Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 451 posts

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#51

Post by hef19898 »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #36
hef19898 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so it is some politians fault that power plant operators screw up maintenance? PV and wind, using Chinese modules, outbid nuclear already in 2017 (?), being cheaper then Hinkley C. Never mind where we vet nuclear fuel rods from, right? Plus the fact that the summer heat wave and drought had negative effects on power plant output, not for the first time, due to limited cooling capacities. But hey, the current poli…

What you are saying is both inaccurate and lies. >Oh, so it is some politians fault that power plant operators screw up maintenance? Firstly, EDF, the french operator for nuclear power plants belongs to 80+% to the state. So, first off: fucking yes it is, especially when said politicians have spent the last 20 years not investing in their plants, despite the insane work that EDF has done. Reminder that said politicia…

Your post would be a lot more convincing without the easy scape goat identifying and cursing.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#52

Post by pg314 »

Symbiote wrote: post #26
pennaMan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just..... Why? This is so balatanly stupid I can't find my words..

The 40 year license expires by the end of this year, and an extension wasn't granted. Someone who can read Belgian news will need to explain why the license extension wasn't granted, and whether that makes sense.

In 1999, to obtain the participation of the greens in the government, the other parties agreed to the closing of nuclear reactors after 40 years of operation [1]. 2022 seemed like a long time away at the time, especially in politics.

In 2012, small cracks were discovered in the pressure vessels of a number of reactors, introduced by hydrogen during the casting of the steel. That was grist on the mill of the anti-nuclear lobby. According to the expert reports, the vessels should be ok (there are some links to English reports on the nuclear safety agency website [2]), but it is easy to fear-monger when nuclear energy is involved. That seemed to have sealed the fate of the nuclear reactors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#Belgiu... [2] https://fanc.fgov.be/nl/dossiers/kerncentrales-belgie/actual...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#53

Post by nebalee »

bpodgursky wrote: post #3

Belgium just shut down a functional nuclear reactor: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Belgium-T...

https://taketonews.com/engie-repeats-message-after-open-lett...

  “The closing dates are determined by law and the licenses to operate the power plants end on those dates. That has been established for a long time and we have been preparing for that for a long time.”  


  The government did ask Engie in July to see whether both reactors could possibly continue for a few more months to bridge the difficult winter, but according to the French energy group, that is unfeasible both technically and in terms of safety.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#54

Post by bob1029 »

bombcar wrote: post #42
bitschubser_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't it much "easier" to implement some kind of progressive price on energy? first 1000kw/h are "cheaper" than market (per person in household), next 500kw/h double the price, next 500kw/h doubles again etc... For things like heatpumps you usually have an extra meter with special day/night tarifs (in germany), the rest is metered as general consumption. I always wonder through how much energy my peers burn, we have…

Progressive pricing exists for commercial users but in general has been too complicated for home users.

I think we need to figure out how to de-complicate variable rates for residential customers. Forcing people to pay what electricity actually costs (ideally, in real-time) is a good way to make your demand-side much more responsive.

During the Texas winter crisis, virtually no residential customers saw a financial incentive to wind down power usage. Only those crazies on Griddy, et. al. were impacted.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#55

Post by jozvolskyef »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35
xiphias2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what rich countries are doing in general: outbidding pour countries for the limited amount of resources available in the short term. I lived in Switzerland and of course they are doing great, but Swiss people won't be the ones freezing to death in winter. Also the amount of LPG redirected from India and Pakistan to Europe will have a huge effect on those countries. In Hungary the country is trying to get back…

>Here's what rich countries are doing in general: outbidding pour countries for the limited amount of resources available in the short term. Not just energy, but food, vaccines, medical supplies, consumer products, etc. This has always been the case but now it's at the point where third world countries will probably have major civil unrest and emigration due to the shortages of food and energy they will face from bei…

European != middle class.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#56

Post by hef19898 »

libertine wrote: post #44
roenxi wrote: post #4

This is exactly the wrong moment to be deciding policy by tweetstorm. These issues require an engineering report to digest, not soundbites. This person may not intend to produce soundbites, but if it makes a good Twitter chain it is a string of sound bites. I can't distinguish this thread from one of those crazy-lists people sometimes put together. It is too disjointed and lacks citations or developed thoughts.

Or at least we have to assume that the people that managed to make the feat that he boasts about, know what they are doing: > The European electricity grid is a modern miracle. It is the largest synchronous electrical grid (by connected power) in the world. It interconnects 520 million end-customers in 32 countries, including non-European Union members such as Morocco or Turkey. But then he makes a sharp turn to: > H…

Aparently those people creating the grid have been replaced, at all levels, by ideological do gooders led by politicians with the sole goal of ruining industry and living standards. According to authors like the one who's article we are discussing.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#57

Post by qsdf38100 »

mardifoufs wrote: post #38
flohofwoe wrote: post #9

Quoted post unavailable.

Why do comments like these only pop up on articles that highlight problems in europe? I never see them in the hundreds of articles per month that focus on the US. It's weird because that is exactly the type of comment you used to read from fragile patriotic americans that were unable to handle any criticism back in the early 2000s, but this time from europeans.

Because social media is currently under MASSIVE attack from Russian trolls. And then there are people doing it for free, because their are easily manipulated or because they think they’d benefit from Russian puppets taking over their country… I wonder on which side you are.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#58

Post by orwin »

nxm wrote: post #23
pennaMan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just..... Why? This is so balatanly stupid I can't find my words..

Because “green energy”

It's not, its because it reached end of life, and the date we could've done something about it was ten years ago.

I'm as pro-nuclear as you can be, since at least 2017 but especially since i've read about it, in 2019, but let's not blame nuclear failure on "green energy" when it's not. Nuclear tech have been abandonned by the general public and the politician since the 90s, and especailly after fuckushima, was faded by the society.

It has nothing to do with green energy. Maybe Greepeace is at fault, but this is probably one of the most corrupt environmentalist NGO anyway, so i doubt serious people listen to them.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#59

Post by Havoc »

Scary, especially in light of the coming winter. This does seem to be ignoring some positives though - German putting some nuclear shutdowns on hold and France is looking like they might get their fleet back on track by beginning 2023 after they sorted out their corrosion issues. UK just fasttracked fracking (sigh) and sizewell C nuclear plant seems to have gotten the go ahead.

Quite unfortunate that the writeup is on twitter though. To fix their broken UX you need threadreader and that in turn is broken too: "The table below"...nope no table. Videos broken too. So now you get to cross reference two broken platforms just to figure out what someone is trying to say. sigh...

Post reply on HN