Swedish farmers, like most people of Fennoscandia do indeed see less effect from global warming that vast majority of planet's population.
First of all, our ground is rising several times faster than global warming is rising sea levels. This is because of depression caused by recent ice age, and after ice mass retreated, the ground started to rise to the state in which it was before vast amounts of ice were sitting on top of it. This is an ongoing process that completely eliminates the problems from rising sea levels around here.
Then there's the fact that our winters are more dependent on Gulf Stream than on any other global trend, and Stream is still going strong enough to keep us warm. That amortises the effect of global warming to a significant degree.
Except that grid's ROE is terrible, while nuclear power plant ROE is among the top of all industries in existence, simply due to reasonably cheap operating and fuel costs (when compared to amount of electricity produced).
But sure, whatever helps you think that you're doing a "good thing" while in reality you're shitting on environment and your poor. Ivory towers and strawmen that you build to make them comfortable are nice, aren't they?
The gas is going down for one single reason - warm winter this year as jet stream caused massive freeze over North America and massive thaw over Europe.
That is also the reason behind issues in US.
Something that environmentalist spin doctors immediately used to pretend as hard as possible that this is some kind of a change to status quo of worsening of the emissions.
You know, it's always fun when people post numbers that show they are wrong, and then they claim based on those numbers that they are in fact right.
Because you know, 262,9 > 283,2. Right? And the fact that they have to use mothballed old plants today means that CO2 has gone up from 2005. Something Germany was forced to admit on official level. Woops.
And please, stop the "gas historical high" bullshit. Gas is growing. Massively. They need the hot reserve.
1. Most people running hd4000 series run cheapo laptops with 768p resolution. Planned phones (not yet out) have about the same GPU power as that, powering a much bigger screen. Oops, intel won by default, and most people playing actual core games run Nvidia or Ati discreet cards. Oops again.
2. Google thought that google glass is going to be enormous success among other things. Microsoft thought that its games for windows live will sink Steam. Apple thought that they had smartphone market cornered and there's no need for console gaming any more.
Then reality showed that company PR bullshit is just that. I still urge you to find me a titular AAA release that had a good release on a mobile platform. I also urge you to look into average game sold on the mobile and compare is to an average game sold on PC or console and understand that these games do not even target the same people. Drawing a "mobile gaming will kill the core gaming" argument is akin to arguing that "proliferation of civilian aviation will kill car sales".
And we don't have to care, because Areva is paying for it. And unless Areva goes under (exploding in laughter over the absurdity of French government allowing is prized jewel go under because of a single project), the only problem our power company resposible for it has is getting decent lawyers to ensure that arbitrage ensures that all contractual conflicts and fines are paid.
Your inane assumption is that there is only one provider. Something I explicitly pointed out to be false.
The pool model, which is how electricity supply/demand has been (note: HAS BEEN as in this model has been working for a long time now) managed, is that you have a lot of providers (power generators) and a lot of distributors (utilities). They all meet at the pool exchange and buy/sell power as needed. The pool is fed by all the providers and taken out by all the suppliers.
There is no single source, which is the strawman you are basing your assumption on.
That is irrelevant, as the model of the "pool" doesn't dictate that "your energy is generated by one who you are paying the bill to".
What pool model DOES dictate is that one you pay for electricity supplies the pool with the amount you take out + transmission.
Seriously, you're denying a model that worked in most of the Europe for many years now. You're like a person standing in front of a stone pointing at it and saying "this doesn't exist".
Except that it can't be on the way out, because it's mandated that it needs to be built, because much subsidised renewables cannot function without it being their hot reserve.
Which brings us to the current dilemma. Cheap subsidised renewables are paid with massive subsidies taken from consumers. Electricity from renewables is mandated to always take priority in being taken by exchanges over coal, gas and other non-renewable sources. Yet renewables are useless without equivalent amount of coal and gas (and similar non-renewables) backing them as hot and cold reserve. So non-renewables become unprofitable because much of the time they cannot sell their electricity because renewables get mandated priority. At the same time they cannot shut down, because then renewables wouldn't be able to operate.
And while all this subsidy idiocy is going on, fuelling the entire fiasco, consumers are footing the huge electricity bill that is massively higher than in neighbouring countries simply because of the Energiewende subsidies surcharge.
So the "cheap price" you see on the market is a result of massive corruption of the market by misplaced subsidy regime that makes those who are actually desperately needed unprofitable, and those who are expensive, unprofitable and inoperable without massive backup look actually profitable. Which is the main goal here - to make renewables "appear" profitable on their own. And people like you become the suckers who buy it.
