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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

#331

Post by yakak »

derefr wrote: post #287
Gwypaas wrote: post #241

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…

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 constan…

Just over 80% of beef consumed in Switzerland is produced in Switzerland.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#332

Post by fy20 »

KronisLV wrote: post #138
Tenoke wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to villages in Eastern Europe and wood burning is among the main methods of heating. I'm guessing the price increases of everything else is what's a bigger problem there.

> I've been to villages in Eastern Europe and wood burning is among the main methods of heating. I am from Eastern Europe (Latvia) and this does mostly hold true for the countryside: wood burning stoves are common. However, it is likely that inflation and other cost increases will also affect the prices of firewood from here on out, as well as getting it delivered (unless you decided to secure your own, though depend…

Here in Lithuania a tonne of wood pellets went from 125€ last year to 500€ today. It will probably go up even more as the winter progresses.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#333

Post by sascha_sl »

chironjit wrote: post #309

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 t…

Finland will have one operational next year. [1]

That aside, even in a worst case scenario, nuclear waste destroys local ecosystems. That cost would still be worthwhile if we can prevent the destruction of the global ecosystem.

We're at a stage of impeding global disaster that I'd rather have a 50km exclusion zone around Asse (or whatever other site) than not being carbon neutral or negative.

But then again, nuclear waste disposal is mostly an unsolved problem because it's expensive - and the resources aren't being allocated to it because it's not seen as a priority, not because it's impossible.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#334

Post by Rygian »

chironjit wrote: post #309

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 t…

It's not so big of a deal. Quoting [1], "France is the largest user of nuclear energy and has also mastered the process of recycling their nuclear waste. These two statistics are no coincidence. By not having to deal with nuclear waste politically, France has been able to build a large number of nuclear plants. If other nations would use their system, nuclear energy would be a great deal more prevalent."

Some figures for background are given in [2].

[1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/anderson-k2/

[2] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-France_details_nuclear...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#335

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rasz wrote: post #236
kennend3 wrote: post #192

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…

The role of Russian-funded environmental organisations in shaping EU climate policy https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127...

Dramatic Question.

Boring but sensible answer:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127...

> Russia is one of the world’s biggest producers of oil, gas and coal. Continuous reliance on fossil fuels and delays to clean energy transition benefit Russia.

> Following on from this the Commission has put forward an additional proposal to speed up transition to clean energy sources by amending the directives on the Energy Performance of Buildings, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy[3].

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#336

Post by jopsen »

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…

Won't you just need 10x capacity spread over a large area with good transfer connections.

Maybe, a but if pumped hydro, some batteries, and power intensive industries running only when power is cheap?

(Not that nuclear wouldn't be nice, it's just never quick fix)

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#337

Post by bittercynic »

bombcar wrote: post #137
bittercynic wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP suggests capping power, not energy, which avoids this scenario.

Do you mean limiting the size of the service to a house? Because unless you have massive batteries for intermittent loads that would prohibit dryers and ovens from being electric.

If we're going to the effort of having dual-service to each home, we could have the "essentials" service of 500W or something that we'd try to make very reliable, to operate the fridge, medical equipment, communications, or whatever the residents deemed essential. Then the other, regular service could still have whatever capacity was already there, but would be subject to intermittent blackouts as necessary to keep everyone's essentials on.

This would require some additional infrastructure, but might be worth it if the blackouts are going to be too frequent.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#338

Post by tom_ »

fy20 wrote: post #329
tom_ wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economy 7 in the UK switches meters based on time of day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7

...which is triggered by a radio signal.

Indeed! More secure that way than trying to do it locally, probably, and now BST is somebody else's problem.

But since it's been around since the late 70s, clearly you can do this without needing too much advanced tech - which is what I interpreted as being the perceived problem. (Perhaps incorrectly, but it looks like I wasn't the only one...)

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#339

Post by fy20 »

nine_zeros wrote: post #97
tluyben2 wrote: post #37

I am happy I got solar earlier this year. I thought it would be very expensive but we are very frugal with energy and it only was 7k euro to go off grid. During the day we can run anything (tons of sun so washing, dish washing, etc etc), during the night less so but we go to bed early (21:00) and get up at 5.

We keep talking about alternative energy's importance in reducing fossil fuel emissions. But here is another example of why alternative energy is so important. It provides diversification from shortages and geopolitical nonsense that can your lifestyle. If you can get solar for yourself, get it while still being connected to the electric grid. You will have a much more reliable energy system than just relying on the…

Solar alone won't do anything to make it more reliable as the inverter will shut down if the grid goes down. This is a safety feature, as if the grid is shut down for maintenance you don't want inverters feeding anything in.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#340

Post by tuatoru »

kennend3 wrote: post #192
panick21_ wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saddest vote (outside of immigration) in Swiss history is our complete destruction of nuclear energy in terms of both research and production. Instead of building new reactors we have committed to ... something. I only hope we can overturn this complete idiocy and start to build new reactors. Having been a fan of this for so long this is just sad and pathetic that we now have to consider things like rolling black…

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…

> "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land.

Well, let's see. Wind uses negligible land if incorporated onto farms, so I'll assume it's all solar.

Nuclear capacity factor (fraction of the time it's operating): 0.9, call it 100%.

PV capacity factor 0.2

PV nameplate panel production per square metre 200W

PV land coverage fraction (access paths beside PV panels take up space) 0.5

Total land needed for PV to deliver equivalent power:

3 500 000 000 / (200 * 0.2 * 0.5) = 175 000 000 m^2 = 175 km^2.

Switzerland's population is 8.5M. Assuming it is 80% urbanised and 20 m^2 per person in cities (less than in Dhaka, 8.9M / 306 km^2): then Switzerland's cities take up 136 km^2. In reality, probably several times this figure.

So the land area is probably less than Switzerland's cities.

If Switzerland wished to accelerate the development of two-layer PV cells, increasing production per area by 50%, then the bulk of the 3.5GW could be provided by rooftop solar in cities.

In reality a mix of wind and PV would be used. Wind is highly compatible with pastoral farming, leaving 90% or more of the land area it "occupies" free for grazing.

The real challenge at present would be sourcing enough storage for the daily usage cycle.

Now, damage. Covering land with inert PV panels does indeed change the soil ecology, but not irremediably. Remove the panels, and the soil would be back to normal inside a decade. Contrast with coal mines and ash piles, and uranium mines. And, as above, the PV could all be on rooftops, which have already damaged the land. Get rid of the buildings!

TLDR: the "LOT of land" is not much, really, and the damage is minimal.

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