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The background is this: The Swedish government (of which the green party is part) has closed down several nuclear reactors and there is a ban on building more h

The background is this: The Swedish government (of which the green party is part) has closed down several nuclear reactors and there is a ban on building more hydro electric dams. Before Sweden had about 50% hydro + 50% nuclear. Now electricity prices are rising a lot, especially on days when there is little wind (which generally is the case on extremely cold winter days), and emergency power plants using fossil fuels are running a lot more than before. So now they are going to blame something else, just like any other politicians in any other country would.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>So now they are going to blame something else, just like any other politicians in any other country would. but somehow they decided to blame crypto-mining instead of excessive house heating and refusal to wear sweaters indoors. funny that.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  People in the developed world consume massive amounts of energy on non-essentials. Energy consumptions is not the problem. In fact, it's strongly correlated with quality of life. The problem is polluting sources of energy. Singling out one non-essential for its use of energy and banning it, while leaving all others legal, makes no sense. Doing so is a case of scapegoating one small facet of a larger phenomenon, instead of addressing the root problem.
  - amelius 5y ago
    Either way, crypto currencies become impossible.
guerrilla 5y ago
Your comment on hydro isn't relevant since hydro output hasn't actually changed[1], meanwhile wind production has overall replaced nuclear. Total production has increased slightly while total domestic consumption has decreased slightly. So basically it comes down to increased exports and variability of wind. 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Electricity_production_in_Sweden.svg/1280px-Electricity_production_in_Sweden.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/El...
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  Why is it not relevant if growth of hydropower output has ceased? That seems like a perfectly relevant thing to point out.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Nothing has changed about the actual output of hydro power since the 80s. It wasn't growing to begin with, so it's definitely not a cause of very recent price increases.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Population grew by 25% since 1980 though, so now each person has on average 20% less hydro power if it stayed the same.
      - guerrilla 5y ago
        No, that's wrong. If you actually look at the graph and my comment, you'll see that consumption did not in fact increase much at all in that time and slightly decreased recently.
  - moogly 5y ago
    Sweden stopped expanding the exploitation of that natural resource in the 1960s. Most of it has been exploited already, but I think there is one additional river that could be utilized, but the plan to do that was shot down in 1970. With today's more rigorous environmental policies, constructing more hydro power seems infeasible due to the adverse effects on wildlife diversity.
- fulafel 5y ago
  Increased exports will probably continue and accelerate if nothing is stopping new transmission capacity from being built, the hydro is such a good pairing for wind in continental europe.
- BoardsOfCanada 5y ago
SiempreViernes 5y ago
No, what the current government has done is not object in 2015 when the commercial owners decided to permanently turn off in total three reactors in Ringhals and Oscarshamn because electricity was just too cheap. The actual problem is a regional on: the most souther parts of sweden is that they have more connections to the energy market in continental europe than to the big hydro-plants in the north that have plenty of excess capacity. In fact Sweden is a net exporter of electricity even in times where the emergency plants in the extreme south are running. And water+nuclear has been at around 80% total, not 100.
Ekaros 5y ago
Prices are rising due to normal variety of weather, that is not enough rain to fill the reservoirs for future capacity. As such markets are working and prices are expected to be higher as producers optimise for profit. Nuclear would help with this as there would be certain baseline price and hydro could store more excess capacity for those times renewable production is low.
moogly 5y ago
> The Swedish government (of which the green party is part) has closed down several nuclear reactors Only Barsebäck 1 in 1999, Barsebäck 2 in 2005, and that was primarily because of Danish pressure (it's very close to Copenhagen). So that's 15-20 years ago. The other reactors (Ringhals 1 (2020), Ringhals 2 (2019), Oskarshamn 1 (2017), Oskarshamn 2 (2015)) have been shut down by the private companies operating them because they have either reached their operational lifetime and were deemed (by the private company (Vattenfall, Uniper/Eon)) not economically feasible for modernization, or just plain not profitable to keep running, due to low electricity prices.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>So now they are going to blame something else, just like any other politicians in any other country would. but somehow they decided to blame crypto-mining instead of excessive house heating and refusal to wear sweaters indoors. funny that.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
People in the developed world consume massive amounts of energy on non-essentials. Energy consumptions is not the problem. In fact, it's strongly correlated with quality of life. The problem is polluting sources of energy. Singling out one non-essential for its use of energy and banning it, while leaving all others legal, makes no sense. Doing so is a case of scapegoating one small facet of a larger phenomenon, instead of addressing the root problem.
- amelius 5y ago
  Either way, crypto currencies become impossible.

guerrilla 5y ago

Your comment on hydro isn't relevant since hydro output hasn't actually changed[1], meanwhile wind production has overall replaced nuclear. Total production has increased slightly while total domestic consumption has decreased slightly. So basically it comes down to increased exports and variability of wind. 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Electricity_production_in_Sweden.svg/1280px-Electricity_production_in_Sweden.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/El...

FDSGSG 5y ago
Why is it not relevant if growth of hydropower output has ceased? That seems like a perfectly relevant thing to point out.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Nothing has changed about the actual output of hydro power since the 80s. It wasn't growing to begin with, so it's definitely not a cause of very recent price increases.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Population grew by 25% since 1980 though, so now each person has on average 20% less hydro power if it stayed the same.
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      No, that's wrong. If you actually look at the graph and my comment, you'll see that consumption did not in fact increase much at all in that time and slightly decreased recently.
- moogly 5y ago
  Sweden stopped expanding the exploitation of that natural resource in the 1960s. Most of it has been exploited already, but I think there is one additional river that could be utilized, but the plan to do that was shot down in 1970. With today's more rigorous environmental policies, constructing more hydro power seems infeasible due to the adverse effects on wildlife diversity.
fulafel 5y ago
Increased exports will probably continue and accelerate if nothing is stopping new transmission capacity from being built, the hydro is such a good pairing for wind in continental europe.
BoardsOfCanada 5y ago

SiempreViernes 5y ago

No, what the current government has done is not object in 2015 when the commercial owners decided to permanently turn off in total three reactors in Ringhals and Oscarshamn because electricity was just too cheap. The actual problem is a regional on: the most souther parts of sweden is that they have more connections to the energy market in continental europe than to the big hydro-plants in the north that have plenty of excess capacity. In fact Sweden is a net exporter of electricity even in times where the emergency plants in the extreme south are running. And water+nuclear has been at around 80% total, not 100.

Ekaros 5y ago

Prices are rising due to normal variety of weather, that is not enough rain to fill the reservoirs for future capacity. As such markets are working and prices are expected to be higher as producers optimise for profit. Nuclear would help with this as there would be certain baseline price and hydro could store more excess capacity for those times renewable production is low.

moogly 5y ago

> The Swedish government (of which the green party is part) has closed down several nuclear reactors Only Barsebäck 1 in 1999, Barsebäck 2 in 2005, and that was primarily because of Danish pressure (it's very close to Copenhagen). So that's 15-20 years ago. The other reactors (Ringhals 1 (2020), Ringhals 2 (2019), Oskarshamn 1 (2017), Oskarshamn 2 (2015)) have been shut down by the private companies operating them because they have either reached their operational lifetime and were deemed (by the private company (Vattenfall, Uniper/Eon)) not economically feasible for modernization, or just plain not profitable to keep running, due to low electricity prices.