16 ms·

Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

412 points by caio1982 10y ago

finchisko 10y ago
Poland what the uck are you doing? Literally black spot on EU map. Stop burning that much coal. Fix it ASAP.
- timmietwo 10y ago
  Been there many times. Old condos, homes have coal burning furnaces. People have no money to replace them despite aid from EU to convert to gas. Some people throw everything into the furnace to burn for heat. It's not pleasant to walk outside and breath air fowled by burning plastic bottles.
  - cesis 10y ago
    This is for electricity generation, so residential coal is excluded.
  - ch4ck 10y ago
    Actually we burn "renewable" wood here and decrease catastrophic effects of global warming caused by more developed economies.
- kornakiewicz 10y ago
  I'm Polish (currently living in Spain). And yes, a lot of people in rural and small cities areas are using coal to heat houses, as well as wood and sometimes garbage which is the worst. What's more, our main electricity source is coal power plants - because of traditionally strong miners' lobby from Silesia area. Actually, no government had enough courage to make a shift into more cleaner power sources.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Tade0 10y ago
  Problem is Poland isn't really burning that much coal. If you look at the emmisions per capita: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?name_desc=false http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?name_desc... Germany, which has a considerably cleaner grid, has still higher CO2 emissions per capita and has a greater population (80mln vs 38mln in Poland). That being said the polish grid is long due for a massive overhaul, but - especially now - there's no political will to do it even though over 77% of the population would welcome switching to cleaner sources of electricity. I personally count on renewables becoming cost-efficient soon - which could be a major driver for change.
- skocznymroczny 10y ago
  We have coal, so we use it, like other countries did before. Wind/solar farms don't work well here because of the weather and are expensive. Nuclear plants would require foreign technology which is very costly, and so far nuclear plants here are just a dream, a way to drain the public funds into the pockets of "nuclear plant construction" committee, which doesn't do anything useful (it doesn't help that the public opinion is against nuclear energy because of the Chernobyl, even though all of our neighbours have nuclear plants anyway).
  - finchisko 10y ago
    Don't be mad at me, but basically what are you saying is: "Screw you all, screw the planet, flood after us...". You should really not use argument: "you did it, so we will also do it", because when "we" did it, there was probably no other way. And now is. It's 2016, you can't burn coal in rate like it was 15th century. It won't help us transition to clean energy anyhow.
    - krzyk 10y ago
      You have a point, but you have to also consider the fact that it is hypocritical to say that we are "Screwing the planet". If others were screwing it to build their economy, other countries also should have that ability. Countries that have more money can afford other forms of energy, but coal is abundant in Poland and it would be foolish not to use it. For solar power, Poland doesn't have good geographical position, similar with wind (it is only in the northern part, while the majority of population is in the south). And hydro is not that environment friendly, but we have those in the south, but it is hard to make more because there is a limit on the amount of water and Poland has less of it than e.g. Egypt. The only other option is nuclear, but as others have written it is not popular in the public.
      - renaudg 10y ago
        > If others were screwing it to build their economy, other countries also should have that ability Because of course building one's economy matters more than screwing the planet we all live on ? What Poland is doing (as others did before) is very understandable, but it doesn't mean it's acceptable.
paol 10y ago
Very cool. And also very depressing.
melling 10y ago
Nuclear FTW. Of course, it always loses in any HN conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13234463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13234463
- _ph_ 10y ago
  Well, if you read those conversations, you might notice that people think that - nuclear is very expensive - nuclear has a waste and risk problem - wind and solar are price competitive and very environment friendly
  - melling 10y ago
    Wind kills lots of birds. http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-... Add 100x the current number and we'll have a big problem. Downvoted to hell because "We don't like what you're saying". Wind has a negative. it's just a fact, not an opinion.
    - merraksh 10y ago
      Adding 100x will still have wind turbines 100 times more innocuous than cats [0]. [0] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-wind-turbines-kill-around-300000-birds-annually-house-cats-around-3000000000.html http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-win...
      - melling 10y ago
        1. It's a made up fact. http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-... 2. Cat's killing birds doesn't make it acceptable for humans to kill birds by the tens of millions.
        merraksh 10y ago
avar 10y ago
Does anyone know of interesting tours you can take of electricity production in Europe or energy infrastructure in general? I'm in The Netherlands, but would be willing to travel for it. A real tour of a nuclear plant would be awesome (i.e. getting to hear / see the reactor), but tours of wind farms / turbines / dams etc. would also be great. Preferably in English.
- sgift 10y ago
  You could do tours of Isar 2 a few years ago (German nuclear plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Nuclear_Power_Plant), including walking through the inner reactor area. I'm not sure if they still do these tours now that Germany has decided to phase out nuclear energy, but asking couldn't hurt.
- bemmu 10y ago
  You can visit the repository for low and intermediate level operating waste at Olkiluoto, Finland: http://www.tvo.fi/visitorcentre http://www.tvo.fi/visitorcentre
- radicalbyte 10y ago
  I remember visiting a hydro plant in Wales. It was very interesting.
  - estel 10y ago
    Dinorwig? http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/ http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/
- sz4kerto 10y ago
  You can take a tour in the nuclear plant in Hungary (Paks). Also, the technical uni has a mini reactor and you can actually look at the glowing blue water (Cherenkov radiation).
- ivanmilles 10y ago
  Chernobyl is still open for tours, afaik. You won't get very close to any of the running reactors (and not the closed one, of course) but the tours generally go through the complex' main road and through the Pripyat ghost town.
matkoboska 10y ago
Anyone knows what happened to the "ozone layer desctructed" scare out of 20 something years back? Did it die naturally or someone just had to pay someone for it to be silenced?
- ptaipale 10y ago
  It did not die naturally; it went away because of international action to reduce emissions that harm ozone layer. Doing the same with CO2 is much harder.
  - matkoboska 10y ago
    you are obviously too young to remember the propaganda from the days back then :-( and, no, international communists had nothing to do to fix it. It was by imposing the first global tax -- it's all that it achieved. Proofed it's possible to have a global tax. There was no problem and as soon as the tax was implemented the problem in the media disappeared too.
    - DonHopkins 10y ago
      Another victim of fake news.
- topbanana 10y ago
  We took steps to stop damaging it, and it is gradually recovering. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/30/ozone-layer-hole-appears-to-be-healing-scientists-say https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/30/ozone-la...
  - matkoboska 10y ago
    oh no, lier, lier, pants on fire! It was absolutely unstoppable, don't you know?
    - sctb 10y ago
vndjvjbnvs 10y ago
Would be nice to see this displayed relative to population/demand. France looking good but they're paying for that green color.
- txdv 10y ago
