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> It is a strawman argument to talk about shutting down 80% of the whole European energy grid in the context of the Swedish energy grid. Yeah, it would be if w

by avar 7y ago

> It is a strawman argument to talk about shutting down 80% of the whole European energy grid in the context of the Swedish energy grid. Yeah, it would be if we were discussing Sweden's energy grid. You're commenting in a subthread about the EEA-wide energy credit system in general. You're the one who brought up Sweden in the context of an unrelated point. But even if we were only discussing Sweden the same point would apply, there's that 20% of the grid that's still being transitioned. The energy credit system is a way to shift power demand to the other 80%, to the extent that such demand is say location and not capacity-limited within Sweden. > A nuclear plant, or if you prefer an experimental battery dam would solve the issue quite fast. Just a simple matter of money and political will. Sure, and if someone made me emperor of Europe that's one of the things we'd be running a Manhattan-level project to accomplish. But to present that as a counterargument to energy credits is to miss the point, these are different issues. Even in such a scenario it's still going to take some years to transition the grid due to manufacturing and logistical issues. In that time period you'd want to give consumers in the EEA-market a price incentive to build their factory next to a solar plant instead of a coal plant. The energy credit market is a way to work towards that. To say we should do away with energy credits entirely because, and I'm really not sure I understand your argument, but you seem to be saying that they're they're morally indefensible or not an elegant solution? Anyway, that's going to result in needless pollution while we build up renewables. Now who's taking a morally indefensible position? I'm not claiming sainthood by electing to pay a slightly higher energy price. Could I do more? Yes. I am saying that you're fundamentally misunderstanding how price incentives and elastic demand factor into the equation. It's not the case that my local coal plant is running at 100% capacity all the time, and by electing to buy "green" energy I'm making the coal product more expensive than the renewable product. Thus while I keep the lights on with coal, me and a bunch of other people in the are area doing our part to shift new demand for energy out of the area. There's going to be a price point where e.g. someone thinking of installing a server rack that consumes as much energy as me and all my neighbors elects to install it near a "green" plant, not near a coal plant. Do you feel similarly about other harm mitigation that's part of public policy? E.g. do you think because we should switch to near-100% electric vehicles the EU's increasingly strict regulations on catalytic converters is pointless? That's what the energy credit system is, it's a transition and harm reduction mechanism. > I will note that a law banning fossil fuel is indistinguishable from a carbon tax that is high enough to make it more profitable to build non-polluting alternative to burning fossil fuels. No it's not. Even if fossil fuels were prohibitively expensive for energy production we'd still have things like airplanes that are going to be paying for the energy density in fossil fuels way past the price point where a proposed CO^2 tax matches the cost of cleaning up the pollution involved.

