Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#401

Post by MichaelZuo » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #280

chiph wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. The argument is lazy because it's false equivalence. A power plant failing suddenly is not the same thing as a power plant being taken offline to fix a known issue. edit: EDF has announced that they will be restarting their nuclear plant…

> The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was found during inspections in October 2021. Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used river water for cooling, wh…

If there truly were unscheduled repairs then it seems odd that the parent, who's an active HN user since 2012, would throw away their credibility by spreading blatant falsehoods.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#402

Post by 0xblood » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #280

chiph wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. The argument is lazy because it's false equivalence. A power plant failing suddenly is not the same thing as a power plant being taken offline to fix a known issue. edit: EDF has announced that they will be restarting their nuclear plant…

> The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was found during inspections in October 2021. Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used river water for cooling, wh…

>found during inspections in October 2021

That's a year ago, would you say they scheduled them for this year?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#403

Post by sascha_sl » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #384

sascha_sl wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is not worth destroying ecosystems for a little more power, local or otherwise. That kind of thinking is what got us to our current day, with everything going to shit.

Please. I was strictly speaking about the worst case outcome. You know, game theory. And also, we're not talking about "a little more power".

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#404

Post by pvaldes » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #382

pvaldes wrote: post #361

Europe is big. Maybe not everybody needs to pass this winter in Swedden. Maybe the governments should start programs to help some vulnerable groups of people, elders for example, to pass the winter in the South. Elders and remote workers living for a two or three months in a warmer place would save energy. Not necessarily at 50m of a beach or in a five stars hotel; the Mediterranean is full of empty houses in Novembe…

I was ready to be upset at this, but actually it's not such a bad idea. It's a single shared flight for one person and you get heating for months in return. There is no universe in which this doesn't make sense.

Some footnotes for remote workers intrigued by the idea

You still will need some heating, because houses designed for hot places typically lack isolation layers. But is raising the temperature of your home from 5 to 20C, not from -35 to 20. Many low places out of the touristic areas are too hot in summer, but warm in winter. High places and the inner part of the country can be very cold, of course but much best insulated.

Put 10Km or more between you and the sea. This will avoid the most touristic areas (more expensive, much more noisier, and filled with hormonally rabid adolescents). You will still have the benefit of the beach at a few minutes but none of the drunktards that feel the need to sing the Macarena at 4:AM.

Don't rent anything built in or near a dry riverbed. Ever. Today is forbidden to built in flooding areas, but in the past they were much more relaxed in that sense. Just because it floods only each ten years does not mean that is not just this year.

Elder people in small villages of Spain, Portugal France or Greece will not speak English. Younger may speak. More or less. Crime levels will be typically low and the places are safe, but expect a lot of crimes against the Anglish language and much head scratching, huhs and ohs if you speak it. Use google translate. Check if the internet connection is reasonable also.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#405

Post by origin_path » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

welterde wrote: post #388

origin_path wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The broken turbines in question were sent to western factories which repaired them. If they weren't broken it would have been noticed. And recall, the whole point of sanctions was to degrade Russia's industrial capacity by preventing them from repairing things that depended on western parts, so this is very likely a priori. Anyway it doesn't matter. NS2 is there ready and waiting to go, but Germany won't switch it on…

Only one turbine and that one is sitting for several months in Germany, waiting for Gazprom to actually request delivery of it. Nevermind that Siemens Energy states that there is nothing wrong with the existing ones and that there is actually a spare turbine sitting in storage on site of the compressor station that could be installed. Everything needed for Russia to continue supplying gas was explicitly exempt from t…

There were 5 turbines needing to be repaired by Siemens, not one:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sanction-exemption-f...

And nobody, not the Canadian government, not the British government nor Siemens is disputing that the equipment needed maintenance.

Now that's changed and Siemens is claiming it's safe to run a high pressure gas pipeline when the machinery is broken and leaking. That is absurd - if there's one place safety is critical it's right next to a pipeline full of explosive gas. We can safely assume Siemens is under tremendous pressure to support this Ruskies-doing-it-to-us narrative as a consequence.