  How are they paying? Germany pays for no nuclear, that is for sure.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > France looking good but they're paying for that green color. French electricity prices to households are below european average and half the German or Danish prices. They're not the lowest in the EU but they're the lowest in Western Europe — unless you include scandinavia and even then they're competitive: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Electricity_and_gas_prices,_second_half_of_year,_2013–15_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB16.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... French prices are lower than Belgium's, Denmark's, Germany's, Ireland's, Italy's, Spain's, Luxemburg's (by a hair), the Netherlands's, Austria's, Portugal's and the UK's. Higher than Finland's or Norway's but lower than Sweden's. And of course the french nuclear program was never about prices, exportable industry or ecology (though these are nice side-effects, sadly european greens never understood the last one, even now they're pushing the french towards phasing out nuclear), it was about energy independence following the 1973 Oil Crisis, I believe France is one of the few countries (if not the only one) which ignored the 80s oil glut (possibly due to the investment it had made in the 70s) and stayed the course.
  - wiuhilfhuegihuf 10y ago
    they mean the cost of the nuclear plants (construction, decommissioning, waste-storage and security) not the price of the electricity
    - masklinn 10y ago
      That's nonsensical, the cost of the nuclear plant is capital investment which is included in the price of the electricity. If the country needed it due to "the cost of the nuclear plant" it would raise its prices (again electricity prices in France are lower than in every single one of its neighbours, to which the country generally exports electricity incidentally).
danmaz74 10y ago
Is Poland using almost only coal?
- ralfd 10y ago
  Yes. Poland was affected by Chernobyls fallout and public opinion led to the dismantling of the building of nuclear power plants.
- bobthechef 10y ago
  Yes. Sadly, Poland doesn't have much room to maneuver at the moment. Putting aside the coal miner unions and the economic collapse of coal mining regions it would cause if Poland had the option to quickly move off, cleaner sources remain either prohibitively expensive and/or blocked by environmental groups (you're as likely to find environmental groups protesting nuclear as shale gas). Add to that the dependence on Russian gas (save for some Norwegian gas), the low cost of coal and Germany's smarmy deals with Russia including Nordstream that are designed to cut central Europe out with serious political consequences, Poland really is in no position to choose otherwise right now.
- scotty79 10y ago
  Yes. And that's just electricity. It also uses insane amounts of coal for heating.
Havoc 10y ago
That's really cool. :)
rb808 10y ago
I think the visualization is misleading, it seems to highlight energy mix rather than absolute numbers. eg Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same) Germany looks better because it has some other sources mixed in there.
- greendesk 10y ago
  I think showing the mix of energy sources is also insightful. Germany has spent a lot of effort into diversifying and upgrading their energy system. Meanwhile, Poland is lagging in investment and relying almost exclusively on one piece of energy source. This piece of knowledge is also insightful.
  - renaudg 10y ago
    > Germany has spent a lot of effort into diversifying and upgrading their energy system Evidently the outcome is still nothing to be proud of, especially considering the country's wealth and claim of leadership in environmental policy. It simply was too early to phase out nuclear power when they (slightly stubbornly) decided to do so.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > it seems to highlight energy mix It's literally a visualisation of how green the country's energy policy is (electricity production sources), the color coding is gCO2/kWh. > rather than absolute numbers Absolute numbers would mostly just track population, that's way more misleading as a small country with sparse population but 100% hydrocarbon energy production would appear greener than a large country with dense population on 10% hydrocarbon energy sources. An other interesting visualisation would be per-capita as it would include consumption patterns rather than just production ones > Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same) Poland would still look bad, it has 40% of Germany's population, and according to the site's sources currently produces 15.5GWh from coal while Germany is at 23.4GWh from Coal, that's 65% more coal-sourced electricity per capita than Germany. And the map is live and it's winter hence the low levels of e.g. solar in countries with large solar capacity (like Belgium, or Austria,… or Germany)
kevinsimper 10y ago
Very nice visualization and that it is realtime, the color scheme could be nicer
andreasley 10y ago
I've noticed that Switzerland, using a lot of hydropower, has a worse intensity than I expected. The CO2 numbers for the different types of power generation seem to come from Wikipedia [1], where Hydropower has a median gCO2eq/kWh of 24 and a maximum of 2200 – much worse than coal. This seems to be based on the fact that large areas may be flooded when filling the dam initially, and CO2 from rotting plants is released [2]. The numbers vary depending on the amount of vegetation. According to a study [3] from 2012, "electricity generated in storage hydropower stations in Switzerland causes emissions of 10.8 g CO2-eq/kWh", so it's less than shown in the emissions chart and comparable to nuclear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emis... [2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-powers-dirty-secret-revealed/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-po... [3] http://esu-services.ch/fileadmin/download/publicLCI/flury-2012-hydroelectric-power-generation.pdf http://esu-services.ch/fileadmin/download/publicLCI/flury-20... [PDF]
- noselasd 10y ago
  > I've noticed that Switzerland, using a lot of hydropower, has a worse intensity than I expected. The carbon intensity on the map seems to be for consumed kWh, not produced kWh. The map indicates Switzerland imports a lot of electricity from Austria and Germany which have a much higher carbon intensity.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    And this is a good representation, because this way it doesn't allow you to outsource your carbon emissions to countries that no one looks at (not on map, or not considered responsible for anything by activists).
  - usrusr 10y ago
    Also, if it is really live data, all the high alpine hydro is just pumped storage now. In winter, the high reservoirs don't get much natural feed when no ice is thawing and any new precipitation will decoratively stick to the slopes until spring.
zhte415 10y ago
Fascinating to see the potential use, vs. the actual 'right now' capacity viewing this at 3pm GMT. And also interesting to see the import/export power figures: How one region supports, though nothing like the capacity needed to substitute renewables' variance. France is really leading consistency of capacity vs. generation with Nuclear. France also seems to have 4 times hydro capacity of Portugal, which is interesting given Portugal's recent 100% renewables day but inability to use it today. Why is Norway consuming 22GW but UK only about 40-45GW, and Germand 60-65GW, given the great disparity in population of Norway?
- masklinn 10y ago
  > Why is Norway consuming 22GW but UK only about 40-45GW, and Germand 60-65GW, given the great disparity in population of Norway? Electric heating? Lower temperatures? Oslo is currently freezing (below 0C), neither London nor Berlin are.
  - skoob 10y ago
    Norway uses a lot of electricity for energy intensive industries like aluminium production.
    - zhte415 10y ago
      Thanks
  - zhte415 10y ago
    Perhaps. Both Norway and Finland have a population of a little more than 5 million, but Finland is at about 10GW, so a difference of double. Sweden at around 20MW net which is consistent with Finland pro-rata. Did Norway just decide to do all-electric heating as vastly all electric power, as displayed here, comes from hydro? Just idle curiosity.
    - Aqwis 10y ago
      Yes. Gas heating is for the most part just not a thing in Norway. The cities don't have gas infrastructure (with some minor exceptions), so if you want to have gas heating you need to store it on your property. In addition, the government discourages it. The vast majority of home heating in Norway is electric.
ptaipale 10y ago
