8 ms·

Greece passes first climate law, vows to cut dependence on fossil fuels

92 points by ddtaylor 4y ago

sn0w_crash 4y ago
Proven 4y ago
"Let's experiment with the most dependent provinces first..." That is what happens when globalists and climatists from Brussels grab you by your... budgets. Things haven't been going great for Greece since Varoufakis betrayed his voters and local politicians became agents of the EU. Sad!
- rglullis 4y ago
  I am vouching this comment as an attempt to get you out of the soapbox. Speaking as an EU skeptic and as someone who daydreams of convincing the wife to get some land in Crete and enjoy a meraklis life, please reconsider the tone of your posts. They are only inflammatory and do not help any kind of healthy debate.
akomtu 4y ago
Law 6: Court Attention at all Cost (The 48 Laws of Power). Greece is trying to stay relevant.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Greece is trying to stay relevant Curious what you mean? Beyond the cultural heritage, they’re a NATO member in a semi-hostile state with Turkey and, as of today, Iran.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    Quite a tangent, but Turkey is also a core member of NATO.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      Only because they control the Bosporus. It's an alliance of convenience.
      - petre 4y ago
        Not only that, but they're a gate to the Middle East and the Caucaz and it has always counterbalanced Russia in the Black Sea. This is even more important now because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yes, their current president is a less reliable partner than the kemalists. Turkey and Greece are super important for the regional stability in Southeastern Europe. Together they control most of the waterways in the region. You should view most of the Aegean along with the Sea of Crete as Greece, because it is Greek territorial waters and EEZ
- uxp100 4y ago
  Is that good? Bad? I think culturally Greece will be relevant for a long time to come because of the construction of Ancient Greece as a sort of origin for “western society.” Economically, well, you have to try something, right? I may agree in the sense that I don’t think Greece would be doing this if they were an economic powerhouse, doing great thanks to oil. But, is it bad to do something not completely altruistically?
  - akomtu 4y ago
    The legacy of Ancient Greece is relevant, not the nation that happens to live there today. Greece is bankrupt. It made this cute announcement because it costs the country nothing, and should anything go wrong, it would be rescued by the EU.
    - xaedes 4y ago
      > Greece is bankrupt From 4 Apr 2022: Greece has received three international bailouts from the euro zone and the IMF worth 280 billion euros ($307.19 billion) since 2010. It emerged from its latest bailout in 2018 and has relied on the debt markets to cover its borrowing needs since. “Greece concluded today the repayment of its debts to the IMF,” Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said in a statement. After previous early repayments to the IMF, Greece owed 1.9 billion euros in loans due by 2024, the last batch of a total of 28 billion euros the Fund provided between 2010 and 2014. https://www.reuters.com/article/greece-economy-imf-idUSKCN2LW1Z5 https://www.reuters.com/article/greece-economy-imf-idUSKCN2L...
    - s5300 4y ago
      It may be bankrupt but it’s still an amazing place to live. I’m sure they’ll start catering to digital nomads or whatever & make good revenue off it.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    They'll have to get their citizens to pay their taxes first.
ncmncm 4y ago
Greece will soon have the cheapest power in Europe if they run the program intelligently. Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage, and plenty of sunshine and wind year-round. Transmission lines out to the rest of Europe could make them a major exporter.
- krasin 4y ago
  >Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage I am curious about what you mean, can you please elaborate?
  - amelius 4y ago
    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/german-institute-successfully-tests-underwater-energy-storage-sphere/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/german-institute-suc...
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      This is a lab test. HN gets almost daily 'lab test' breakthroughs in batteries and energy tech and yet, turning those breakthroughs into practical, engineered services remains quite elusive.
    - FunnyBadger 4y ago
      It takes a MINIMUM of 20 years to go from "lab to fab" or "science experiment in a lab to productively useful in real life". Maybe this indicates that clock has started but the requirement for that 20 years is 20 years of fully funded R&D (small R, big D) - otherwise bump the 20 years up to infinity without continuous funding.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        That's fine, we don't have enough renewable generating capacity to charge up storage from yet. After will be the right time to build storage. But pumping water and air, driving winches, and building pressure vessels are all mature tech.
