6 ms·

I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Ok ok, De Gaulle was maybe more concerned about energy independence. France doesn't do too bad?

I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Ok ok, De Gaulle was maybe more concerned about energy independence. France doesn't do too bad? Any link? As far a i remember only a few African countries do "not too bad", but perhaps you were referring to former colonies as well. > I live in France, never heard of this "Net Zero" you're talking about. I then suggest some good climate information channel, Bon Pote is pretty good in French [0] [0] https://bonpote.com/ https://bonpote.com/ edit: my country is terrible too, it is nothing against France in particular!!!

rini17 5y ago
Swiss and Austrians are an exception with the hydro and should stop rubbing it in all the discussions. In Slovakia much of whatever could be dammed already is and still hydro makes only up to 20% of the mix, despite being one of the more hilly countries. Were it not for 70% nuclear, I have no idea how to even go near carbon neutral electricity. Having German electricity prices to pay for renewables is completely impossible.
- immmmmm 5y ago
  Agreed. I was answering the inaccurate sentence "your electricity is much more polluted than France's is."
- phicoh 5y ago
  Ignoring storage, wind and solar are now very cheap. For example, companies now pay to rent pieces of North Sea to place wind parks there.
  - rini17 5y ago
    Storage and transmission.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Pumped water storage also isnt that expensive.
    - MagnumOpus 5y ago
      Pumped water storage is unsurprisingly limited by the same factors as hydro - there aren't that many steep mountains suitable to put lakes on top in most places.
      - pydry 5y ago
        http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
  - enqk 5y ago
    Wind and solar need a lot of resources from mining, which itself uses fossil fuel (for extraction, treatment and transport) and creates a lot of local pollution. Wind and solar take a lot of space that could be used for agriculture, so they compete with important uses of the soil. (I don't know if it's clear how much offshore is a thing, but I suppose this increases also energy expenditure)
    - hardlianotion 5y ago
      In the UK at least, and in general I think, this is not really true. There is plenty of land that is marginal for arable farming purposes and this is what is targeted for wind farming.
    - chess_buster 5y ago
      You can put solar on the roof and you can farm between the wind turbines, so that's not correct.
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        Solar on the roof only matters for single family homes, of which you won't find too many in European cities. Solar on the roof of a 12 story apartment building is not going to do much to help the residents.
    - phicoh 5y ago
      If we look at CO2, which is far from the only metric, but the easiest to compare, then solar panels make up for their production in a period on months and for wind it is a period of years. Both solar and wind provide a significant net reduction of CO2 when you take into account their production. Long term, materials in solar and wind can be re-used. So you would need to mine them only once. Currently, mining is just too cheap to effectively recycle all metals. Wind doesn't takes hardly any space. Wind is not compatible with airfields and residential areas, but that's about it. Wind mixes perfectly fine with argiculture. Due to you people complaining about wind in their neighborhood, there is now a lot of wind at sea. The good thing about offshore wind is that typically there is more wind at sea. So the construction cost is higher, but the production is higher as well. For solar it is more an issue of price. Putting solar on a field is cheap. To some extent putting solar on a field is good for nature. An undisturbed area with shadow is quite nice for small plants, insects, etc. The potential for solar in urban areas is enormous, but often not cheap. For example, existing roofs of large building are not strong enough for lots of solar. Solar can also be mixed with smaller scale argiculture.