Also interesting to look at the solar power potential map. Of course, I knew it already: I offered a birthday lunch to wife's relatives today. A nice inn on a hilltop. We went there just after sunrise (11:00 AM) and left just before sunset (1:30 PM). The map kind of showed that. (Latitude 63°40.8′N)
agentgt 10y ago
Timing of this post is good as I just read an interesting paper on various current vehicles impact on climate change based on electricity + carbon output. I posted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13270712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13270712 The real meaty quote from the automobile paper is: > By 2050, only electric vehicles supplied with almost completely carbon-free electric power are expected to meet climate-policy targets. It would be neat to overlay the two: vehicles and electricity.
antr 10y ago
Germany... your anti-nuclear stance is detrimental to the environment...
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  At least Germany is not putting its neighbours at risk with rotten nuclear plants. Looking at you, Belgium [0]. Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France [1]. The current situation with coal is bad and we have to solve it. And I know HN is pro nuclear and downvotes opposing opinions, but history has proven several times, that nuclear energy is not a very good option, either. [0] http://www.dw.com/en/new-incident-at-belgiums-tihange-2-nuclear-plant/a-19323647 http://www.dw.com/en/new-incident-at-belgiums-tihange-2-nucl... [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8117882/Protests-as-a-train-carrying-nuclear-waste-travels-from-France-to-Germany.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8...
  - Rasco 10y ago
    > Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France. I guess this is incorrect : Gorleben Nuclear Waste Repository. The waste comes from Germany's nuclear power plants, was reprocessed in France at La Hague, and the unusable remains then sent back to Germany in spent nuclear fuel shipping casks for final storage, according to the contract with the reprocessing company, Cogema [0]. But even if it comes from France what's the matter? If nuclear wastes go to Gorleben it is obviously because the city allows it, because they have a deal with french firms and they have facilities to store it. If you want to blame someone for it blame the city. In contrast I am sure France does not 'export' its air pollution as much as our dear Germany :p. And France does not have much of a say in that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben#Nuclear_Waste_Repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben#Nuclear_Waste_Reposit...
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    These incidents are an exception to the rule where coal is worse every other day of the year, as well as when looking at the total. Chernobyl was the decisive moment for me: you have the Soviets screwing it up in the worst way possible, my home place in southern Finland being one of the most affected places on Earth due to winds in April 1986, and the results are not worse than this? Bring it on, it's surely better than coal.
nkkollaw 10y ago
Wow, what's wrong with Poland? I guess they use a lot of coal to produce electricity..?
- pantalaimon 10y ago
  No nuclear power whatsoever.
- funkyy 10y ago
  Poland is huge coal producer. Coal is cheap, easily accessible so it is used widely by people. Poland is slowly moving towards wind, but for heating it is still using coal.
- machiaweliczny 10y ago
  Nothing is wrong with Poland. If something is wrong then your ability to read presented data. It doesn't mean we are emitting more CO2 - for all colored map lovers see[1] CO2 emission per capita for Germany or other European countries before jumping to conclusions. [1]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_per_capita_per_country.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_per_capita_per_c...
  - ced 10y ago
    Are you saying that, in spite of high CO2 emissions _for energy_, Poland's per capita emissions are on par with the rest of Europe? The map's color-scale is not ideal. Germany and France look similar, but Germany's emissions are 500% higher than France. In contrast, Poland is just 35% worse than Germany, but looks like the Death star on the map. It would work better with a single one-color gradient, rather than a green-yellow-black.
  - trzeci 10y ago
    Nice, and straight to the point.
  - renaudg 10y ago
    > Nothing is wrong with Poland. If something is wrong then your ability to read presented data. This is, unfortunately, what nationalistic pride clouding otherwise smart people's judgment looks like.
quonn 10y ago
I have read just a day ago that Germany produced 85% of the electricity needed during the holidays using renewables. The problem is the huge surplus generated by cheap coal that is being exported.
jonenst 10y ago
It's a nice visualization, but cpu usage shoots through the roof ! Deleting the animated arrows between the countries helps a bit, but then it still uses around 50% cpu (and that's on a fast desktop computer. Can't imagine my laptop trying to display this page). Using Ubuntu + firefox (it's a little better with chromium). Is it a problem with this page ? With my setup ? Or is it just impossible to do something of this quality on the web without monster cpus ?
- jdietrich 10y ago
  It runs fine for me on a Celeron-based Chromebook, albeit with 100% usage of one core.
- corradio 10y ago
  Hi there, I'm the author of the map. For sure it can be optimised. If you can help, feel free to do so on github - or reach out so we can chat. Thanks :)
- lottin 10y ago
  Same here. It was already sluggish and using a lot of CPU power but as soon as I clicked on the check-boxes the whole thing ground to a halt... took 30 seconds to close the tab. I really like the idea though.
- literallycancer 10y ago
  The fan is going crazy on my laptop with an older i5, but it works.
riprowan 10y ago
Italy cleaner than Germany
blondie9x 10y ago
This is one of the great things we can do as developers. We can help society learn about the problems humanity faces. Creating amazing visualizations and experiences to educate the world and potentially encourage action to solve some of our biggest problems. Hopefully we can drive awareness and change together.
- jsingleton 10y ago
  https://energyuse.eu https://energyuse.eu is an interesting study in how online discussion can help. It's part of an EU trial that I'm on (https://www.decarbonet.eu https://www.decarbonet.eu).
- finchisko 10y ago
  Power to the developers. I'm serious ;-). Even when I disagree with some arguments, all comments on HN are always very meaningful.
- trzeci 10y ago
  With the great power is connected a great responsibility to create a visualizations that don't manipulate data and show a meaningful information.
acd 10y ago
How much co2 is coming from electric energy, food and transportation? One should in general switch over to clean power sources. One way to cut down on ones own carbon emissions is to stop eating beef as cows release a lot of methane. km https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u... http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/foodkCal1.gif http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fo... https://priceofmeat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/b8850198-f130-62ec-f2a7324de64fecca_21.jpg?w=500 https://priceofmeat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/b8850198-f13... http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/foodprint5.gif http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fo... In Sweden one uses 8000kwh of electricity per year. 58g/kwh = 464000grams, 464kg co2. Average car co2 emissions around 120g/km. Average distance driven here around 15000km. 12015000=1800000grams 1800kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons... Co2 emissions of meat 13300g/kg, average meat consumtion 80kg. 8013300=1064000grams 1060kg of co2 from meat. adding the above. 464kg+1800kg+1060=3324kg, still missing some to add up to per capita consumption. What co2 source is missing? Co2 emission per capita of Sweden 4.6 ton, 4600kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Sustainable co2 per capita 1.7tones. I am over consuming 2900kg of co2. Stop driving car and stop eating meat reduces emissions about 2800kg.
- walterstucco 10y ago
  yeah… ok… right… I'm very sad that so many people are obsessed with cults nowadays
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    Would you care to elaborate on that?
