Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out • Hacker News Board

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#81

Post by willvarfar » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:29 AM UTC

hurril wrote: post #69

pelorat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When infrastructure is privatized, they become for-profit enterprises. Things like energy and clean water should not be for-profit.

Here, let me help you: things should not have problems. There. Solved it :)

We can use the privatisation of water in the UK as a case study.

The water companies in regions across the UK were privatised.

Lots of big international companies borrowed lots of money to buy these companies.

The water companies then borrowed large amounts of money, secured against their ability to extract rent from their customers, and the owners used that money to pay of the debt they had incurred in buying the water company, and also paid it as dividends.

So basically the debt burden moved from the buyers to the company they had brought. Neat!

Now a couple of decades later you have these water companies with silly amounts of debt, the technical debt of not maintaining and investing in the infrastructure (they keep blaming the Victorians, but that is just blame spin) and an owner who would be happy to cut ties and let the water company flounder to be rescued by the taxpayer...

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#82

Post by tcfhgj » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:30 AM UTC

Xelbair wrote: post #77

tcfhgj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you can see in France, you don't make money with nuclear power. Nuclear power is basically taking a loan (national security and trash which has to be stored at least thousands of years) with a huge risk (nuclear disaster like Chernobyl or worse).

Risk is minuscule, and modern reactors actually shut down gracefully. Nuclear waste is an issue, but frankly - vastly smaller one than other kinds of pollution(CO2 comes to mind - and sulfides) used in generating or storing - which is the biggest current problem of renewables - power, and that can be stored in relatively smaller space. This kind of misguided thinking has stopped us from utilizing nuclear power proper…

Miniscule probability of high damage. Everyone, every power,has to decide on their own if one is willing to take this risk.

CO2 isn't a problem of renewables.

In Germany, the problem with renewables is massively scaling green gas production. Storage exists plenty fairly cheap, even for hydrogen (Underground).

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#83

Post by guerrilla » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:32 AM UTC

mantas wrote: post #78

guerrilla wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden is a very corrupt capitalist country that is still riding the socialist image they created long ago. What I don't understand is how the people living here can't see this. It's absolutely incomprehensible how naive they are. I don't know how the state could make it any clearer that it does not share their values and is not what people seem to think it is. That Sweden died long ago.

That's what happens when government is pretty good for a long time and people get used to trusting it over multiple generations. This is the biggest cultural shock for 100%-eastern-european-me when I'm exposed to western europe. Why would people trust governments, media and so on? I'll never understand it. Do your own due diligence, prepare for the worst and brace for a beating from government which wants to sell you…

They somhow forgot thaat their grandparents FORCED it to be good. That struggle is no different than any other movie now though, just something that happened. They things can be good without making them good. Some kind of just world fallacy on a cultural scale.

I'm with you. I came fro the US. Trust is earned.

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#84

Post by tcfhgj » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:33 AM UTC

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #72

tcfhgj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about wind power which is strong in winter? What about energy storage systems, e.g. using green gas? There seem to be more green options than nuclear power.

The past few days wind has been pretty bad. In the long term I think it will be good as battery storages are rising, but the next few years are still going to be tough.

I doubt battery storage will be the solution, it's very resource intensive large scale.

I bet on gas or liquids.

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#85

Post by guappa » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:43 AM UTC

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #42

guappa wrote: post #39

Swedish government: "We'll only use electric cars!" Also swedish government: "Please don't vacuum or do laundry on cold days when everyone has extra heaters on" Also swedish government: "Everyone's income is public record!" Also swedish government: "We'll give money to people with large homes. The larger the home the more money they will get, because they have more costs for heating." Also swedish government: "This m…

Sounds like The Netherlands. Hypocrisy. White supremacy. Living off of the image of a before time. Corrupt yet not willing to admit it. Blaming everything on immigrants. I live in NL and a lot of what you say about Sweden sounds very similar.

Hehe dutch people feel very superior to everyone else because their budget isn't as negative as the other european countries, due to their country being a tax haven.

I ONCE met a dutch person who admitted that being a tax haven is nothing of great merit and it was so refreshing :D

I remember arguing with a (racist and violent) dutch guy who claimed portugal is a mediterranean country. I kept saying that you need to be ON the mediterranean to be a mediterranean country. :D

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#86

Post by guappa » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:44 AM UTC

pelorat wrote: post #56

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like The Netherlands. Hypocrisy. White supremacy. Living off of the image of a before time. Corrupt yet not willing to admit it. Blaming everything on immigrants. I live in NL and a lot of what you say about Sweden sounds very similar.

Almost every violent street crime, street robbery, or armed robbery is perpetrated by people with some form of immigrant background. Both in the NL and in Sweden. (I'm a swede living in the NL). Also western supremacy (the notion that western culture is superior in the world) is not the same as white supremacy.

And if we instruct the police to ignore white collar crimes, then suddenly the only criminals are immigrants! Isn't that wonderful? /s

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#87

Post by moepstar » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:47 AM UTC

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #72

tcfhgj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about wind power which is strong in winter? What about energy storage systems, e.g. using green gas? There seem to be more green options than nuclear power.