Yes, all the pipelines were closed due to sanctions. Russia was still pumping gas at full speed through one of the pipelines that passed through Ukraine as recently as August:

https://www.ft.com/content/8ed4ccdb-522a-4003-8010-1a786af18...

It got shut down because Ukraine could not receive transit fees from Russia due to EU banking sanctions. EU was "looking into it". Their sanctions turn out to block things they didn't intend all the time.

If our governments really thought Russia was lying about the equipment they could just authorize NS2 and then say - see? - when no gas flows. They aren't doing that. Instead they blocked all the other pipelines via sanctions and then let the last one break, again due to sanctions. Then having successfully blocked Russian gas they blamed Russia for it, knowing full well after COVID that people will happily swallow almost anything no matter how contradictory it is.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#406

Post by welterde » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

origin_path wrote: post #405

welterde wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only one turbine and that one is sitting for several months in Germany, waiting for Gazprom to actually request delivery of it. Nevermind that Siemens Energy states that there is nothing wrong with the existing ones and that there is actually a spare turbine sitting in storage on site of the compressor station that could be installed. Everything needed for Russia to continue supplying gas was explicitly exempt from t…

There were 5 turbines needing to be repaired by Siemens, not one: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sanction-exemption-f... And nobody, not the Canadian government, not the British government nor Siemens is disputing that the equipment needed maintenance. Now that's changed and Siemens is claiming it's safe to run a high pressure gas pipeline when the machinery is broken and leaking. That is absurd - if there's…

Absolute nonsense. You continue to ignore the simple facts that they still have a spare turbine(s) just sitting in storage on site as well as the one in Germany that could be delivered any time that Gazprom wants. Siemens Energy also stated that they could easily seal the oil leaks on site if Gazprom wants regardless of it's necessity, but has received no order from Gazprom to do so. I am not sure how much more evidence you need that Gazprom simply has been ordered to stop deliveries?

It's very much in Russia's interest to shift blame away from themselves to sow dissent (which you are totally falling for) and also perhaps for later court cases about breaches of contracts (not sure how relevant that continues to be).

The FT article is talking about oil and not gas. It also explicitly states that oil and gas payments were exempt from sanctions. I think that (plus your other replies with similar factual errors) is more than enough evidence for me to conclude that you are arguing in bad faith.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#407

Post by anm89 » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #290

koheripbal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So Germany is sane? People freezing to death in the richest country in the EU because it doesn't feel nice to admit that addressing your needs involves tradeoffs doesn't seem very sane to me.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#408

Post by tschwimmer » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

oneoff786 wrote: post #189

pmlnr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

Kazakhstan is not part of Russia. Russia appears to be a very small supplier? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium...

Uranium != nuclear fuel. Uranium has to be processed and enriched for use in reactors. I wouldn't be surprised if your list is raw, mined uranium and Russia imports and processes it.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#409

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

hrpnk wrote: post #155

koheripbal wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wave of mass hysteria in Germany, after the Japan incident, to kill nuclear (which I personally suspect was driven by Russian influence operations) came with broad public support. ...so no, I continue to have little sympathy to any issues Germany will have this winter.

Regarding influence - there is a fairly recent report (Sep, 20th) from German journalists on the Russian lobby: https://correctiv-org.translate.goog/aktuelles/russland-ukra...

Well, that may all be the case, but ignores the messing around of American lobbyism in Germany and the Ukraine regarding this, leading to the current situtation.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#410

Post by _ph_ » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #407

_ph_ wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So Germany is sane? People freezing to death in the richest country in the EU because it doesn't feel nice to admit that addressing your needs involves tradeoffs doesn't seem very sane to me.

Yes, Germany is sane. And no one is freezing to death here. The gas storages are almost filled (91%), so Germany won't run out of gas. I don't know why people need to tell so many lies about the German situtation at the moment. Yes, severe mistakes have been made in the past, mostly to have such a large dependency on Russia. But no need to invent things.