olivermarks 4y ago
Let's hope Greece starts to focus on lots of small modular nuclear reactors!
- rglullis 4y ago
  They have lots of seismic activity and are in the middle of the Mediterranean. Any reactor leakage would mean disaster for all of Europe and Africa.
  - petre 4y ago
    They might have geothermal potential as well on those islands. Otherwise wind might be a good option, along with solar. In Fuertaventura wind is almost base load power because you have >10 kt most if not all of the time.
  - korantu 4y ago
    Modern nuclear plants can withstand seismic activity. Current nuclear plants just dont fail in such way as to "threaten all of Europe and Africa"
    - rglullis 4y ago
      How "current" was Fukushima, and why could they detect traces of radioactive material in California? I'm not against nuclear, but can we please not build them in places that present unnecessary risks?
      - olivermarks 4y ago
        Fukishima was a giant 1960's era GE nuclear plant. Like everything else in the technology world there has been huge evolution since then. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-hopes-for-UK-SMR-online-by-2029 https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-hope...
        rglullis 4y ago
AddingValue 4y ago
Yeah there is enough energy from sun & wind, all it takes is mobilize the investments. Greece can do it! Scotland also plans big wind park. There are houses that already run on 100% renewables (summer solar generated hydrogen)
tsoukase 4y ago
Cool down please. You talk about Greece, where a government change can undo in record time what the previous has made. We passed the same laws over and over many times about health, education etc since the last decade. Anything that lasts more than a couple of years is in jeopardy.
spapas82 4y ago
I am Greek and I'd like to express a different opinion. Let me first explain the situatin here: Greece has a very large amount of coal on its mountains; because of that, the Greek Public Power Corporation used to use its own thermoelectric power plants (i.e power factories that burn coal) to power almost all of Greece. The only parts of Greece that were not powered by these coal plants were most islands because they were not connected with the main network and used diesel engines to generate power. In any case, the thig is that this made Greece be self-sufficient on power and allowed us to pay a very small price on electrical bills (because coal is very cheap and we don't need to import it; actually the Greek Public Power Corporation owns the coal mines so it doesn't even pay for it, it only mines it). Unfortuanately, over the last 5-10 years this has changed greatly: The EU has passed some laws that force all members to have a minimum amount of "green" power (i.e wind / sun etc). This may seem like a good thing on first sight (Greece has a lot of sun and wind) but it is very, very problematic: The "green" power is much more expensive than traditional power (needs a lot of investments in new power plants which also are much more expensive than coal) and also it is much less reliable than good old coal (you also need power at night or when there's no wind, power cannot be saved to be used later). On top of that, the EU has also passed some CO2 laws that more or less forbid us to use our coal plants because if we keep using them we'll need to pay a very big fine for every ton of CO2 these plants produce. This resulted in a need for Greece to use imported natural gas to cover its power needs. The end result because of these two fine EU laws is that is we greeks pay the most expensive power in the EU, despite being one of the poorest countries! So, no matter what the article says or what laws have been passed, the truth is that: Greece cannot use its own coal nor its thermoelectric power plants because the EU will not allow Greece to use it. Greece is forced to import solar panels and wind turbines from abroad (while thermoelectric power plants that have been built a few years ago have been left to rot). Greece is also forced to use imported natural gas to cover its needs (while our mountains are full of coal).
- TheSoftwareGuy 4y ago
  Well, yeah. Coal is one of the worst power sources, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Of course it needs to be phased out. This is nothing new
- 4y ago
craftoman 4y ago
All good but there's an elephant in the room called corruption. I don't think Greece will ever reduce the levels of corruption, even today the current party has 300M in dept and having major scandals that get covered by the controlled TV media.

