France ends gas heaters subsidies • Hacker News Board

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#51

Post by ForgotIdAgain » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #33

ForgotIdAgain wrote: post #22

Russia has food and energy, sure QoL will be greatly reduced but it will go through, what will happen in developed country if it can't get gas to produce fertilizer? At least America will get to sell gas and food to europe I guess.

This is fearmongering. How much of Europe's natural gas consumption is used as fertilizer feedstock? Europe has plenty of alternative gas sources from Algeria to Norway, all the way to LNG. The only benefit of Russia was geographic proximity to the baltic and central europe countries and their price point. The main reason Russia's gas made sense in Europe was the transition of Coal Plants to NG plants (which is itsel…

Algeria cannot readily provides ressources https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insigh... and it seems it will be hit hard as all of north africa by the end of ukraine and russia grain export and drought affecting agriculture.

Norway looks to be a more stable source https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Beginning-Of-...

But there was another source that I can't seem to find anymore that indicates that norway gas reserves are not that great.

edit: https://www.reuters.com/article/france-fertilizers-yara-intl... Fertilizer production was already hit by big gas prices, I think that cutting of russian gas won't help the situation.

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#52

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:31 AM UTC

heyyeah wrote: post #7

I'm working on a project for France to rollout virtual power plant flexibility with domestic electric heating. We get pressure to rapidly increase the rollout now. Let me know if you want to join us!

old.reddit.com/r/france would probably be thrilled if you made a thread or an AMA

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#53

Post by hkt » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

VaxWithSex wrote: post #38

hkt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtual power plants are smart batteries in homes which in aggregate behave as a power plant, taking energy when it isn't in demand and supplying it when it is. It is a very strong contender for replacing gas power plants for peak load situations.

They can be more than that: https://www.emsysvpp.com/products/virtual_power_plant/techno...

Neat, TIL! Thanks

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#54

Post by VaxWithSex » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:36 AM UTC

heyyeah wrote: post #47

VaxWithSex wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also join energy & meteo systems, which I presume, powers this virtual power plant.

Yes! Daily meteo has a big impact on the domestic heating consumption

I meant the company https://www.energymeteo.com/ that, I presume, provides the technology behind your vpp

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#55

Post by seer » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

1ris wrote: post #11

nevermindiguess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure it’s fine with your developer salary. Go tell the old lady with a meager pension or the family with three kids.

I'm so very sick of this kind of comment. "Sure we could prepare for the seemingly imminent WW3 and literally save the world in the process. But are we sure we want to? cAn We aFfoRd iT?" If you want social redistribution, implement redistribution. Do cash handouts. But don't fuck up other field of politics. These special interests corrupt everything. If you want to solve a problem, tackle it. Don't play "over gang"…

I'm currently listing to the recent Hardcore History podcast about slavery and this strikes me as very peculiar human nature.

Apparently back in the heyday of the trans Atlantic slave trade, most people understood that it's a bad thing, that treating those people like shit will someday bite them in the ass, with slave revolts and the like. Given the sensibilities of the time - French Revolution, American Revolution etc proclaiming that people should be free etc. everybody understood this was just a matter of time.

But then you have all those voices saying - yeah its bad, but "Think of the people! How are they going to raise their children and feed their families without the slaves" ...

And it just sounds crazy, I wonder how future generations are going to think about all of our carbon problems. Well I guess I don't, the question is how much we're going to be condemned and called crazy.

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#56

Post by dtech » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:38 AM UTC

yourusername wrote: post #19

1ris wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so very sick of this kind of comment. "Sure we could prepare for the seemingly imminent WW3 and literally save the world in the process. But are we sure we want to? cAn We aFfoRd iT?" If you want social redistribution, implement redistribution. Do cash handouts. But don't fuck up other field of politics. These special interests corrupt everything. If you want to solve a problem, tackle it. Don't play "over gang"…

I don't think anyone disagrees that moving away from hydrocarbons is a good thing. The contention is that this shock to move away more quickly is good. The lower half of incomes are really hurting. Our government (NL) is doing some quick fixes but it won't nearly compensate everything and according to the planning agencies we are looking at the biggest drop in spending power in over 40 years. That hurts if you were j…

> I don't think anyone disagrees that moving away from hydrocarbons is a good thing.

You'd be surprised. Mostly these arguments come from people who think the whole thing is bullshit (or have financial incentives to say so) and we should take no action at all, or even actively move back to more fossil fuels.

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#57

Post by Bayart » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:39 AM UTC

369548684892826 wrote: post #9

nevermindiguess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure it’s fine with your developer salary. Go tell the old lady with a meager pension or the family with three kids.

Developer salary in France is probably lower than a French pension.

That's hyperbolic and false. Dev salaries are much better than the rest at equivalent education levels, just like they are everywhere. And pensions are quite low, although they usually assume that pensionneers own their home and have lower expenses than the working population.

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#58

Post by hnlmorg » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #45

1ris wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so very sick of this kind of comment. "Sure we could prepare for the seemingly imminent WW3 and literally save the world in the process. But are we sure we want to? cAn We aFfoRd iT?" If you want social redistribution, implement redistribution. Do cash handouts. But don't fuck up other field of politics. These special interests corrupt everything. If you want to solve a problem, tackle it. Don't play "over gang"…

Especially in such a situation that status quo is directly financing army of dictator who openly states that all Europe all the way to the Atlantic ocean should be demilitarized, denuked and 'neutral', ie free for grab to anybody, but absolutely definitely maybe not by him. And as we saw in past few weeks he properly walks his talks, so its either acting or being weak and stupid.

It's neither. It's a negotiation tactic. Make an unreasonable demand so that the concessions you actually want are met. In this case it's Ukraine to be demilitarized. All of the aggression on Ukrainian can be traced back to them moving closer to the EU, NATO, and putting western hardware on Ukrainian soil.

It a bit like how America would panic if Russia put military hardware in Mexico. Basically Putin is trying to create a neutral zone on it's borders.

This doesn't excuse any of Putin's actions though.

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#59

Post by ewidar » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #43

When I lived in France, gas-powered "heating mushrooms" were a common sight in most restaurants and cafés. They basically generate radiation heat so people can comfortably sit outdoors in the early spring / late autumn months. I always thought that this seemed like a capital waste of energy, basically "heating" an unenclosed outdoor space. In the grand scheme of things those heaters probably don't make much of a dent…

FYI this is being banned in multiple cities in France https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/ou-en-est-la-loi-interdi...

Re: France ends gas heaters subsidies

#60

Post by paganel » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 9:42 AM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #2

The thing about Europe weaning itself off Russian hydrocarbons is that it was going to happen anyway, with all the green targets etc. It might as well happen a bit more quickly. Especially so in France, which already has massive carbon-free electricity sources.

> It might as well happen a bit more quickly.

This sounds a bit rich, I mean, many of us here in Europe don't have the financial resources to just shrug this off as "it might as well happen now than in 10 years from now". I agree though with the take on France, they're one of the few countries in Europe who can afford to make that move right now (at least on paper, I don't know the details of their electrical and power grid).