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Live electricity production/consumption CO2 map

102 points by cromulent 5y ago

1-6 5y ago
When is it expected for China to show up? At the Paris Climate Agreement, China stated that it will ratify 20.09% of greenhouse gases. It's sort of hard to tell where progress is when you don't have a good baseline. That goes for the USA as well. These percentages are mere numbers without good data.
- corradio 5y ago
  Hello, Olivier here, author of the map and founder of the company behind it. We're working on adding more countries on the map. Check again in a few months and hopefully we'll have more of them!
bullen 5y ago
Here's a few more maps (nuclear & coal plants) that might also be of interest: https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-plants https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-... https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
jokoon 5y ago
I'm really curious if it's possible to quickly produce small, safe nuclear reactor in high quantity, it might be a good solution to quickly remove coal as an energy source. I'm pretty sure it's far better to mine a lot of Uranium that to use coal.
- bdamm 5y ago
  NuScale Power is one of these companies.
- sofixa 5y ago
  I don't know how quick it would be, but multiple navies around the world construct nuclear powered ships and submarines ( US, UK, France, Russia), usually in the "years", not "tens of years" timeframe ( unless it's an entirely new design of ship). For instance, the French Barracuda class submarines have 150MW reactors, and while the first two boats took 10+ years to build, the next are expected within 7-9 years. And that's for the whole complex submarine, i highly doubt the reactor takes all that time, but i might be mistaken. And that's for a small 6 ship class, i imagine that doing "mass production" of said reactors could be more cost and time effective.
  - 7thaccount 5y ago
    They're all classified though I would guess.
- autokad 5y ago
  many coal plants are peaker plants (at least in US ~250:1000), and I don't think nuclear can replace those as they produce a continual supply of electricity. Unless these small nuclear reactors operate differently?
rs999gti 5y ago
For a solution, how hard would it be to get a national Forest Service to just plant more trees in the areas where these power plants are? Carbon capture could come from tree sapling growth into adults.
- alex_young 5y ago
  It takes about a decade for a new tree to start capturing much carbon, and then you have to maintain a forest for 100 years and prevent it from burning, etc. Seems like something we should do more of, but surely not a complete solution to the problem.
908B64B197 5y ago
Looking at the map, Quebec is doing something amazing. Considering they have extra capacity, it's just sad to see less performing neighbors refusing to buy clean power from them for political reasons. [0] [1] [0] https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/02/referendum-in-maine-could-derail-hydro-quebecs-10-billion-electricity-sale/ https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/02/referendum-in-maine-could-de... [1] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-wont-give-up-on-trying-to-sell-hydro-power-to-ontario-minister/ https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-wont-give...
- soperj 5y ago
  It only looks amazing because they have never investigated whether or not their hydro power produces emissions. Based on studies where they've flooded areas without removing trees, hydro plants could be producing more GHGs than even the dirtiest coal plants. Quebec and BC could actually be the dirtiest provinces and we just don't know. Long story short, when trees decompose in an anaerobic environment, it produces methane instead of CO2, and also takes 4 times longer to decompose.
  - AnotherGoodName 5y ago
    That'd be a once off though. The dam may exist for such a long timescale that those decomposing trees under the waterline are irrelevant. I always feel we need to simplify the carbon emissions to the point of "Carbon that was buried and is now in the atmosphere". This generally removes life in the carbon equation and reasonably so. The carbon in life was in the air relatively recently. Trees absorbed it from the air and other organisms will eat it and re-release it. In general that alone won't revert the earth to the state it was in billions of years ago. The carbon underground however hasn't been in the atmosphere for billions of years. That's the carbon that's going to return earth to the state it was in billions of years ago. That's what we should focus on.
    - soperj 5y ago
      No it won't. Trees can take 100 years to decompose in an aerobic environment. Show me a 400 year old dam.
renw0rp 5y ago
To be fair, Europe looks a bit disappointing. After years (decades?) of talking about global warming there is still so much electricity coming from coal.
- derriz 5y ago
  It's a blip - wind generation is at a two week low. Live snapshots disguise the overall trend. The evolution of CO2 intensity of electricity generation in Europe can be seen here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-3/assessment-1 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...
- belorn 5y ago
  It is a bit telling and depressing that while many countries in EU now have a marked date where cars with internal combustion engines will be phased out and made illegal, there are no counties that have yet to set a date where they will do the same to power plants. Even in countries where the green party is part of the government (like Sweden), they see fossil fueled power plants as a critical part of their future strategy for the energy grid. The picture of Europe is unlikely to change much. The predictions I hear is of an increase in construction of both renewables and fossil fueled power plants, and a more unstable price curve depending on weather. A lot of brown-orange that occasionally turn green when the wind is strong and quite dark when it isn't. In theory this should produce the cheapest energy, through I can't say that has been my experience so far. Relying on more energy trading depending on where energy is being produced at the moment seem to also increase transport costs, which for the end user here can be around 50% of the total price.
0xquad 5y ago
Californians can see what's happening with their grid at: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mountainriver 5y ago
Wow Australia
Zababa 5y ago
As a French, I'm really proud of my country. I don't know if everyone in the world could use nuclear power, but it seems to be worth the price, at least to reduce CO2 production.