92 points by ddtaylor 4y ago

"Let's experiment with the most dependent provinces first..." That is what happens when globalists and climatists from Brussels grab you by your... budgets. Things haven't been going great for Greece since Varoufakis betrayed his voters and local politicians became agents of the EU. Sad!

rglullis 4y ago
I am vouching this comment as an attempt to get you out of the soapbox. Speaking as an EU skeptic and as someone who daydreams of convincing the wife to get some land in Crete and enjoy a meraklis life, please reconsider the tone of your posts. They are only inflammatory and do not help any kind of healthy debate.

akomtu 4y ago

Law 6: Court Attention at all Cost (The 48 Laws of Power). Greece is trying to stay relevant.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Greece is trying to stay relevant Curious what you mean? Beyond the cultural heritage, they’re a NATO member in a semi-hostile state with Turkey and, as of today, Iran.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Quite a tangent, but Turkey is also a core member of NATO.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Only because they control the Bosporus. It's an alliance of convenience.
    - petre 4y ago
      Not only that, but they're a gate to the Middle East and the Caucaz and it has always counterbalanced Russia in the Black Sea. This is even more important now because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yes, their current president is a less reliable partner than the kemalists. Turkey and Greece are super important for the regional stability in Southeastern Europe. Together they control most of the waterways in the region. You should view most of the Aegean along with the Sea of Crete as Greece, because it is Greek territorial waters and EEZ
uxp100 4y ago
Is that good? Bad? I think culturally Greece will be relevant for a long time to come because of the construction of Ancient Greece as a sort of origin for “western society.” Economically, well, you have to try something, right? I may agree in the sense that I don’t think Greece would be doing this if they were an economic powerhouse, doing great thanks to oil. But, is it bad to do something not completely altruistically?
- akomtu 4y ago
  The legacy of Ancient Greece is relevant, not the nation that happens to live there today. Greece is bankrupt. It made this cute announcement because it costs the country nothing, and should anything go wrong, it would be rescued by the EU.
  - xaedes 4y ago
    > Greece is bankrupt From 4 Apr 2022: Greece has received three international bailouts from the euro zone and the IMF worth 280 billion euros ($307.19 billion) since 2010. It emerged from its latest bailout in 2018 and has relied on the debt markets to cover its borrowing needs since. “Greece concluded today the repayment of its debts to the IMF,” Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said in a statement. After previous early repayments to the IMF, Greece owed 1.9 billion euros in loans due by 2024, the last batch of a total of 28 billion euros the Fund provided between 2010 and 2014. https://www.reuters.com/article/greece-economy-imf-idUSKCN2LW1Z5 https://www.reuters.com/article/greece-economy-imf-idUSKCN2L...
  - s5300 4y ago
    It may be bankrupt but it’s still an amazing place to live. I’m sure they’ll start catering to digital nomads or whatever & make good revenue off it.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  They'll have to get their citizens to pay their taxes first.

ncmncm 4y ago

Greece will soon have the cheapest power in Europe if they run the program intelligently. Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage, and plenty of sunshine and wind year-round. Transmission lines out to the rest of Europe could make them a major exporter.

krasin 4y ago
>Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage I am curious about what you mean, can you please elaborate?
- amelius 4y ago
  https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/german-institute-successfully-tests-underwater-energy-storage-sphere/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/german-institute-suc...
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    This is a lab test. HN gets almost daily 'lab test' breakthroughs in batteries and energy tech and yet, turning those breakthroughs into practical, engineered services remains quite elusive.
  - FunnyBadger 4y ago
    It takes a MINIMUM of 20 years to go from "lab to fab" or "science experiment in a lab to productively useful in real life". Maybe this indicates that clock has started but the requirement for that 20 years is 20 years of fully funded R&D (small R, big D) - otherwise bump the 20 years up to infinity without continuous funding.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      That's fine, we don't have enough renewable generating capacity to charge up storage from yet. After will be the right time to build storage. But pumping water and air, driving winches, and building pressure vessels are all mature tech.

