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Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

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Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#301

Post by khariel »

thrown_22 wrote: post #245

There are far too many people who don't understand the difference between power and energy. If you give me a lump of coal you give me power. If I burn that coal I get power. Renewable energy is cheap. Renewable power isn't. Nuclear energy is expensive. Nuclear power isn't. You can't run a modern economy on renewables because you can't turn off society when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Europe is no…

> If you give me a lump of coal you give me power.

Did you mean energy here?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#302

Post by phicoh »

thrown_22 wrote: post #245

There are far too many people who don't understand the difference between power and energy. If you give me a lump of coal you give me power. If I burn that coal I get power. Renewable energy is cheap. Renewable power isn't. Nuclear energy is expensive. Nuclear power isn't. You can't run a modern economy on renewables because you can't turn off society when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Europe is no…

Typical nuclear fanboy.

Nobody is running on renewables. Well, there are some exceptions. Countries like Norway and Sweden have enough hydro that they do run on renewables. But ignoring those, nobody does.

Wind and solar pairs well with natural gas. Coming from a fossil fuel situation, wind and solar paired with gas have the big advantage that you get a reliable system, easy reduction of CO2 by adding more wind and solar. And it is cheap.

New nuclear is not cheap (compared to Russian gas).

Of course where this failed was in the gas part. Obviously, wind and solar need to be blamed for the lack of Russian gas. Same with Texas, when something goes wrong, blame renewables.

The obvious problem, for both renewables and for nuclear is cheap fossil fuel.

Expensive fossil fuel might make nuclear attractive.

Expensive fossil fuel will result in a focus on storage. But before that, most EU countries need a lot more wind and solar before they can focus on storage. There is no point in focusing on storage if output of renewables can't keep up with demand.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#303

Post by wizofaus »

hrpnk wrote: post #132
koheripbal wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar was done in Canada about 40 years ago with the high-usage lights installed in every home (usually next to the washer/dryer). If the light was on, people paid significantly more. It was very very effective at reducing peak consumption.

This is great, because it shows/teaches people what high-usage is. So far, I've seen very little guidance and advice to citizens on how exactly they can contribute to lower energy usage. Only businesses say they will stop production or change opening times. Is this a missed opportunity?

> because it shows/teaches people what high-usage is.

Consumer awareness of what appliances use the most power should really be a lot higher. It's actually pretty simple too - devices that generate a lot of heat are the ones consuming a lot of energy. That includes devices whose purpose may be to keep things cool - your fridge and A/C still generate significant waste heat even in the latter case it's vented externally. A rare exception would be a car-battery charger, which can obviously draw significant power but the heat is generated later when the power is drawn from the battery and in a dissipated fashion that's hard to detect directly but is still significant.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#304

Post by teamonkey »

cypress66 wrote: post #185
rwmj wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar installers here in the UK have literal years of backlog and are either not returning calls or quoting installation dates in 2024.

Doesn't UK weather make solar a bad idea?

Not a bad idea, just with a longer break-even point than many people can stomach. If you treat it as a long-term investment it still performs well enough with very little risk.

It wouldn’t help in the case of these energy shortages though, unless you’re fully off-grid, as by law grid-tied inverters must shut off in the case of a black out, in order to prevent feedback to the grid.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#305

Post by rwmj »

cypress66 wrote: post #185
rwmj wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar installers here in the UK have literal years of backlog and are either not returning calls or quoting installation dates in 2024.

Doesn't UK weather make solar a bad idea?