You simply have poor or no understanding of history of democracy then. Look it up. Intimidation of voters was very common in the past, and those aren't some "thought up" methods. Those are the methods that were put to practice with great effect in the past.
For example, you are a daughter in a patriachal family. Your father tells you who to vote, and then takes your card away from you. If you call in your card missing, you face extreme problems inside your own family.
The current system on the other hand allows the daughter to tell her father what he wants to hear, and then vote for whoever she wants to vote for.
I'd rather not get into details about Estonian system. Being a Finn, let's just say that I don't have a very good impression of much of your implementation of state structures, including electronic voting. Considering your past, you did admirably, but you are very far away from where you should be, and electronic voting in the form you implemented is rife with problems such as one mentioned here. Essentially much of it is reactionary to your past, and in that you often go to obsessive extremes which lead you to ruin.
Nope. That's the bullshit claim that is laid to allow uninformed to feel good about it.
In reality, older coal plants have been fired to pick up the slack en masse, and Germany had to even give up on its environmental goals. In fact, after Energiewende started and they had to fire up all the old coal plants, for the first time in over 15 or so years Germany's CO2 emissions increased instead of decreasing. It created quite a furore until it was silenced by organised media push to save Energiewende, because it was clear that if masses found out what was happening for real, they'd be up in arms.
Reality is, when Energiewende started, the lack of energy in Germany became so dire, that they had to fire up essentially all functional mothballed coal plants. The new plants that are coming online are partially taking over hot reserve needs of renewables, and partially replacing these old, formerly mothballed plants. But reality is that these plants were never fired until the policy started. So even if you're very optimistic and assume that current plants are enough to provide hot reserve for increasing renewable production (they are not, but let's pretend), you're still looking at massive increase in coal burning across Germany due to Energiewende.
Wholesale price is down because utilities are FORCED to accept electricity from renewable plants, which were massively built up due to subsidies.
Said subsidies are paid by a massive surcharge taken out of the bill of consumers.
As a result, while electricity wholesale prices are down, the reason they are down is because consumers are being charged an arm and a leg, and that money subsidises production.
And the trend is to increase the surcharge, because Energiewende is at massive risk of failing due to being late or deemed unfeasible on almost every front.
The grid is a pool. While "location matters" if there is only one source, it is wholly irrelevant if all power companies have clients across the nation, and actual distribution of what how much power is fed and taken is handled by exchanges.
That is how Finnish energy markets have worked for many years now, and that is in part why we enjoy some of the lowest electricity prices in the EU.
Actually the prices are rising because government has made some pretty insane requirements of those companies. They are basically building a completely new power grid in the country which is costing them billions upon billions, on top of building up renewables and coal and gas needed to provide hot reserve for the renewables.
They certainly are posting good profits on all of this, but they're not in a good spot right now with massive investments they have to make and all the subsidy mess that is going on with renewables and grid buildup.
That is an apt summary of Energiewende. It's a "feel good" policy that came after Fukushima, and resulted in a massive build up of coal and gas plants under the guise of "get renewables".
And now you pay so much for electricity, that you actually have energy poverty in Germany - state where there are people who are too poor to afford electricity. In a modern Western country. It's a god damn insanity, but Greens get to feel good about being on the forefront of renewables. Poor be damned, as usual
Hasn't been seen so far. Germany is building new coal and has taken many older plants out of mothballed status since Fukushima and planned closure of the nuclear power plants.
Perhaps in very distant future, they will start reducing the dependence on coal. Right now, German coal buildup is a massive manna from heaven for power plant building companies in what is otherwise a very challenging market outside China.
No. Energy generation is a very difficult thing in that entire grid must stay within certain tolerance levels. We're talking about gigawatts per hour, so your swimming pool would have to be a size of a large lake or two and would obviously not be worth the cost.
They used to pump electricity up into potential energy water storage in some places, but those have been in dire need of upgrades and for some fucked up reason (which is an apt summary of the entire Energiewende really) are not supported and are actually closed down. All while new coal and gas is being massively built up so that they have hot reserve ready to go for the renewables fluctuations.
Slashdot Mirror
Swedish farmers, like most people of Fennoscandia do indeed see less effect from global warming that vast majority of planet's population.
First of all, our ground is rising several times faster than global warming is rising sea levels. This is because of depression caused by recent ice age, and after ice mass retreated, the ground started to rise to the state in which it was before vast amounts of ice were sitting on top of it. This is an ongoing process that completely eliminates the problems from rising sea levels around here.