- nix23 5y ago
  >exception with the hydro and should stop rubbing it in all the discussions. True, and it's not a exception, but geographically "luck", without mountains and the glaciers that comes with them, Switzerland would be as dry as Turkmenistan. It's just a matter of commonsense to use those altitude differences and water....but when all our glaciers are molten away, we for sure have to go back to nuclear-power.
  - immmmmm 5y ago
    agreed. we are doing hydro because of mountains AND lack of coal. > but when all our glaciers are molten away, we for sure have to go back to nuclear-power. this is inaccurate. you might want to go read more literature related to ice melting and energy transition.
    - nix23 5y ago
      No snow = no glaciers grow = not water in our alps, it's not that hard to understand: https://www.thelocal.ch/20170217/swiss-study-snow-to-largely-disappear-from-alps-by-2100/ https://www.thelocal.ch/20170217/swiss-study-snow-to-largely... https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2018/02/no-glaciers-no-water.html https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2018/02/no-... >In an initial phase, climate change will actually cause the runoff to increase, as water stored as ice is released. However, if the glacier becomes too small, it will reach a tipping point, which we call “peak water”. >Our study highlights the “hot spots” where retreating glaciers will cause water shortages in future. But hey maybe you know some other mysterious ways water is stored in in mountains.
      - stolsvik 5y ago
        Lakes?
        nix23 5y ago
        Sorry to tell you but there are not many lakes in the Maintains, and they are often fed through snow and water-sources from glaciers/snow-fields, from higher above. And there is not a single lake in the mountains with nearly the size/mass of a single glacier.
popol12 5y ago
And whose country's electricity is pumping water up Switzerland's reversible dams during the night ?
- nix23 5y ago
  I don't understand the down-votes you get..it's mostly Frances nuclear-power. But little correction: During the Night IN Wintertime
- immmmmm 5y ago
  My country's energetic policy is catastrophic. Don't get me wrong. Saying that France is great is brutally inaccurate tho.
bvrlt 5y ago
> I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Hydro isn't the panacea. It's destroying ecosystems. Climate change is a problem but the biodiversity collapse another one. https://eu.patagonia.com/fr/en/stories/telling-the-dam-truth/story-71235.html https://eu.patagonia.com/fr/en/stories/telling-the-dam-truth...
- immmmmm 5y ago
  i agree a 100% sir! i was just replying to a comment saying that nuclear is cleaner
lm28469 5y ago
> I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Switzerland in an anomaly on virtually every metrics you can come by.
- immmmmm 5y ago
  yes! and we are the worst on many other metrics!! for instance one of the biggest marketplace for worldwide oil. take any of the worst polluting company, most have their headquarters here.
  - nopcode 5y ago
    Reminds me of those smug Norwegians subsidising EVs with the profits of oil exports. We’re all a bit jealous of course.
mhroth 5y ago
I live in Switzerland too. That hydro comes from water pumped uphill at night by cheap French nuclear power. (/s. Mostly.)
- immmmmm 5y ago
  what the **** ** are you saying. not even 10% of hydro can pump in CH.
renaudg 5y ago
> If you're in a neighbor country of France: congrats, your electricity is much more polluted than France's is. Sorry but that statement is absolutely true, even of Switzerland. As I write, France's consumption-based carbon intensity is 92g, Switzerland is 130 (importing 2.36GW of dirty electricity from Germany, 1.44GW from France) https://app.electricitymap.org/map https://app.electricitymap.org/map