102 points by cromulent 5y ago

1-6 5y ago

When is it expected for China to show up? At the Paris Climate Agreement, China stated that it will ratify 20.09% of greenhouse gases. It's sort of hard to tell where progress is when you don't have a good baseline. That goes for the USA as well. These percentages are mere numbers without good data.

corradio 5y ago
Hello, Olivier here, author of the map and founder of the company behind it. We're working on adding more countries on the map. Check again in a few months and hopefully we'll have more of them!

bullen 5y ago

Here's a few more maps (nuclear & coal plants) that might also be of interest: https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-plants https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-... https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants

jokoon 5y ago

I'm really curious if it's possible to quickly produce small, safe nuclear reactor in high quantity, it might be a good solution to quickly remove coal as an energy source. I'm pretty sure it's far better to mine a lot of Uranium that to use coal.

bdamm 5y ago
NuScale Power is one of these companies.
sofixa 5y ago
I don't know how quick it would be, but multiple navies around the world construct nuclear powered ships and submarines ( US, UK, France, Russia), usually in the "years", not "tens of years" timeframe ( unless it's an entirely new design of ship). For instance, the French Barracuda class submarines have 150MW reactors, and while the first two boats took 10+ years to build, the next are expected within 7-9 years. And that's for the whole complex submarine, i highly doubt the reactor takes all that time, but i might be mistaken. And that's for a small 6 ship class, i imagine that doing "mass production" of said reactors could be more cost and time effective.
- 7thaccount 5y ago
  They're all classified though I would guess.
autokad 5y ago
many coal plants are peaker plants (at least in US ~250:1000), and I don't think nuclear can replace those as they produce a continual supply of electricity. Unless these small nuclear reactors operate differently?

rs999gti 5y ago

For a solution, how hard would it be to get a national Forest Service to just plant more trees in the areas where these power plants are? Carbon capture could come from tree sapling growth into adults.

alex_young 5y ago
It takes about a decade for a new tree to start capturing much carbon, and then you have to maintain a forest for 100 years and prevent it from burning, etc. Seems like something we should do more of, but surely not a complete solution to the problem.

908B64B197 5y ago

Looking at the map, Quebec is doing something amazing. Considering they have extra capacity, it's just sad to see less performing neighbors refusing to buy clean power from them for political reasons. [0] [1] [0] https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/02/referendum-in-maine-could-derail-hydro-quebecs-10-billion-electricity-sale/ https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/02/referendum-in-maine-could-de... [1] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-wont-give-up-on-trying-to-sell-hydro-power-to-ontario-minister/ https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-wont-give...

soperj 5y ago
It only looks amazing because they have never investigated whether or not their hydro power produces emissions. Based on studies where they've flooded areas without removing trees, hydro plants could be producing more GHGs than even the dirtiest coal plants. Quebec and BC could actually be the dirtiest provinces and we just don't know. Long story short, when trees decompose in an anaerobic environment, it produces methane instead of CO2, and also takes 4 times longer to decompose.
- AnotherGoodName 5y ago
  That'd be a once off though. The dam may exist for such a long timescale that those decomposing trees under the waterline are irrelevant. I always feel we need to simplify the carbon emissions to the point of "Carbon that was buried and is now in the atmosphere". This generally removes life in the carbon equation and reasonably so. The carbon in life was in the air relatively recently. Trees absorbed it from the air and other organisms will eat it and re-release it. In general that alone won't revert the earth to the state it was in billions of years ago. The carbon underground however hasn't been in the atmosphere for billions of years. That's the carbon that's going to return earth to the state it was in billions of years ago. That's what we should focus on.
  - soperj 5y ago
    No it won't. Trees can take 100 years to decompose in an aerobic environment. Show me a 400 year old dam.

renw0rp 5y ago

To be fair, Europe looks a bit disappointing. After years (decades?) of talking about global warming there is still so much electricity coming from coal.

derriz 5y ago
It's a blip - wind generation is at a two week low. Live snapshots disguise the overall trend. The evolution of CO2 intensity of electricity generation in Europe can be seen here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-3/assessment-1 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...
belorn 5y ago
It is a bit telling and depressing that while many countries in EU now have a marked date where cars with internal combustion engines will be phased out and made illegal, there are no counties that have yet to set a date where they will do the same to power plants. Even in countries where the green party is part of the government (like Sweden), they see fossil fueled power plants as a critical part of their future strategy for the energy grid. The picture of Europe is unlikely to change much. The predictions I hear is of an increase in construction of both renewables and fossil fueled power plants, and a more unstable price curve depending on weather. A lot of brown-orange that occasionally turn green when the wind is strong and quite dark when it isn't. In theory this should produce the cheapest energy, through I can't say that has been my experience so far. Relying on more energy trading depending on where energy is being produced at the moment seem to also increase transport costs, which for the end user here can be around 50% of the total price.

0xquad 5y ago

Californians can see what's happening with their grid at: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mountainriver 5y ago

Wow Australia

Zababa 5y ago

As a French, I'm really proud of my country. I don't know if everyone in the world could use nuclear power, but it seems to be worth the price, at least to reduce CO2 production.