Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

Re:Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of... by gerdesj on Wednesday December 22, 2021 @08:11PM (#29657570)

I'm still trying to work out the numbers.

I'm quite surprised that Scandinavia is having even more problems than say the UK because you have rather a lot of useful topological features (really big hills and mountains and lakes at elevation - ie potential energy). You are also closer to the Ukraine than us for gas so that should be cheaper too.

Our consumer energy market is a bit strange. We have a national grid for eleccy and then have multiple "suppliers" who supposedly compete. The ones who went balls out have gone bust. They generally offered fixed and flexible rates based on the wholesale cost plus their margin. Then the wholesale cost went up rather a lot and they lost their margin and without money in the bank, they went bust. The govt agency for energy then enforced other suppliers to take us on. So I was a customer of "Green" and now I'm a customer of "Shell Energy". You can be sure that Shell are not losing out in any way 8)

I've just noticed that you use the term Nordic countries - is that a better/preferred term to use than Scandinavia?

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Re:Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of... by richiebful1 on Wednesday December 22, 2021 @10:28PM (#29658341)

The Nordic countries include Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Finland

Scandanavia includes Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. The common factor there is having closely related languages and cultures. However, speaking from experience as an American, we often use "Scandanavian" as a synonym of "Nordic".

Nord Pool covers all the Nordic countries plus a lot more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Pool

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Re:Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of... by hagbard_c on Thursday December 23, 2021 @09:30AM (#29662126)

We're not surprised by these problems because we saw them coming, it's just really disheartening to see the expected negative downfall of the policies enacted by the "green" party and its followers. Add to this the fact that this party hardly has any support - they are currently underneath the 4% limit and will most likely disappear from Riksdagen (the Swedish parliament) and it becomes even more incongruous that they have been allowed to have such an extraordinary negative effect on the future energy supply in this country. To add insult to injury they recently stepped out of the coalition (between the "green" "miljöpartiet" (which means "environmental party")) and the social democrats, less than a year before the coming elections. They're now in supposed opposition, acting as if the negative effects are all someone else's fault. May they never reach the threshold again so that those who care for the environment stop believing this party is the one to vote for.

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