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Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

bbc.com

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Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#31

Post by leonidasrup »

_Microft wrote: post #16
9864247888754 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We should have kept using nuclear? That nuclear of which refinement capacities are over 40% in Russians hands? For conversion it’s even a combined 63% for Russia+China. “Russia's Stranglehold On The World's Nuclear Power Cycle” , https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-nuclear-power-industry-graphi...

The reliance on Russian nuclear fuel services is a consequence of decisions made decades earlier in U.S. made during Bush era and later Obama era.

"Following proposals from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia, and in connection with the US-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), there have been moves to establish international uranium enrichment centres."

"The first of these international centres is the International Uranium Enrichment Centre (IUEC) established in 2007 by Rosatom at Angarsk in Siberia"

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#32

Post by mono442 »

wcoenen wrote: post #24
mono442 wrote: post #21

If they stuck with coal for producing electricity, it wouldn't such a huge problem.

The coal price has a tendency to spike during an energy crisis. The market is more volatile than crude oil. For example, check what happened in 2022. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal

The price of the coal actually doesn't matter much since the european union emissions trading system heavily penalizes burning it.

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#33

Post by nDRDY »

Yaggo wrote: post #30

The rest of Europe needs an energy reform. They should take the Nordics countries as an example, where household usage of gas is very minimal / non-existent and everything is electricity based (electricity being the cleanest in the world). They are also leading the EV adaptation by big margin.

A significant source of electricty is generated from waste-to-power plants in the Nordics. Several of those countries import rubbish by the shipload to turn into power.

For that matter, it's probably a net positive to put most plastic "recycling" into such schemes, as we're just turning plastic products into lower and lower grade pieces, with the associated generation of microplastics.

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#34

Post by Yaggo »

nDRDY wrote: post #33
Yaggo wrote: post #30

The rest of Europe needs an energy reform. They should take the Nordics countries as an example, where household usage of gas is very minimal / non-existent and everything is electricity based (electricity being the cleanest in the world). They are also leading the EV adaptation by big margin.

A significant source of electricty is generated from waste-to-power plants in the Nordics. Several of those countries import rubbish by the shipload to turn into power. For that matter, it's probably a net positive to put most plastic "recycling" into such schemes, as we're just turning plastic products into lower and lower grade pieces, with the associated generation of microplastics.

Yes that's the best use of waste (next to not producing the waste in the first place). Also, those powerplants are usually combined type of powerplants which make them highly effective, i.e. they are producing both heat and electricity.

Nordics countries generally need lot of heating because of cold climate, which in cities is typically district heating, i.e. delivering the heat as hot water from big heating plants. Heat pumps are also very popular (air-to-air, air-to-water, geothermal).

For example, my house is entirely heated with 3 heat pumps, even in -25°C. From April to September 10 kW solar panels provide the most of energy, also charging my Tesla.

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#35

Post by leonidasrup »

tl1293 wrote: post #6

The BBC misrepresents "the Chinese lesson". China does build up renewables, but it does so while still supporting its heavy industry with cheap Russian gas. It does not help at all to put aluminum smelters on Qatari ground, claim zero emissions, and then watch those being bombed together with the LNG facilities. It also does not help if Russia is the last country on earth that still has natural gas and can dictate fe…

The BBC probably copied "the China lesson" from many renewables publications which present China as a beacon in deployment of renewables.

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/03/15/when-fossil-fuel-suppli...

https://www.lombardodier.com/insights/2025/november/from-coa...

Which is only half-true. China builds renewables not as replacement for fossil fuels but as an addition to fossil fuels.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/yes-china-has...

The exit from fossil fuel is planed in far future. China plans to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060.

https://english.news.cn/20251108/c47cb3e85468475f84182f8a7c7...

The priorities in Chinas energy policy are: 1. Availability of energy 2. Security of supply 3. Cost 4. Everything else

Chinese EV cars in are cars running not on oil but running mostly on domestic coal and hydro-power.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#36

Post by leonidasrup »

citrin_ru wrote: post #23
_Microft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should have kept using nuclear? That nuclear of which refinement capacities are over 40% in Russians hands? For conversion it’s even a combined 63% for Russia+China. “Russia's Stranglehold On The World's Nuclear Power Cycle” , https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-nuclear-power-industry-graphi...

Reliance on Russian gas (which did increase after shutting down nuclear) is a bigger problem than relying on nuclear fuel: in nuclear energy fuel cost has much smaller impact on electricity cost than gas price for gas fired power stations.

In 2024, the EU imported a little over €700 million in Russian uranium products out of a total of €22 billion Russian energy imports.

https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/ending-european-union-impor...

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#37

Post by leonidasrup »

eqvinox wrote: post #13
9864247888754 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

? The exit from nuclear power, in Germany at least, was done by conservatives.

"After the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Green Party won the elections in 1998, the government of Gerhard Schroeder (SPD) reached what became known as the “nuclear consensus” with the big utilities (in 2000). They agreed to limit the lifespan of nuclear power stations to 32 years. The plan allocated each plant an amount of electricity that it could produce before it had to be shut down. Because nuclear power generation can vary, the plan did not set an exact date for the complete phase-out. But in theory, the last one would have had to close in 2022. New nuclear power plants were banned altogether. "

"The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its chairwoman, Angela Merkel, objected to the agreement, calling it a “destruction of national property” that would be revoked if the CDU came to power."

"When the CDU/CSU won the elections in 2009 and formed a coalition with the Free Democrats (FDP), they extended the operating time by eight years for seven nuclear plants and 14 years for the remaining ten."

"In the wake of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, on 11 March 2011, the same Merkel government decided on 14/15 March to suspend the 2010 lifetime-extension for a three-month period, and then to mothball Germany's seven oldest reactors for the same period (known as the nuclear moratorium)."

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#38

Post by notTooFarGone »

bluegatty wrote: post #18
eqvinox wrote: post #5

I really wouldn't call it sleepwalking when it's the result of a lot of lobbying and deeply ingrained mis-views of politics ("conservatives are good with the economy").

The Green Party of Germany is the most damaging institution of them all. They are responsible for the situation by spreading ideological disinformation and fear mongering. Otherwise Germany and others would be in the same position as France.

Wow - a nuclear-head in the wild.

Tell me please how building nuclear plants today will solve our problems in the 15-20 years it takes to build them.

Or how the conservative party did phase out nuclear? They were 16 years at the helm, why couldn't they stop it?

But no the fringe party is at fault for everything. That rhetoric is both completely unfounded and basically far-right propaganda. Congratulations - you got targeted and manipulated into a single issue voter.

Re: Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

#39

Post by ZeroGravitas »

nDRDY wrote: post #33
Yaggo wrote: post #30

The rest of Europe needs an energy reform. They should take the Nordics countries as an example, where household usage of gas is very minimal / non-existent and everything is electricity based (electricity being the cleanest in the world). They are also leading the EV adaptation by big margin.

A significant source of electricty is generated from waste-to-power plants in the Nordics. Several of those countries import rubbish by the shipload to turn into power. For that matter, it's probably a net positive to put most plastic "recycling" into such schemes, as we're just turning plastic products into lower and lower grade pieces, with the associated generation of microplastics.

Combustion with energy recovery is slightly lower down the "Waste hierarchy" than recycling. Nordics get even more bonus points if they use the waste heat for district heating after generating electricity but I think it still comes out as a bit worse than recycling overall.

There's complicated interactions though, removing the plastics can affect the makeup of the fuel and the post combustion products can free recyclable metal from other materials they were combined with. Recycling processes often have an unrecyclable fraction which can be burned etc.

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