic political instability and its abysmal political class born out of a dysfunctional system. While the left isn't that great either, the Italian right is among the worst in the continent - sleazy, dishonest, without any trace of a program except outright lies and the desire to grab power, and reform the constitution to establish an authoritarian regime like in Hungary.

The truth is that the Italian people have been deeply disgruntled with politics for decades, and are only voting Meloni this time because they've been cyclically protest voting everyone that was in opposition to the last government for the last 30 years, since Berlusconi in 1994. People do not care a bit about her ideas, and I'd be damned if there's more than a single digit percent of her voters that do know a single policy she's pushing for. She simply wasn't in Draghi's government, so she's not the current establishment. If she fails to establish an authoritarian regime in the next few years, she'll be destroyed the next election in favour of someone else. That's how Italian politics work.

Italy needs access to credit with EU rates and a strong EU in general to survive - but replacing a widely respected figure (Draghi) with a previously unknown Fascist nostalgic nobody really likes is not really a great way to project your influence in Brussels - quite the opposite. For instance, it's pointless for Italy to push for less sanctions to Russia, because the main pipeline that goes from Russia to Italy passes through several other countries, including Ukraine itself. Italy needs a EU wide NG price cap, fast, or it seriously risks social and economic collapse in the following months.

About NIMBY: Italy rejected nuclear power due to widespread fears after Chernobyl that were capitalized by the corrupt political class of the time (a widespread sweep of that system happened in 1992 with the Mani Pulite process, but it was too late). Since then building ANYTHING in Italy immediately causes spontaneous committees of citizens to spring up to protest the realization of the aforementioned structure, infrastructure or public utility.

For instance, people have protested in recent years:

- against high speed trains, when Italy is a country where basically everything goes on polluting diesel trucks. This opposition delayed the project for years, but now finally Italy has a best in class high speed train service everyone loves. Go figure.

- against dumps, waste-to-energy plants, biogas plants, and so on. Nobody wants them close to their area, even though they have to be built somewhere and Italy has a very high population density. Result? Rome is swimming in trash, everywhere, with no solution in sight. Italy is paying foreign countries to take their rubbish, wasting huge amounts of money. Forcing such a project through would mean committing a political suicide for any Italian politician.

- against windmills. There are lots of offshore windmill farms that can't be built due to them being eyesores. It doesn't matter that Italy does need those mills desperately - it will still take them 4x the time to be built due to basically EVERYONE suing the state at every possible court up to the ECHR.

- against NG pipelines and terminals. The mayor of Piombino, who ironically is from Brothers of Italy, is ferociously opposing docking a FSRU in order to start regasify LNG shipped from the US and Qatar, in order to cover for the supply reduction of Russian gas. It does not matter that it of paramount importance, people are suing the state company and thus delaying the process until the courts clear up the matter.

The whole thing is worsened by the fact Italians have been the target of a deluge of fake news on social and conventional media for decades, way before it was a worldwide problem. That's how a media moghul such as Berlusconi got elected in the '90s/'00s in the first place.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now nuclear costs 3-5x more and is simply not relevant. Compared to what ? Energy prices have jumped 2-3x in some places so far, and it's not even winter yet. Comparing renewable prices as averages or whatever is fine if you like blackouts ?

This is the CORE of the energy debate.. People throw out whatever nonsense they like to support their position. "Nuclear costs 3-5x" and as you point out, compared to what? The cost of sitting around for 20 years debating this and not taking any action at all has lead to much worse problems - power shortages. These "anti-nuclear" types fail to apply logic to their debate. I asked how much power is produced by solar d…

Because no one proposes solar in the north European winter. It's all about the geographically decoupled off shore wind.

For the cost see for example:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#290

We need more nuclear power plants and we need them yesterday, there is no other mid term solution for the ongoing/coming energy crisis. The problem is that replacing old nuclear power plants (or building new ones) takes many years, time we don’t have… Let’s see how this situation evolves.

Good luck with that in Germany. The cabinet member in charge of energy is literally a former Greenpeace executive who doubled down on closing the three remaining plants in Germany THIS YEAR. German is insane.

What you write ist plain untrue. The cabinet member who is a former Greenpeace executive is part of the foreign ministry, the job is to talk to other countries about actions against the climate change. In no way is she responsible for the German energy politics.

And please refrain from calling a whole country as insane, especially based on wrong information.

Post reply on HN