The past few days wind has been pretty bad. In the long term I think it will be good as battery storages are rising, but the next few years are still going to be tough.

> The past few days wind has been pretty bad.

Except... it was not.

Here.

And somewhere, the sun is shining.

People need to _stop_ thinking energy production is hyperlocal when, in reality, it is not.

And never has been.

Now, swedes are complaining, germans (i.e. me) are buying energy and raising prices. There will be a time, when they will import energy from us. Just as much as we exported energy to France when half their atomic powerplants have been shutdown due to no cooling water available.

Is it helpful to beancount each and any time more energy has been exported than imported or the other way around? No, i don't think so.

And yes, the next big challenge is to build grid-level energy storage.

Yes, with batteries. No, hydrogen is not the answer. Batteries it is. Get moving, stop complaining.

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#88

Post by ivan_gammel » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:48 AM UTC

sigh_again wrote: post #80

ivan_gammel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Merkel & friends implemented it Do you mean they are puppets of the Greens and as opposition to red-green government could not reverse policies they have considered harmful? > directly one of the sources of the current german problem From 2005 to 2021 it was Merkel & Co in the government making most of the energy-related decisions, yet you single out Greens as the primary culprits. Why? Did they sign Nord Stream ag…

>yet you single out Greens as the primary culprits. Why? Did they sign Nord Stream agreements? You're incredibly defensive when all I have done is point out that saying "the greens aren't responsible for it" is a blatant lie. Especially when your purposefully ignore the next sentence, which still puts the blame on Merkel & Friends for continuing to implement it, in their case because it was lucrative to sign agreemen…

> You're incredibly defensive when all I have done is point out that saying "the greens aren't responsible for it" is a blatant lie

And I didn’t say that. Who is defensive?

> Aside from the fact that they have been on the offensive not just in 2024, but for close to a decade now (the Fessenheim closure has been demanded since 2016, green taxonomy started in 2020)

2016-2020 - Merkel government.

Overall most of what you say here can and should be attributed to conservative/socialist parties which were in charge and use green agenda opportunistically rather than strategically. Making greens as a root source of all problems is a lie, simply because they did not make most of those harmful decisions. Regulation is mostly not on them too. I am not big fan of German greens myself, but things should be made straight on this matter: German problem are not greens, German problem are boomers which do not care about change. Most of mainstream politics in Germany is captured by special interests groups, old dudes from some Verein, Kammer or other medieval guild, lobbying to preserve their moats and privileges. Nuclear power has lost the game to Fukushima fears and Chernobyl fallout, but it is a secondary matter. It could have been useful or not, that’s a matter of calculations deep in strategic documents. Last document I saw considered them unpractical. You are right, we do need energy strategy, but honestly I think Germany is incapable of producing it. EU should take it over, it has more momentum and political diversity to figure this out. And it makes sense anyway, not just to regulate the market, but to build.

Regarding the uranium production, yes, there are some expensive deposits in Europe. We have high population density so even if environmental concerns are addressed, they will cost a lot. Post-processing of the waste is going to cost a lot. It is by no means the same price as 20-40 years ago. Can it fully replace gas? I doubt so. Is it the only alternative? I doubt so. We are talking about 20-30 years, the horizon on which we may really see the effects of nuclear scale-up. The renewables will be much more advanced by then, grids more robust and efficient. We may not have the same problems as we have now to be solved by nuclear. So the question is really, does it make sense to commit to fossil fuel for another 50-70 years again?

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#89

Post by piva00 » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:52 AM UTC

mnky9800n wrote: post #27

willvarfar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't an energy shortage in Sweden? Sweden has an overproduction of energy, it is just generally generated in the north (where the hydro is) and consumed in the south (where the people are). The 'shortage in the south' is just a political lens for explaining the high prices from the introduction of energy zones in 2011. Before then, there was one price for electricity in Sweden and this worked to the benefit of…

Does Sweden have a single power grid or is it segmented like Norway?

It's a single power grid but the transmission lines north->south are insufficient to carry all the potential electricity generated by hydro at peak production.

Re: Swedish minister eyes energy crisis steps, blames German nuclear phase-out

#90

Post by piva00 » Mon, Dec 16, 2024, 10:58 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #49

queuep wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no energy shortage in Sweden. They can export as little or as much power as they want. This statement definitely needs a source. The EU have laws that require 70% of the produces electricity to be on the market. Source, in Swedish: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/om-elmarknaden/export-oc...

It's a net energy exporter; as many sources will confirm.

It is but that doesn't help us here in Sweden, we pay the highest bid price for the electricity generated here but being exported.

The last government at least put in place windfall taxes to pay us back during the massive cost increase in the first winter after Russia invaded Ukraine. We got compensated a few months later the prices went insane. The current government already said they won't do that, which is rather absurd since a lot of our electricity is generated by Vatenfall, a state company.