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What I have read is that the plant operated only for a total of a few days each year before the nuclear reactors was closed down. Karlshamnsverket was built in
by belorn 5y ago
What I have read is that the plant operated only for a total of a few days each year before the nuclear reactors was closed down. Karlshamnsverket was built in in 1970, and the south of Sweden had a nuclear plant in Barsebäcks until 2005. It was the combined effect of both Ringhals and Barsebäcks that created the market situation where Karlshamnsverket operates regularly all over the year when ever demand goes up.
Given the amount of hydro Sweden have, it is a bit of a black mark on the country that an oil plant actually get to run as much as it does. Its worth noting that Norway doesn't seem to use a lot of oil based peaker plants. I wonder if the oil that get burned in Sweden actually comes from Norway.
- cinntaile 5y agoBetween 2016-2020 it had an average running time of 67 hours. For this year it's somewhere between 500-700hours I think, so closing Barsebäck had no real influence on this. Norway doesn't have nuclear either, they can easily regulate using pretty much only hydro. Most of the time this works for Sweden too, but when it doesn't it's nice to have an alternative. Even if it's spewing a ton of carbon into the air. The oil for Karlshamnsverket mostly comes from Russia.
- belorn 5y agoDo you know why they are buying it from Russia instead of Norway? Funding Russia, especially individuals there with ties to the fossil fuel industry, seems like a poor decision when at the same time there is a bunch of trade sanctions against Russia. At any rate, I don't think its a very "nice" to subsidize the fossil fuel industry in order to have the alternative to burn oil. There are 8760 hours during a year, so for most part of that we simply are giving away tax money in order to keep the plant ready in the case of high demand. That is a very high price pay for the pleasure of spewing carbon into the air. If we instead reserved a higher portion of the capacity from hydro, and invested in more peak production by modernizing the generators (and at the same time invested in more environmental friendly design!), hydro and nuclear could manage what Norway is doing. A energy grid free of fossil fuels. That would be nice to have and something I would prefer over an oil plant.
- cinntaile 5y agoI don't know to be honest, the oil from Russia that's refined has a lot of sulphur so maybe it's just because it's cheaper? Spewing carbon into the air is still a smaller price to pay than not having electricity when you need it in my opinion. While hydro tends to be quite reliable and predictable I wouldn't want to bet everything on it, just like wind and solar you are still dependent on the weather albeit to a much lesser extent. At least a part of your reserve power needs to be independent of the weather. On a global scale it's just a drop in the ocean.
- daniel-cussen 5y agoEnergy potential in the atmosphere, in this case meaning the oceans and the air, will always depend on the weather, by definition. The alternative is mining uranium and carbon.
- cinntaile 5y agoI don't understand your comment. I said wind, solar and hydro are weather dependent?
- daniel-cussen 5y ago"just like wind and solar you are still dependent on the weather albeit to a much lesser extent."
- cinntaile 5y agoHydro power is more consistent than for example solar which can change instantly even though both are weather dependent.