rini17 5y ago

Swiss and Austrians are an exception with the hydro and should stop rubbing it in all the discussions. In Slovakia much of whatever could be dammed already is and still hydro makes only up to 20% of the mix, despite being one of the more hilly countries. Were it not for 70% nuclear, I have no idea how to even go near carbon neutral electricity. Having German electricity prices to pay for renewables is completely impossible.

immmmmm 5y ago
Agreed. I was answering the inaccurate sentence "your electricity is much more polluted than France's is."
phicoh 5y ago
Ignoring storage, wind and solar are now very cheap. For example, companies now pay to rent pieces of North Sea to place wind parks there.
- rini17 5y ago
  Storage and transmission.
- pydry 5y ago
  Pumped water storage also isnt that expensive.
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    Pumped water storage is unsurprisingly limited by the same factors as hydro - there aren't that many steep mountains suitable to put lakes on top in most places.
    - pydry 5y ago
      http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
- enqk 5y ago
  Wind and solar need a lot of resources from mining, which itself uses fossil fuel (for extraction, treatment and transport) and creates a lot of local pollution. Wind and solar take a lot of space that could be used for agriculture, so they compete with important uses of the soil. (I don't know if it's clear how much offshore is a thing, but I suppose this increases also energy expenditure)
  - hardlianotion 5y ago
    In the UK at least, and in general I think, this is not really true. There is plenty of land that is marginal for arable farming purposes and this is what is targeted for wind farming.
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    You can put solar on the roof and you can farm between the wind turbines, so that's not correct.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      Solar on the roof only matters for single family homes, of which you won't find too many in European cities. Solar on the roof of a 12 story apartment building is not going to do much to help the residents.
  - phicoh 5y ago
    If we look at CO2, which is far from the only metric, but the easiest to compare, then solar panels make up for their production in a period on months and for wind it is a period of years. Both solar and wind provide a significant net reduction of CO2 when you take into account their production. Long term, materials in solar and wind can be re-used. So you would need to mine them only once. Currently, mining is just too cheap to effectively recycle all metals. Wind doesn't takes hardly any space. Wind is not compatible with airfields and residential areas, but that's about it. Wind mixes perfectly fine with argiculture. Due to you people complaining about wind in their neighborhood, there is now a lot of wind at sea. The good thing about offshore wind is that typically there is more wind at sea. So the construction cost is higher, but the production is higher as well. For solar it is more an issue of price. Putting solar on a field is cheap. To some extent putting solar on a field is good for nature. An undisturbed area with shadow is quite nice for small plants, insects, etc. The potential for solar in urban areas is enormous, but often not cheap. For example, existing roofs of large building are not strong enough for lots of solar. Solar can also be mixed with smaller scale argiculture.
nix23 5y ago
>exception with the hydro and should stop rubbing it in all the discussions. True, and it's not a exception, but geographically "luck", without mountains and the glaciers that comes with them, Switzerland would be as dry as Turkmenistan. It's just a matter of commonsense to use those altitude differences and water....but when all our glaciers are molten away, we for sure have to go back to nuclear-power.
- immmmmm 5y ago
  agreed. we are doing hydro because of mountains AND lack of coal. > but when all our glaciers are molten away, we for sure have to go back to nuclear-power. this is inaccurate. you might want to go read more literature related to ice melting and energy transition.
  - nix23 5y ago
    No snow = no glaciers grow = not water in our alps, it's not that hard to understand: https://www.thelocal.ch/20170217/swiss-study-snow-to-largely-disappear-from-alps-by-2100/ https://www.thelocal.ch/20170217/swiss-study-snow-to-largely... https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2018/02/no-glaciers-no-water.html https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2018/02/no-... >In an initial phase, climate change will actually cause the runoff to increase, as water stored as ice is released. However, if the glacier becomes too small, it will reach a tipping point, which we call “peak water”. >Our study highlights the “hot spots” where retreating glaciers will cause water shortages in future. But hey maybe you know some other mysterious ways water is stored in in mountains.
    - stolsvik 5y ago
      Lakes?
      - nix23 5y ago
        Sorry to tell you but there are not many lakes in the Maintains, and they are often fed through snow and water-sources from glaciers/snow-fields, from higher above. And there is not a single lake in the mountains with nearly the size/mass of a single glacier.

popol12 5y ago

And whose country's electricity is pumping water up Switzerland's reversible dams during the night ?

nix23 5y ago
I don't understand the down-votes you get..it's mostly Frances nuclear-power. But little correction: During the Night IN Wintertime
immmmmm 5y ago
My country's energetic policy is catastrophic. Don't get me wrong. Saying that France is great is brutally inaccurate tho.

bvrlt 5y ago

> I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Hydro isn't the panacea. It's destroying ecosystems. Climate change is a problem but the biodiversity collapse another one. https://eu.patagonia.com/fr/en/stories/telling-the-dam-truth/story-71235.html https://eu.patagonia.com/fr/en/stories/telling-the-dam-truth...

immmmmm 5y ago
i agree a 100% sir! i was just replying to a comment saying that nuclear is cleaner

lm28469 5y ago

> I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Switzerland in an anomaly on virtually every metrics you can come by.

immmmmm 5y ago
yes! and we are the worst on many other metrics!! for instance one of the biggest marketplace for worldwide oil. take any of the worst polluting company, most have their headquarters here.
- nopcode 5y ago
  Reminds me of those smug Norwegians subsidising EVs with the profits of oil exports. We’re all a bit jealous of course.

mhroth 5y ago

I live in Switzerland too. That hydro comes from water pumped uphill at night by cheap French nuclear power. (/s. Mostly.)

immmmmm 5y ago
what the **** ** are you saying. not even 10% of hydro can pump in CH.

renaudg 5y ago

> If you're in a neighbor country of France: congrats, your electricity is much more polluted than France's is. Sorry but that statement is absolutely true, even of Switzerland. As I write, France's consumption-based carbon intensity is 92g, Switzerland is 130 (importing 2.36GW of dirty electricity from Germany, 1.44GW from France) https://app.electricitymap.org/map https://app.electricitymap.org/map