    - walterstucco 10y ago
      Of course: there's a cult that spreads the false belief that CO2 emission and eating beef are correlated. Some people in the cult are probably paid to spread this myth, while the majority of them they are just simple persons believing in the power of individuals, "one person can change the world" and other similar bullshit.
Sami_Lehtinen 10y ago
Russia -> Finland imports are missing: http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pages/default.aspx http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pag... Nordic power map: http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pages/State-of-the-Nordic-Power-System.aspx http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pag... Finland is currently building two nuclear power plants to provide more green energy. Wind & Solar, aren't that great options at all. Btw. I love the visualizations.
- hokkos 10y ago
  You can help them, it's on github : https://github.com/corradio/electricitymap#contribute https://github.com/corradio/electricitymap#contribute
hellofunk 10y ago
I had no idea there was such a widespread difference in the source of electricity a among citizens of countries in Europe, even neighbouring countries. Look at how most of France is nuclear powered (!) compared to coal for Germany and gas for Netherlands. Such differences in a very small space! I'm kinda amazed by this!
- kilotaras 10y ago
  Germany decided to close all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022 in wake of Fukushima. Nuclear is getting replaced mostly with renewables but coal remains unchallenged[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_Production_in_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_Production_in...
mixedbit 10y ago
Polish right-wing government is blocking any development that could hurt coal industry. They passed the law that significantly constrains where windmills can be located. They also hindered development of solar by reverting the law that allowed individual owners of solar panels to be paid for the overproduced electricity.
- hnusername 10y ago
  Polish government is not right-wing. There may be right wing of it, but it is not right wing per se. Right wing of what? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanation for a better clue about what current polish government may aspire to be like. It may have some right wing parts of what is above all big centrist coalition. Another issue is. How is this government blocking development that could hurt coal industry any different from what all former polish governments were doing ? But i agree that all those governments are mostly known for their "block everything" attitude. The website makes my Firefox browser slurp 3GB of memory, renders it unresponsive and it crashes. And please do not color Poland black, if as Wikipedia says (Yes I know. I know). Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless and odorless gas that is vital to life on Earth. Paint Poland and Estonia green. Green as in Greenhouse. Painting it black may suggest some form of blame for some imaginary "pollution" which i hope was not the point of the authors of the site. Or was it ? Come on. Don't make us look like Mordor.
  - algesten 10y ago
    Sanation: a populist political movement for "moral sanation (healing) of the Polish body politic". It's nationalistic, anti-democratic, authoritarian and was gagging/killing/imprisoning the opposition.
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    The gradient goes from green to black. Black represents a carbon intensity of 700 gCO2/kWH. If you want Poland to be green, Poland has to consume less carbon. As Polish government being right-wing: Since it's a coalition of two parties, it would be wrong to call the entire government right-wing. But the Law and Justice party certainly is.
the8472 10y ago
There seems to be lots of wind potential around the scottish isles and iceland. I wonder how feasible it would be to plaster turbines over iceland and then sell that energy to europe.
- bckygldstn 10y ago
  Iceland already produces much more energy than it needs through geothermal and hydro. Connecting the Icelandic power grid to the rest of the world seems to be currently infeasible [1], so instead they "export" the surplus energy through their aluminium industry: raw ore is shipped in from around the world, and high-energy refined aluminium is shipped out. Similarly-isolated New Zealand does a similar thing, refining aluminium ore from Australia using abundant hydro power [2]. [1] http://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/research/submarinecabletoeurope http://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/research/sub... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter
jsingleton 10y ago
This is a very pretty map! It shows that location is important but time is also an interesting domain. You can do your bit by running appliances at the best time. This is a post I made on https://energyuse.eu https://energyuse.eu (part of an EU trial I'm involved with - https://www.decarbonet.eu https://www.decarbonet.eu). Saving energy in general is a positive step. For example, we've just bought a new freezer and dishwasher with better energy ratings and these will save money over their lifetimes. However, when is the best time to run a wash to save the most CO2e? Unless you are on an Economy 7 style tariff or have solar panels then when you use power has no effect on how much it costs you. If you are, then at night or in the middle of the day is better, respectively. Dynamic demand to grid signals isn't ready for consumer adoption yet but you can look at the information manually if you want to use power at less demanding times. The grid frequency[0] is a reasonable indicator but is pretty technical. There are other, easier to understand, data sources available: - Earth Notes: GB Grid Intensity[1] gives a simple traffic light indication - GridCarbon[2] is a real-time carbon intensity app (CO2 Modeller[3] is from the same guys) - MyGridGB[4] shows similar data on the web (and includes Solar data[5]) By avoiding peak time you may not save money but you can save carbon. [0]: http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/electricity-transmission-operational-data/ http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/electri... [1]: http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html [2]: http://gridcarbon.uk http://gridcarbon.uk [3]: http://www.co2modeller.info http://www.co2modeller.info [4]: http://www.mygridgb.co.uk http://www.mygridgb.co.uk [5]: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive
Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
Spain right now: solar plants off (OK, that's normal, it's night time here), wind plants off, hydro and gas plants mostly off, but burning coal at near maximum capacity while we import energy from Portugal who are also burning coal like madmen. I already knew that we had serious problems in our grid, caused by politics (overdimensioned gas, insistence on using coal due to pressure by miners, etc.). That's more or less widely known, but I had no idea it was SO messed up. And why the imports when we have most of the renewable sources sitting idle? Wow.
pelasaco 10y ago
looks like countries using more nuclear power have the lower CO emission...
hnusername 10y ago
Message that does not appear (pending?) Just look at the top reddit r/dataisbeautiful/ comment Took me a minute to realize that Poland wasn't black because of missing data, but rather because that's apparently how dirty their electricity is. And why ? Because of black color used obviously. Ok but lets leave this unfortunate color aside. Many other questions arise. - What does it mean that the page has live data visualization. How often is the data updated ? - How many sources of data are there. Does it cover all of them in every country ? Are they all online all the time ? - Why is Estonia dark brown the whole time but when i click on it is see wind ++ solar ? hydro biomass ? nuclear gas ? coal oil ? unknown ++++++++++ and it still has 595 gCO2eq/kWh - What does "?" stands for in the results? Are some sources unavailable or is the data corrupted or what ? - Why there is nothing under coal ? - What does unknown here mean ? Does it contribute to gCO2eq/kWh ? I mean, so much of unknown energy. Are you serious ? - What is the metric used after all ? Is this software even alpha ? What is the version ? That is all very important when you create "facts" like this in Internet.