Then there's the fact that our winters are more dependent on Gulf Stream than on any other global trend, and Stream is still going strong enough to keep us warm. That amortises the effect of global warming to a significant degree.
Except that grid's ROE is terrible, while nuclear power plant ROE is among the top of all industries in existence, simply due to reasonably cheap operating and fuel costs (when compared to amount of electricity produced).
But sure, whatever helps you think that you're doing a "good thing" while in reality you're shitting on environment and your poor. Ivory towers and strawmen that you build to make them comfortable are nice, aren't they?
The gas is going down for one single reason - warm winter this year as jet stream caused massive freeze over North America and massive thaw over Europe.
That is also the reason behind issues in US.
Something that environmentalist spin doctors immediately used to pretend as hard as possible that this is some kind of a change to status quo of worsening of the emissions.
You know, it's always fun when people post numbers that show they are wrong, and then they claim based on those numbers that they are in fact right.
Because you know, 262,9 > 283,2. Right?
And the fact that they have to use mothballed old plants today means that CO2 has gone up from 2005. Something Germany was forced to admit on official level. Woops.
And please, stop the "gas historical high" bullshit. Gas is growing. Massively. They need the hot reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Notably the Nordic part of it is even call "Nord Pool Spot AS". Have fun arguing with that.
Several problems.
1. Most people running hd4000 series run cheapo laptops with 768p resolution. Planned phones (not yet out) have about the same GPU power as that, powering a much bigger screen. Oops, intel won by default, and most people playing actual core games run Nvidia or Ati discreet cards. Oops again.
2. Google thought that google glass is going to be enormous success among other things. Microsoft thought that its games for windows live will sink Steam. Apple thought that they had smartphone market cornered and there's no need for console gaming any more.
Then reality showed that company PR bullshit is just that. I still urge you to find me a titular AAA release that had a good release on a mobile platform. I also urge you to look into average game sold on the mobile and compare is to an average game sold on PC or console and understand that these games do not even target the same people. Drawing a "mobile gaming will kill the core gaming" argument is akin to arguing that "proliferation of civilian aviation will kill car sales".
And we don't have to care, because Areva is paying for it. And unless Areva goes under (exploding in laughter over the absurdity of French government allowing is prized jewel go under because of a single project), the only problem our power company resposible for it has is getting decent lawyers to ensure that arbitrage ensures that all contractual conflicts and fines are paid.
So indeed, I don't have to worry.
Your inane assumption is that there is only one provider. Something I explicitly pointed out to be false.
The pool model, which is how electricity supply/demand has been (note: HAS BEEN as in this model has been working for a long time now) managed, is that you have a lot of providers (power generators) and a lot of distributors (utilities). They all meet at the pool exchange and buy/sell power as needed. The pool is fed by all the providers and taken out by all the suppliers.
There is no single source, which is the strawman you are basing your assumption on.
I would prefer being poor in my own country, Finland. Or alternatively one of the other Nordics. It would be a much better life.
That is irrelevant, as the model of the "pool" doesn't dictate that "your energy is generated by one who you are paying the bill to".
What pool model DOES dictate is that one you pay for electricity supplies the pool with the amount you take out + transmission.
Seriously, you're denying a model that worked in most of the Europe for many years now. You're like a person standing in front of a stone pointing at it and saying "this doesn't exist".
Except that it can't be on the way out, because it's mandated that it needs to be built, because much subsidised renewables cannot function without it being their hot reserve.
Which brings us to the current dilemma. Cheap subsidised renewables are paid with massive subsidies taken from consumers. Electricity from renewables is mandated to always take priority in being taken by exchanges over coal, gas and other non-renewable sources. Yet renewables are useless without equivalent amount of coal and gas (and similar non-renewables) backing them as hot and cold reserve. So non-renewables become unprofitable because much of the time they cannot sell their electricity because renewables get mandated priority. At the same time they cannot shut down, because then renewables wouldn't be able to operate.
And while all this subsidy idiocy is going on, fuelling the entire fiasco, consumers are footing the huge electricity bill that is massively higher than in neighbouring countries simply because of the Energiewende subsidies surcharge.
So the "cheap price" you see on the market is a result of massive corruption of the market by misplaced subsidy regime that makes those who are actually desperately needed unprofitable, and those who are expensive, unprofitable and inoperable without massive backup look actually profitable. Which is the main goal here - to make renewables "appear" profitable on their own. And people like you become the suckers who buy it.
You simply have poor or no understanding of history of democracy then. Look it up. Intimidation of voters was very common in the past, and those aren't some "thought up" methods. Those are the methods that were put to practice with great effect in the past.