Plenty of people seem to have it.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#306

Post by _ph_ »

toast0 wrote: post #243
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight... Politicians wrote a schedule in 2003. According to the schedule, this particular plant should be shut down now. And we have people in this thread (not you) claiming that there are "technical reasons" why the plant has to be shut down right now, not after this winter. So, by pure coincidence, politicians in 2003 just happened to predict the exact date 19 years in the future when it would no…

When you have a planned shutdown date, you stop doing maintenance work that is needed to continue operating after that date. Maybe there's some leeway, maybe there isn't. Depends on how much maintenance was skipped, and how much maintenance is required de jure and how much maintenance is required de facto. Ideally, on the day after planned shutdown, your reactor would be in need of refueling, and all the other large…

That is the same issue with the idea of keeping the German reactors running. Everything has been planned with the scheduled stop of operations at the end of the year. After politics is now considering to keep them running, the whole technical challenges come to the the light. Take the one reactor operating still in Bavaria: the fuel rods are so weak that after November the plant cannot be restarted with these fuel rods. Also, there is a leaking valve which soon has to be repaired. Only optinon now is to shut the reactor down, repair the valve and restart ist. But even then, the operation isn't guaranteed, as reactors often have to be shut down for small incidents. But any of those would mean the stop of the operation of the reactor.

One way or the other, the next time this plant shuts down after November, it stays down. So there is no big hope of this plant operating for much longer any way you turn it. Of course, new fuel rods could be ordered, but probably that would take over a year, as far as I know. Which means, it will not be part of the energy supply for the next 12 months and whether the investment into getting new fuel rods and keeping the plant ready for service for another year is worth it, is another question.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#307

Post by kennend3 »

derefr wrote: post #298
toast0 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much more value to you and others, but you're not willing to pay the value? In a similar sense that I'm not willing to pay more for "essential" food than for luxury food; or in the same sense that it seems unfair to have to pay for life-saving medical treatments. It is both unethical and pointless to exploit inelastic demand — the whole meaning of the word "inelastic"…

> It is both unethical and pointless to exploit inelastic demand

WELL PUT.. the logic on this debate is astonishly bad..

"Charge more for essential services" just sounds terrible and you are correct, inelastic demand needs to be affordable, and subsidized if it is NOT affordable.

i dont understand how someone would advocate that "essential services has higher value to me and should cost more".

Essential services like heating my home does not have a higher value, it is an absolutely essential service to prevent death from cold temperatures..

This person should try living in -24C without heat and see if it changes their views.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#308

Post by _ph_ »

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #268
jhoechtl wrote: post #263

I carefully read many of the well recherched comments. My take-away: Green parties all over Europe were in dictatorship of the accepted moral public opinion, making fun of counter arguments and led Europe (just Germany?) into the missery they are in now.

Mostly Germany. France has a diversified national energy strategy of nuclear and gas from many areas.

And yet it was Germany which through this summer increased the power generation and exports to replace the missing French nuclear power in the European grid and keep it stable.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#309

Post by chironjit »

Every nuclear proponent in this page conveniently glossing over a significant issue: Nuclear waste disposal..

To quote a german article from 2020:

"If nuclear waste can actually be disposed at the new facility starting 2050, that would still put Germany in the international vanguard: 70 years after humankind began using nuclear energy, not a single permanent waste storage site has been officially opened anywhere in the world."

Source:https://dw.com/en/germany-launches-new-search-for-permanent-...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#310

Post by maCDzP »

jopsen wrote: post #260
maCDzP wrote: post #174

As a Swede that just went though an election with electricity prices being discussed this is very interesting. Prices in Sweden are at an all time high. I don’t remember this analysis being talked about. The problem was cast mostly as a domestic issue - that’s my take at least. In hindsight I think it was only the left that had a solution that maybe would address this for Sweden at least. They wanted to have domestic…

> They wanted to have domestic and EU-pricing. But would it be legal? That kind of protectionism would definitely run counter to the ideals if the EU common market. It's hard to know what EU countries might do, but during covid the EU avoided protectionism when it came to vaccines. Of course, it could be different this time.

Good question – I agree it would run counter the common market.

If I remember correctly that was one of the main arguments against the left's solution. The counter argument was that other countries are already doing this or planning on doing it. I believe some parties in Italy has talked about putting a price cap on electricity and gas. But the same applies to them – is it legal?

It doesn't create good incentives when Sweden exports electricity to Italy (and others of course) that the Italian government would step in and put a price cap. I guess the Italian government will spot the difference – though lending from the EU?

Same would would apply for the left in Sweden I guess. Setting a domestic price cap and market price on exports.

What a mess.

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