olivermarks 4y ago

Let's hope Greece starts to focus on lots of small modular nuclear reactors!

rglullis 4y ago
They have lots of seismic activity and are in the middle of the Mediterranean. Any reactor leakage would mean disaster for all of Europe and Africa.
- petre 4y ago
  They might have geothermal potential as well on those islands. Otherwise wind might be a good option, along with solar. In Fuertaventura wind is almost base load power because you have >10 kt most if not all of the time.
- korantu 4y ago
  Modern nuclear plants can withstand seismic activity. Current nuclear plants just dont fail in such way as to "threaten all of Europe and Africa"
  - rglullis 4y ago
    How "current" was Fukushima, and why could they detect traces of radioactive material in California? I'm not against nuclear, but can we please not build them in places that present unnecessary risks?
    - olivermarks 4y ago
      Fukishima was a giant 1960's era GE nuclear plant. Like everything else in the technology world there has been huge evolution since then. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-hopes-for-UK-SMR-online-by-2029 https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-hope...
      - rglullis 4y ago

AddingValue 4y ago

Yeah there is enough energy from sun & wind, all it takes is mobilize the investments. Greece can do it! Scotland also plans big wind park. There are houses that already run on 100% renewables (summer solar generated hydrogen)

tsoukase 4y ago

Cool down please. You talk about Greece, where a government change can undo in record time what the previous has made. We passed the same laws over and over many times about health, education etc since the last decade. Anything that lasts more than a couple of years is in jeopardy.

spapas82 4y ago

I am Greek and I'd like to express a different opinion. Let me first explain the situatin here: Greece has a very large amount of coal on its mountains; because of that, the Greek Public Power Corporation used to use its own thermoelectric power plants (i.e power factories that burn coal) to power almost all of Greece. The only parts of Greece that were not powered by these coal plants were most islands because they were not connected with the main network and used diesel engines to generate power. In any case, the thig is that this made Greece be self-sufficient on power and allowed us to pay a very small price on electrical bills (because coal is very cheap and we don't need to import it; actually the Greek Public Power Corporation owns the coal mines so it doesn't even pay for it, it only mines it). Unfortuanately, over the last 5-10 years this has changed greatly: The EU has passed some laws that force all members to have a minimum amount of "green" power (i.e wind / sun etc). This may seem like a good thing on first sight (Greece has a lot of sun and wind) but it is very, very problematic: The "green" power is much more expensive than traditional power (needs a lot of investments in new power plants which also are much more expensive than coal) and also it is much less reliable than good old coal (you also need power at night or when there's no wind, power cannot be saved to be used later). On top of that, the EU has also passed some CO2 laws that more or less forbid us to use our coal plants because if we keep using them we'll need to pay a very big fine for every ton of CO2 these plants produce. This resulted in a need for Greece to use imported natural gas to cover its power needs. The end result because of these two fine EU laws is that is we greeks pay the most expensive power in the EU, despite being one of the poorest countries! So, no matter what the article says or what laws have been passed, the truth is that: Greece cannot use its own coal nor its thermoelectric power plants because the EU will not allow Greece to use it. Greece is forced to import solar panels and wind turbines from abroad (while thermoelectric power plants that have been built a few years ago have been left to rot). Greece is also forced to use imported natural gas to cover its needs (while our mountains are full of coal).

TheSoftwareGuy 4y ago
Well, yeah. Coal is one of the worst power sources, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Of course it needs to be phased out. This is nothing new
4y ago

craftoman 4y ago

All good but there's an elephant in the room called corruption. I don't think Greece will ever reduce the levels of corruption, even today the current party has 300M in dept and having major scandals that get covered by the controlled TV media.