412 points by caio1982 10y ago

finchisko 10y ago

Poland what the uck are you doing? Literally black spot on EU map. Stop burning that much coal. Fix it ASAP.

timmietwo 10y ago
Been there many times. Old condos, homes have coal burning furnaces. People have no money to replace them despite aid from EU to convert to gas. Some people throw everything into the furnace to burn for heat. It's not pleasant to walk outside and breath air fowled by burning plastic bottles.
- cesis 10y ago
  This is for electricity generation, so residential coal is excluded.
- ch4ck 10y ago
  Actually we burn "renewable" wood here and decrease catastrophic effects of global warming caused by more developed economies.
kornakiewicz 10y ago
I'm Polish (currently living in Spain). And yes, a lot of people in rural and small cities areas are using coal to heat houses, as well as wood and sometimes garbage which is the worst. What's more, our main electricity source is coal power plants - because of traditionally strong miners' lobby from Silesia area. Actually, no government had enough courage to make a shift into more cleaner power sources.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Tade0 10y ago
Problem is Poland isn't really burning that much coal. If you look at the emmisions per capita: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?name_desc=false http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?name_desc... Germany, which has a considerably cleaner grid, has still higher CO2 emissions per capita and has a greater population (80mln vs 38mln in Poland). That being said the polish grid is long due for a massive overhaul, but - especially now - there's no political will to do it even though over 77% of the population would welcome switching to cleaner sources of electricity. I personally count on renewables becoming cost-efficient soon - which could be a major driver for change.
skocznymroczny 10y ago
We have coal, so we use it, like other countries did before. Wind/solar farms don't work well here because of the weather and are expensive. Nuclear plants would require foreign technology which is very costly, and so far nuclear plants here are just a dream, a way to drain the public funds into the pockets of "nuclear plant construction" committee, which doesn't do anything useful (it doesn't help that the public opinion is against nuclear energy because of the Chernobyl, even though all of our neighbours have nuclear plants anyway).
- finchisko 10y ago
  Don't be mad at me, but basically what are you saying is: "Screw you all, screw the planet, flood after us...". You should really not use argument: "you did it, so we will also do it", because when "we" did it, there was probably no other way. And now is. It's 2016, you can't burn coal in rate like it was 15th century. It won't help us transition to clean energy anyhow.
  - krzyk 10y ago
    You have a point, but you have to also consider the fact that it is hypocritical to say that we are "Screwing the planet". If others were screwing it to build their economy, other countries also should have that ability. Countries that have more money can afford other forms of energy, but coal is abundant in Poland and it would be foolish not to use it. For solar power, Poland doesn't have good geographical position, similar with wind (it is only in the northern part, while the majority of population is in the south). And hydro is not that environment friendly, but we have those in the south, but it is hard to make more because there is a limit on the amount of water and Poland has less of it than e.g. Egypt. The only other option is nuclear, but as others have written it is not popular in the public.
    - renaudg 10y ago
      > If others were screwing it to build their economy, other countries also should have that ability Because of course building one's economy matters more than screwing the planet we all live on ? What Poland is doing (as others did before) is very understandable, but it doesn't mean it's acceptable.

paol 10y ago

Very cool. And also very depressing.

melling 10y ago

Nuclear FTW. Of course, it always loses in any HN conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13234463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13234463

_ph_ 10y ago
Well, if you read those conversations, you might notice that people think that - nuclear is very expensive - nuclear has a waste and risk problem - wind and solar are price competitive and very environment friendly
- melling 10y ago
  Wind kills lots of birds. http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-... Add 100x the current number and we'll have a big problem. Downvoted to hell because "We don't like what you're saying". Wind has a negative. it's just a fact, not an opinion.
  - merraksh 10y ago
    Adding 100x will still have wind turbines 100 times more innocuous than cats [0]. [0] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-wind-turbines-kill-around-300000-birds-annually-house-cats-around-3000000000.html http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-win...
    - melling 10y ago
      1. It's a made up fact. http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-... 2. Cat's killing birds doesn't make it acceptable for humans to kill birds by the tens of millions.
      - merraksh 10y ago

avar 10y ago

Does anyone know of interesting tours you can take of electricity production in Europe or energy infrastructure in general? I'm in The Netherlands, but would be willing to travel for it. A real tour of a nuclear plant would be awesome (i.e. getting to hear / see the reactor), but tours of wind farms / turbines / dams etc. would also be great. Preferably in English.

sgift 10y ago
You could do tours of Isar 2 a few years ago (German nuclear plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Nuclear_Power_Plant), including walking through the inner reactor area. I'm not sure if they still do these tours now that Germany has decided to phase out nuclear energy, but asking couldn't hurt.
bemmu 10y ago
You can visit the repository for low and intermediate level operating waste at Olkiluoto, Finland: http://www.tvo.fi/visitorcentre http://www.tvo.fi/visitorcentre
radicalbyte 10y ago
I remember visiting a hydro plant in Wales. It was very interesting.
- estel 10y ago
  Dinorwig? http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/ http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/
sz4kerto 10y ago
You can take a tour in the nuclear plant in Hungary (Paks). Also, the technical uni has a mini reactor and you can actually look at the glowing blue water (Cherenkov radiation).
ivanmilles 10y ago
Chernobyl is still open for tours, afaik. You won't get very close to any of the running reactors (and not the closed one, of course) but the tours generally go through the complex' main road and through the Pripyat ghost town.

matkoboska 10y ago

Anyone knows what happened to the "ozone layer desctructed" scare out of 20 something years back? Did it die naturally or someone just had to pay someone for it to be silenced?

ptaipale 10y ago
It did not die naturally; it went away because of international action to reduce emissions that harm ozone layer. Doing the same with CO2 is much harder.
- matkoboska 10y ago
  you are obviously too young to remember the propaganda from the days back then :-( and, no, international communists had nothing to do to fix it. It was by imposing the first global tax -- it's all that it achieved. Proofed it's possible to have a global tax. There was no problem and as soon as the tax was implemented the problem in the media disappeared too.
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    Another victim of fake news.
topbanana 10y ago
We took steps to stop damaging it, and it is gradually recovering. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/30/ozone-layer-hole-appears-to-be-healing-scientists-say https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/30/ozone-la...
- matkoboska 10y ago
  oh no, lier, lier, pants on fire! It was absolutely unstoppable, don't you know?
  - sctb 10y ago

vndjvjbnvs 10y ago

Would be nice to see this displayed relative to population/demand. France looking good but they're paying for that green color.