belorn 7y ago
> Even if fossil fuels were prohibitively expensive for energy production we'd still have things like airplanes For someone who speak about off-topic, since when did we, the article or anything in this thread talk about the transport sector? A few other sectors we also never talked about is space travel, the military, and agriculture. The claim is that a law banning fossil fuels in the energy sector is indistinguishable from a carbon tax that is high enough to make it more profitable to build non-polluting power plants alternatives to power plants burning fossil fuels. > Anyway, that's going to result in needless pollution while we build up renewables How is keeping the coal and natural gas in the ground going to cause needless pollution? Nonsense. > It's not the case that my local coal plant is running at 100% capacity all the time, and by electing to buy "green" energy I'm making the coal product more expensive than the renewable product. And yet the coal is still cheaper because otherwise you would not continue to buy it, and people would not build new natural gas plants unless they thought it would pay. It illustrate how well the shift of new energy is incentivized. Naturally people will build wind power. It is cheaper than coal when it is blowing, and it makes the coal energy more expensive when burned. Everyone wins, except that the coal keep getting mined and burned and this thing called global warming is happening which people prefer to ignore. You accuse me of not wanting harm mitigation, but that is completely wrong. I don't mind at all the wind and solar plants being built, but I can fully see the data which says that the fossil fueled pollution in the power grid is going up, not down. It pretty basic logic that when the method which claim to decrease pollution is increasing it then the method is flawed. Denmark is a pretty good example where peak wind has been reached. At optimal condition their whole energy grid can be produced from wind. Wind farm operators want to be paid so they build farms until at peak they still get sell the energy, as overproduction is not just wasteful but costly. How often do a wind farm produce 100% of maximum? Not often. we can make a simplify statement that on average they produce about 50%, which mean the other 50% must come from somewhere. Primarily fossil fuels. So what is Denmark average gCO2eq/kWh? Better than some but far from competing with countries like France, and even if everyone other country in EU copied Denmark it would not be enough in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.
- avar 7y ago
  > For someone who speak about off-topic, since when did we, the article or anything in this thread talk about the transport sector? Within the span of the two paragraphs I quoted you went back and forth between "ban fossil fueled energy" and "a law banning fossil fuel", so I inferred that you were talking about a ban on fossil fuels for all applications. The transport sector just made for an easy example. The same is also true for many applications in the energy sector, e.g. diesel generators on remote islands, or as backup generators. Entirely banning these fuels would be a stupid idea, we should just charge for the externalities they cause. > How is keeping the coal and natural gas in the ground going to cause needless pollution? Nonsense. Because as you yourself claim a complete conversion of the grid war-footing amounts of political will would probably take at least 10-20 years, meanwhile we're burning coal as we transition. If we have price incentives to not only phase out coal demand, but also to shift it we'll keep more of it in the ground. So yes, we agree that keeping more fossil fuel in the ground generally speaking results in less pollution. I'm pointing out that to do so you not only need to work on energy production (build power plants), but shift energy demand (taxes, energy credits etc.). I'm basically summarizing what I understand from the PR material from the relevant EU institutions, you're making claims that would either win you a Nobel price if they were true, or at least get you on the front page of most European newspapers ("Internet man saves EU billions of Euros by getting rid of lots of pointless institutions, processes etc."). > [...]I can fully see the data which says that the fossil fueled pollution in the power grid is going up, not down. It pretty basic logic that when the method which claim to decrease pollution is increasing it then the method is flawed. I haven't seen the numbers you're alluding to, but I don't see how that's a violation of basic logic, it's trivial to show that all of the following can be true: 1. Fossil fuel use is going down as a proportion of overall energy use. 2. Fossil fuel use is going up in absolute terms. 3. We have some system in place (say energy credits or a carbon tax) that's reducing fossil fuel use. You just need to have a situation where the growth in energy demand is outpacing the pace of your energy source transition. In such a situation it would be a mistake to say "absolute use is going up, any mitigation we have in place must be doing nothing". Maybe those mitigations are doing nothing, or maybe the situation would be a lot worse if they weren't in place. > Denmark is a pretty good example[...] No it's not. My point several replies above this one has been that energy credits help with the overall problem, not that they're guaranteed to solve it. Clearly an example of a problem that isn't fully solved isn't a refutation of a mechanism that's suggested to contribute to an overall solution. This would be like saying that speeding fines aren't an effective method of helping with overall traffic safety because people still speed on public roads. That's all I've been maintaining here. There's a common misconception about energy credits that they're not only ineffective, but that they're some sort of sham. I think that's a misunderstanding of people who don't know how they work, and you continuing to drag up examples that have nothing whatsoever to do with that point isn't a convincing counterargument.

