News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is.

Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by thro388 on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @10:57AM (#32662872)
Trains in Czechia still do not have contract for electricity for next year. It is not question of price, nobody is simply offering.

Yet goverments are still pushing green agenda. No coal, no nuclear, no heating... ICE cars will be banned soon...

We do not have enough electricity for trains already, yet somehow we will quadruple our electricity consumption, without building any infrastructure!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by inb4_cancelled on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:07AM (#32663047)
What's the "green agenda" that you're referring to?

How are ICE cars being "banned" soon?

How will the consumption quadruple and why do you think that increased consumption won't be accompanied by infrastructure upgrades?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by thro388 on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:17AM (#32663223)
EU recently passed ban on selling cars from 2035, plus taxation etc.. So every car should be electric eventually. It takes decades (30 years) to build new new power plants, power lines etc..

So to make this plan realistic, there should be 50 (maybe 100) power plants under construction or in planning phase right now. Instead we are closing down power plants and reducing electric grid capacity!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by benj111 on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:30AM (#32663471)
When you say power plants, do you mean wind turbines and solar panels?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by thro388 on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:42AM (#32663702)
No, I mean a few GWs of stable power generators!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by benj111 on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @05:21PM (#32668524)
But we're trying to move away from fossil fuels, so what's the point in building power generators again?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by blackoil on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:12AM (#32663128)
No nuclear isn't green. Solar and wind is green. These are needed to be built to meet the electricity requirements.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by danans on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:43AM (#32663712)
"Green" is a spent adjective at this point.

Nuclear is zero carbon, but not renewable, and is a source of non dispatchable baseload.

Solar and wind are both zero carbon and renewable, but not dispatchable and not a baseload source.

Solar and wind plus storage are zero carbon, renewable, and also a source of dispatchable baseload.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by blackoil on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @12:15PM (#32664349)
Renewable and green are orthogonal. Renewable is important for long term availability of the resource, which is not a practical constraint for nuclear.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by danans on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @02:06PM (#32666043)
> which is not a practical constraint for nuclear.

It is very much a practical constraint for current nuclear reactors (whether traditional or SMR) whose uranium supply chains lead straight to problem zones [1].

Using conventionally mined uranium, traditional reactors would only provide 5 years of the world's electricity demand [2].

Seawater-extracted uranium could stretch into the thousands of years, but that is unproven at scale and cost. Similarly unproven are the fast breeder reactors needed to truly make the non-renewability of nuclear moot.

1. https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...

2. https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm....

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by Brometheus on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:49AM (#32663824)
We have minutenreserveleistung (MRL) using wind in Germany, but this is not the best solution :joy:
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is by afiori on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @11:55AM (#32663950)
Nuclear is green enough.
[ Parent | on HN ]