txdv 10y ago
How are they paying? Germany pays for no nuclear, that is for sure.
masklinn 10y ago
> France looking good but they're paying for that green color. French electricity prices to households are below european average and half the German or Danish prices. They're not the lowest in the EU but they're the lowest in Western Europe — unless you include scandinavia and even then they're competitive: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Electricity_and_gas_prices,_second_half_of_year,_2013–15_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB16.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... French prices are lower than Belgium's, Denmark's, Germany's, Ireland's, Italy's, Spain's, Luxemburg's (by a hair), the Netherlands's, Austria's, Portugal's and the UK's. Higher than Finland's or Norway's but lower than Sweden's. And of course the french nuclear program was never about prices, exportable industry or ecology (though these are nice side-effects, sadly european greens never understood the last one, even now they're pushing the french towards phasing out nuclear), it was about energy independence following the 1973 Oil Crisis, I believe France is one of the few countries (if not the only one) which ignored the 80s oil glut (possibly due to the investment it had made in the 70s) and stayed the course.
- wiuhilfhuegihuf 10y ago
  they mean the cost of the nuclear plants (construction, decommissioning, waste-storage and security) not the price of the electricity
  - masklinn 10y ago
    That's nonsensical, the cost of the nuclear plant is capital investment which is included in the price of the electricity. If the country needed it due to "the cost of the nuclear plant" it would raise its prices (again electricity prices in France are lower than in every single one of its neighbours, to which the country generally exports electricity incidentally).

danmaz74 10y ago

Is Poland using almost only coal?

ralfd 10y ago
Yes. Poland was affected by Chernobyls fallout and public opinion led to the dismantling of the building of nuclear power plants.
bobthechef 10y ago
Yes. Sadly, Poland doesn't have much room to maneuver at the moment. Putting aside the coal miner unions and the economic collapse of coal mining regions it would cause if Poland had the option to quickly move off, cleaner sources remain either prohibitively expensive and/or blocked by environmental groups (you're as likely to find environmental groups protesting nuclear as shale gas). Add to that the dependence on Russian gas (save for some Norwegian gas), the low cost of coal and Germany's smarmy deals with Russia including Nordstream that are designed to cut central Europe out with serious political consequences, Poland really is in no position to choose otherwise right now.
scotty79 10y ago
Yes. And that's just electricity. It also uses insane amounts of coal for heating.

Havoc 10y ago

That's really cool. :)

rb808 10y ago

I think the visualization is misleading, it seems to highlight energy mix rather than absolute numbers. eg Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same) Germany looks better because it has some other sources mixed in there.

greendesk 10y ago
I think showing the mix of energy sources is also insightful. Germany has spent a lot of effort into diversifying and upgrading their energy system. Meanwhile, Poland is lagging in investment and relying almost exclusively on one piece of energy source. This piece of knowledge is also insightful.
- renaudg 10y ago
  > Germany has spent a lot of effort into diversifying and upgrading their energy system Evidently the outcome is still nothing to be proud of, especially considering the country's wealth and claim of leadership in environmental policy. It simply was too early to phase out nuclear power when they (slightly stubbornly) decided to do so.
masklinn 10y ago
> it seems to highlight energy mix It's literally a visualisation of how green the country's energy policy is (electricity production sources), the color coding is gCO2/kWh. > rather than absolute numbers Absolute numbers would mostly just track population, that's way more misleading as a small country with sparse population but 100% hydrocarbon energy production would appear greener than a large country with dense population on 10% hydrocarbon energy sources. An other interesting visualisation would be per-capita as it would include consumption patterns rather than just production ones > Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same) Poland would still look bad, it has 40% of Germany's population, and according to the site's sources currently produces 15.5GWh from coal while Germany is at 23.4GWh from Coal, that's 65% more coal-sourced electricity per capita than Germany. And the map is live and it's winter hence the low levels of e.g. solar in countries with large solar capacity (like Belgium, or Austria,… or Germany)

kevinsimper 10y ago

Very nice visualization and that it is realtime, the color scheme could be nicer

andreasley 10y ago

I've noticed that Switzerland, using a lot of hydropower, has a worse intensity than I expected. The CO2 numbers for the different types of power generation seem to come from Wikipedia [1], where Hydropower has a median gCO2eq/kWh of 24 and a maximum of 2200 – much worse than coal. This seems to be based on the fact that large areas may be flooded when filling the dam initially, and CO2 from rotting plants is released [2]. The numbers vary depending on the amount of vegetation. According to a study [3] from 2012, "electricity generated in storage hydropower stations in Switzerland causes emissions of 10.8 g CO2-eq/kWh", so it's less than shown in the emissions chart and comparable to nuclear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emis... [2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-powers-dirty-secret-revealed/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-po... [3] http://esu-services.ch/fileadmin/download/publicLCI/flury-2012-hydroelectric-power-generation.pdf http://esu-services.ch/fileadmin/download/publicLCI/flury-20... [PDF]

noselasd 10y ago
> I've noticed that Switzerland, using a lot of hydropower, has a worse intensity than I expected. The carbon intensity on the map seems to be for consumed kWh, not produced kWh. The map indicates Switzerland imports a lot of electricity from Austria and Germany which have a much higher carbon intensity.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  And this is a good representation, because this way it doesn't allow you to outsource your carbon emissions to countries that no one looks at (not on map, or not considered responsible for anything by activists).
- usrusr 10y ago
  Also, if it is really live data, all the high alpine hydro is just pumped storage now. In winter, the high reservoirs don't get much natural feed when no ice is thawing and any new precipitation will decoratively stick to the slopes until spring.

zhte415 10y ago

Fascinating to see the potential use, vs. the actual 'right now' capacity viewing this at 3pm GMT. And also interesting to see the import/export power figures: How one region supports, though nothing like the capacity needed to substitute renewables' variance. France is really leading consistency of capacity vs. generation with Nuclear. France also seems to have 4 times hydro capacity of Portugal, which is interesting given Portugal's recent 100% renewables day but inability to use it today. Why is Norway consuming 22GW but UK only about 40-45GW, and Germand 60-65GW, given the great disparity in population of Norway?

masklinn 10y ago
> Why is Norway consuming 22GW but UK only about 40-45GW, and Germand 60-65GW, given the great disparity in population of Norway? Electric heating? Lower temperatures? Oslo is currently freezing (below 0C), neither London nor Berlin are.
- skoob 10y ago
  Norway uses a lot of electricity for energy intensive industries like aluminium production.
  - zhte415 10y ago
    Thanks
- zhte415 10y ago
  Perhaps. Both Norway and Finland have a population of a little more than 5 million, but Finland is at about 10GW, so a difference of double. Sweden at around 20MW net which is consistent with Finland pro-rata. Did Norway just decide to do all-electric heating as vastly all electric power, as displayed here, comes from hydro? Just idle curiosity.
  - Aqwis 10y ago
    Yes. Gas heating is for the most part just not a thing in Norway. The cities don't have gas infrastructure (with some minor exceptions), so if you want to have gas heating you need to store it on your property. In addition, the government discourages it. The vast majority of home heating in Norway is electric.