For example, you are a daughter in a patriachal family. Your father tells you who to vote, and then takes your card away from you. If you call in your card missing, you face extreme problems inside your own family.
The current system on the other hand allows the daughter to tell her father what he wants to hear, and then vote for whoever she wants to vote for.
I'd rather not get into details about Estonian system. Being a Finn, let's just say that I don't have a very good impression of much of your implementation of state structures, including electronic voting. Considering your past, you did admirably, but you are very far away from where you should be, and electronic voting in the form you implemented is rife with problems such as one mentioned here. Essentially much of it is reactionary to your past, and in that you often go to obsessive extremes which lead you to ruin.
This is a very anglo mentality, that is quite alien to us.
Nope. That's the bullshit claim that is laid to allow uninformed to feel good about it.
In reality, older coal plants have been fired to pick up the slack en masse, and Germany had to even give up on its environmental goals. In fact, after Energiewende started and they had to fire up all the old coal plants, for the first time in over 15 or so years Germany's CO2 emissions increased instead of decreasing. It created quite a furore until it was silenced by organised media push to save Energiewende, because it was clear that if masses found out what was happening for real, they'd be up in arms.
Reality is, when Energiewende started, the lack of energy in Germany became so dire, that they had to fire up essentially all functional mothballed coal plants. The new plants that are coming online are partially taking over hot reserve needs of renewables, and partially replacing these old, formerly mothballed plants. But reality is that these plants were never fired until the policy started. So even if you're very optimistic and assume that current plants are enough to provide hot reserve for increasing renewable production (they are not, but let's pretend), you're still looking at massive increase in coal burning across Germany due to Energiewende.
Wholesale price is down because utilities are FORCED to accept electricity from renewable plants, which were massively built up due to subsidies.
Said subsidies are paid by a massive surcharge taken out of the bill of consumers.
As a result, while electricity wholesale prices are down, the reason they are down is because consumers are being charged an arm and a leg, and that money subsidises production.
And the trend is to increase the surcharge, because Energiewende is at massive risk of failing due to being late or deemed unfeasible on almost every front.
You are likely referring to decision taken under SPD-Greens coalition, which was promptly repealed when CDU came to power.
Next you'll be telling me how we should be grateful to Allies for saving us from Soviet Union?
Hey dickhead, have you tried history?
The grid is a pool. While "location matters" if there is only one source, it is wholly irrelevant if all power companies have clients across the nation, and actual distribution of what how much power is fed and taken is handled by exchanges.
That is how Finnish energy markets have worked for many years now, and that is in part why we enjoy some of the lowest electricity prices in the EU.
We people of Nordics have a long standing tradition of freedom of choice, and compulsory voting would not resonate well with population.
"It's a good thing you voted correctly. Now just leave your electronic ID at work for today and enjoy your nice salary this month".
I live in Finland and pay around 10 eurocents.
We have a sane energy policy though, and rely heavily on nukes and hydro.
http://www.investinfinland.fi/...
Actually the prices are rising because government has made some pretty insane requirements of those companies. They are basically building a completely new power grid in the country which is costing them billions upon billions, on top of building up renewables and coal and gas needed to provide hot reserve for the renewables.
They certainly are posting good profits on all of this, but they're not in a good spot right now with massive investments they have to make and all the subsidy mess that is going on with renewables and grid buildup.
That is an apt summary of Energiewende. It's a "feel good" policy that came after Fukushima, and resulted in a massive build up of coal and gas plants under the guise of "get renewables".
And now you pay so much for electricity, that you actually have energy poverty in Germany - state where there are people who are too poor to afford electricity. In a modern Western country. It's a god damn insanity, but Greens get to feel good about being on the forefront of renewables. Poor be damned, as usual
Hasn't been seen so far. Germany is building new coal and has taken many older plants out of mothballed status since Fukushima and planned closure of the nuclear power plants.
Perhaps in very distant future, they will start reducing the dependence on coal. Right now, German coal buildup is a massive manna from heaven for power plant building companies in what is otherwise a very challenging market outside China.
No. Energy generation is a very difficult thing in that entire grid must stay within certain tolerance levels. We're talking about gigawatts per hour, so your swimming pool would have to be a size of a large lake or two and would obviously not be worth the cost.
They used to pump electricity up into potential energy water storage in some places, but those have been in dire need of upgrades and for some fucked up reason (which is an apt summary of the entire Energiewende really) are not supported and are actually closed down. All while new coal and gas is being massively built up so that they have hot reserve ready to go for the renewables fluctuations.