by avar 7y ago

belorn 7y ago

> Even if fossil fuels were prohibitively expensive for energy production we'd still have things like airplanes For someone who speak about off-topic, since when did we, the article or anything in this thread talk about the transport sector? A few other sectors we also never talked about is space travel, the military, and agriculture. The claim is that a law banning fossil fuels in the energy sector is indistinguishable from a carbon tax that is high enough to make it more profitable to build non-polluting power plants alternatives to power plants burning fossil fuels. > Anyway, that's going to result in needless pollution while we build up renewables How is keeping the coal and natural gas in the ground going to cause needless pollution? Nonsense. > It's not the case that my local coal plant is running at 100% capacity all the time, and by electing to buy "green" energy I'm making the coal product more expensive than the renewable product. And yet the coal is still cheaper because otherwise you would not continue to buy it, and people would not build new natural gas plants unless they thought it would pay. It illustrate how well the shift of new energy is incentivized. Naturally people will build wind power. It is cheaper than coal when it is blowing, and it makes the coal energy more expensive when burned. Everyone wins, except that the coal keep getting mined and burned and this thing called global warming is happening which people prefer to ignore. You accuse me of not wanting harm mitigation, but that is completely wrong. I don't mind at all the wind and solar plants being built, but I can fully see the data which says that the fossil fueled pollution in the power grid is going up, not down. It pretty basic logic that when the method which claim to decrease pollution is increasing it then the method is flawed. Denmark is a pretty good example where peak wind has been reached. At optimal condition their whole energy grid can be produced from wind. Wind farm operators want to be paid so they build farms until at peak they still get sell the energy, as overproduction is not just wasteful but costly. How often do a wind farm produce 100% of maximum? Not often. we can make a simplify statement that on average they produce about 50%, which mean the other 50% must come from somewhere. Primarily fossil fuels. So what is Denmark average gCO2eq/kWh? Better than some but far from competing with countries like France, and even if everyone other country in EU copied Denmark it would not be enough in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.

avar 7y ago
> For someone who speak about off-topic, since when did we, the article or anything in this thread talk about the transport sector? Within the span of the two paragraphs I quoted you went back and forth between "ban fossil fueled energy" and "a law banning fossil fuel", so I inferred that you were talking about a ban on fossil fuels for all applications. The transport sector just made for an easy example. The same is also true for many applications in the energy sector, e.g. diesel generators on remote islands, or as backup generators. Entirely banning these fuels would be a stupid idea, we should just charge for the externalities they cause. > How is keeping the coal and natural gas in the ground going to cause needless pollution? Nonsense. Because as you yourself claim a complete conversion of the grid war-footing amounts of political will would probably take at least 10-20 years, meanwhile we're burning coal as we transition. If we have price incentives to not only phase out coal demand, but also to shift it we'll keep more of it in the ground. So yes, we agree that keeping more fossil fuel in the ground generally speaking results in less pollution. I'm pointing out that to do so you not only need to work on energy production (build power plants), but shift energy demand (taxes, energy credits etc.). I'm basically summarizing what I understand from the PR material from the relevant EU institutions, you're making claims that would either win you a Nobel price if they were true, or at least get you on the front page of most European newspapers ("Internet man saves EU billions of Euros by getting rid of lots of pointless institutions, processes etc."). > [...]I can fully see the data which says that the fossil fueled pollution in the power grid is going up, not down. It pretty basic logic that when the method which claim to decrease pollution is increasing it then the method is flawed. I haven't seen the numbers you're alluding to, but I don't see how that's a violation of basic logic, it's trivial to show that all of the following can be true: 1. Fossil fuel use is going down as a proportion of overall energy use. 2. Fossil fuel use is going up in absolute terms. 3. We have some system in place (say energy credits or a carbon tax) that's reducing fossil fuel use. You just need to have a situation where the growth in energy demand is outpacing the pace of your energy source transition. In such a situation it would be a mistake to say "absolute use is going up, any mitigation we have in place must be doing nothing". Maybe those mitigations are doing nothing, or maybe the situation would be a lot worse if they weren't in place. > Denmark is a pretty good example[...] No it's not. My point several replies above this one has been that energy credits help with the overall problem, not that they're guaranteed to solve it. Clearly an example of a problem that isn't fully solved isn't a refutation of a mechanism that's suggested to contribute to an overall solution. This would be like saying that speeding fines aren't an effective method of helping with overall traffic safety because people still speed on public roads. That's all I've been maintaining here. There's a common misconception about energy credits that they're not only ineffective, but that they're some sort of sham. I think that's a misunderstanding of people who don't know how they work, and you continuing to drag up examples that have nothing whatsoever to do with that point isn't a convincing counterargument.