ptaipale 10y ago

Also interesting to look at the solar power potential map. Of course, I knew it already: I offered a birthday lunch to wife's relatives today. A nice inn on a hilltop. We went there just after sunrise (11:00 AM) and left just before sunset (1:30 PM). The map kind of showed that. (Latitude 63°40.8′N)

agentgt 10y ago

Timing of this post is good as I just read an interesting paper on various current vehicles impact on climate change based on electricity + carbon output. I posted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13270712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13270712 The real meaty quote from the automobile paper is: > By 2050, only electric vehicles supplied with almost completely carbon-free electric power are expected to meet climate-policy targets. It would be neat to overlay the two: vehicles and electricity.

antr 10y ago

Germany... your anti-nuclear stance is detrimental to the environment...

allendoerfer 10y ago
At least Germany is not putting its neighbours at risk with rotten nuclear plants. Looking at you, Belgium [0]. Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France [1]. The current situation with coal is bad and we have to solve it. And I know HN is pro nuclear and downvotes opposing opinions, but history has proven several times, that nuclear energy is not a very good option, either. [0] http://www.dw.com/en/new-incident-at-belgiums-tihange-2-nuclear-plant/a-19323647 http://www.dw.com/en/new-incident-at-belgiums-tihange-2-nucl... [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8117882/Protests-as-a-train-carrying-nuclear-waste-travels-from-France-to-Germany.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8...
- Rasco 10y ago
  > Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France. I guess this is incorrect : Gorleben Nuclear Waste Repository. The waste comes from Germany's nuclear power plants, was reprocessed in France at La Hague, and the unusable remains then sent back to Germany in spent nuclear fuel shipping casks for final storage, according to the contract with the reprocessing company, Cogema [0]. But even if it comes from France what's the matter? If nuclear wastes go to Gorleben it is obviously because the city allows it, because they have a deal with french firms and they have facilities to store it. If you want to blame someone for it blame the city. In contrast I am sure France does not 'export' its air pollution as much as our dear Germany :p. And France does not have much of a say in that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben#Nuclear_Waste_Repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben#Nuclear_Waste_Reposit...
- ptaipale 10y ago
  These incidents are an exception to the rule where coal is worse every other day of the year, as well as when looking at the total. Chernobyl was the decisive moment for me: you have the Soviets screwing it up in the worst way possible, my home place in southern Finland being one of the most affected places on Earth due to winds in April 1986, and the results are not worse than this? Bring it on, it's surely better than coal.

nkkollaw 10y ago

Wow, what's wrong with Poland? I guess they use a lot of coal to produce electricity..?

pantalaimon 10y ago
No nuclear power whatsoever.
funkyy 10y ago
Poland is huge coal producer. Coal is cheap, easily accessible so it is used widely by people. Poland is slowly moving towards wind, but for heating it is still using coal.
machiaweliczny 10y ago
Nothing is wrong with Poland. If something is wrong then your ability to read presented data. It doesn't mean we are emitting more CO2 - for all colored map lovers see[1] CO2 emission per capita for Germany or other European countries before jumping to conclusions. [1]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_per_capita_per_country.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_per_capita_per_c...
- ced 10y ago
  Are you saying that, in spite of high CO2 emissions _for energy_, Poland's per capita emissions are on par with the rest of Europe? The map's color-scale is not ideal. Germany and France look similar, but Germany's emissions are 500% higher than France. In contrast, Poland is just 35% worse than Germany, but looks like the Death star on the map. It would work better with a single one-color gradient, rather than a green-yellow-black.
- trzeci 10y ago
  Nice, and straight to the point.
- renaudg 10y ago
  > Nothing is wrong with Poland. If something is wrong then your ability to read presented data. This is, unfortunately, what nationalistic pride clouding otherwise smart people's judgment looks like.

quonn 10y ago

I have read just a day ago that Germany produced 85% of the electricity needed during the holidays using renewables. The problem is the huge surplus generated by cheap coal that is being exported.

jonenst 10y ago

It's a nice visualization, but cpu usage shoots through the roof ! Deleting the animated arrows between the countries helps a bit, but then it still uses around 50% cpu (and that's on a fast desktop computer. Can't imagine my laptop trying to display this page). Using Ubuntu + firefox (it's a little better with chromium). Is it a problem with this page ? With my setup ? Or is it just impossible to do something of this quality on the web without monster cpus ?

jdietrich 10y ago
It runs fine for me on a Celeron-based Chromebook, albeit with 100% usage of one core.
corradio 10y ago
Hi there, I'm the author of the map. For sure it can be optimised. If you can help, feel free to do so on github - or reach out so we can chat. Thanks :)
lottin 10y ago
Same here. It was already sluggish and using a lot of CPU power but as soon as I clicked on the check-boxes the whole thing ground to a halt... took 30 seconds to close the tab. I really like the idea though.
literallycancer 10y ago
The fan is going crazy on my laptop with an older i5, but it works.

riprowan 10y ago

Italy cleaner than Germany

blondie9x 10y ago

This is one of the great things we can do as developers. We can help society learn about the problems humanity faces. Creating amazing visualizations and experiences to educate the world and potentially encourage action to solve some of our biggest problems. Hopefully we can drive awareness and change together.

jsingleton 10y ago
https://energyuse.eu https://energyuse.eu is an interesting study in how online discussion can help. It's part of an EU trial that I'm on (https://www.decarbonet.eu https://www.decarbonet.eu).
finchisko 10y ago
Power to the developers. I'm serious ;-). Even when I disagree with some arguments, all comments on HN are always very meaningful.
trzeci 10y ago
With the great power is connected a great responsibility to create a visualizations that don't manipulate data and show a meaningful information.

acd 10y ago

How much co2 is coming from electric energy, food and transportation? One should in general switch over to clean power sources. One way to cut down on ones own carbon emissions is to stop eating beef as cows release a lot of methane. km https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u... http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/foodkCal1.gif http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fo... https://priceofmeat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/b8850198-f130-62ec-f2a7324de64fecca_21.jpg?w=500 https://priceofmeat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/b8850198-f13... http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/foodprint5.gif http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fo... In Sweden one uses 8000kwh of electricity per year. 58g/kwh = 464000grams, 464kg co2. Average car co2 emissions around 120g/km. Average distance driven here around 15000km. 12015000=1800000grams 1800kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons... Co2 emissions of meat 13300g/kg, average meat consumtion 80kg. 8013300=1064000grams 1060kg of co2 from meat. adding the above. 464kg+1800kg+1060=3324kg, still missing some to add up to per capita consumption. What co2 source is missing? Co2 emission per capita of Sweden 4.6 ton, 4600kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... Sustainable co2 per capita 1.7tones. I am over consuming 2900kg of co2. Stop driving car and stop eating meat reduces emissions about 2800kg.

walterstucco 10y ago
yeah… ok… right… I'm very sad that so many people are obsessed with cults nowadays
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  Would you care to elaborate on that?
  - walterstucco 10y ago
    Of course: there's a cult that spreads the false belief that CO2 emission and eating beef are correlated. Some people in the cult are probably paid to spread this myth, while the majority of them they are just simple persons believing in the power of individuals, "one person can change the world" and other similar bullshit.

Sami_Lehtinen 10y ago

Russia -> Finland imports are missing: http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pages/default.aspx http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pag... Nordic power map: http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pages/State-of-the-Nordic-Power-System.aspx http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pag... Finland is currently building two nuclear power plants to provide more green energy. Wind & Solar, aren't that great options at all. Btw. I love the visualizations.

hokkos 10y ago
You can help them, it's on github : https://github.com/corradio/electricitymap#contribute https://github.com/corradio/electricitymap#contribute

hellofunk 10y ago

I had no idea there was such a widespread difference in the source of electricity a among citizens of countries in Europe, even neighbouring countries. Look at how most of France is nuclear powered (!) compared to coal for Germany and gas for Netherlands. Such differences in a very small space! I'm kinda amazed by this!

kilotaras 10y ago
Germany decided to close all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022 in wake of Fukushima. Nuclear is getting replaced mostly with renewables but coal remains unchallenged[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_Production_in_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_Production_in...

mixedbit 10y ago

Polish right-wing government is blocking any development that could hurt coal industry. They passed the law that significantly constrains where windmills can be located. They also hindered development of solar by reverting the law that allowed individual owners of solar panels to be paid for the overproduced electricity.

hnusername 10y ago
Polish government is not right-wing. There may be right wing of it, but it is not right wing per se. Right wing of what? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanation for a better clue about what current polish government may aspire to be like. It may have some right wing parts of what is above all big centrist coalition. Another issue is. How is this government blocking development that could hurt coal industry any different from what all former polish governments were doing ? But i agree that all those governments are mostly known for their "block everything" attitude. The website makes my Firefox browser slurp 3GB of memory, renders it unresponsive and it crashes. And please do not color Poland black, if as Wikipedia says (Yes I know. I know). Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless and odorless gas that is vital to life on Earth. Paint Poland and Estonia green. Green as in Greenhouse. Painting it black may suggest some form of blame for some imaginary "pollution" which i hope was not the point of the authors of the site. Or was it ? Come on. Don't make us look like Mordor.
- algesten 10y ago
  Sanation: a populist political movement for "moral sanation (healing) of the Polish body politic". It's nationalistic, anti-democratic, authoritarian and was gagging/killing/imprisoning the opposition.
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  The gradient goes from green to black. Black represents a carbon intensity of 700 gCO2/kWH. If you want Poland to be green, Poland has to consume less carbon. As Polish government being right-wing: Since it's a coalition of two parties, it would be wrong to call the entire government right-wing. But the Law and Justice party certainly is.

the8472 10y ago

There seems to be lots of wind potential around the scottish isles and iceland. I wonder how feasible it would be to plaster turbines over iceland and then sell that energy to europe.

bckygldstn 10y ago
Iceland already produces much more energy than it needs through geothermal and hydro. Connecting the Icelandic power grid to the rest of the world seems to be currently infeasible [1], so instead they "export" the surplus energy through their aluminium industry: raw ore is shipped in from around the world, and high-energy refined aluminium is shipped out. Similarly-isolated New Zealand does a similar thing, refining aluminium ore from Australia using abundant hydro power [2]. [1] http://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/research/submarinecabletoeurope http://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/research/sub... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter

jsingleton 10y ago

This is a very pretty map! It shows that location is important but time is also an interesting domain. You can do your bit by running appliances at the best time. This is a post I made on https://energyuse.eu https://energyuse.eu (part of an EU trial I'm involved with - https://www.decarbonet.eu https://www.decarbonet.eu). Saving energy in general is a positive step. For example, we've just bought a new freezer and dishwasher with better energy ratings and these will save money over their lifetimes. However, when is the best time to run a wash to save the most CO2e? Unless you are on an Economy 7 style tariff or have solar panels then when you use power has no effect on how much it costs you. If you are, then at night or in the middle of the day is better, respectively. Dynamic demand to grid signals isn't ready for consumer adoption yet but you can look at the information manually if you want to use power at less demanding times. The grid frequency[0] is a reasonable indicator but is pretty technical. There are other, easier to understand, data sources available: - Earth Notes: GB Grid Intensity[1] gives a simple traffic light indication - GridCarbon[2] is a real-time carbon intensity app (CO2 Modeller[3] is from the same guys) - MyGridGB[4] shows similar data on the web (and includes Solar data[5]) By avoiding peak time you may not save money but you can save carbon. [0]: http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/electricity-transmission-operational-data/ http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/electri... [1]: http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html [2]: http://gridcarbon.uk http://gridcarbon.uk [3]: http://www.co2modeller.info http://www.co2modeller.info [4]: http://www.mygridgb.co.uk http://www.mygridgb.co.uk [5]: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive

Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago

Spain right now: solar plants off (OK, that's normal, it's night time here), wind plants off, hydro and gas plants mostly off, but burning coal at near maximum capacity while we import energy from Portugal who are also burning coal like madmen. I already knew that we had serious problems in our grid, caused by politics (overdimensioned gas, insistence on using coal due to pressure by miners, etc.). That's more or less widely known, but I had no idea it was SO messed up. And why the imports when we have most of the renewable sources sitting idle? Wow.

pelasaco 10y ago

looks like countries using more nuclear power have the lower CO emission...

hnusername 10y ago

Message that does not appear (pending?) Just look at the top reddit r/dataisbeautiful/ comment Took me a minute to realize that Poland wasn't black because of missing data, but rather because that's apparently how dirty their electricity is. And why ? Because of black color used obviously. Ok but lets leave this unfortunate color aside. Many other questions arise. - What does it mean that the page has live data visualization. How often is the data updated ? - How many sources of data are there. Does it cover all of them in every country ? Are they all online all the time ? - Why is Estonia dark brown the whole time but when i click on it is see wind ++ solar ? hydro biomass ? nuclear gas ? coal oil ? unknown ++++++++++ and it still has 595 gCO2eq/kWh - What does "?" stands for in the results? Are some sources unavailable or is the data corrupted or what ? - Why there is nothing under coal ? - What does unknown here mean ? Does it contribute to gCO2eq/kWh ? I mean, so much of unknown energy. Are you serious ? - What is the metric used after all ? Is this software even alpha ? What is the version ? That is all very important when you create "facts" like this in Internet.