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> The European energy war of 2022 will almost certainly go down in history, along with the Treaty of Versailles, as one of the worst economic blunders in histor

• pstuart 4y ago
  That appears to be the one bright side of the war. Hopefully it will accelerate the migration to renewables.
  • vorpalhex 4y ago
    Can't heat off solar. Not meaningfully in a cold climate.
    • euroderf 4y ago
      Finland is trying heat storage - like the "sand battery" - and should be pushing heat pumps much, much harder than it is.
      • dcdc123 4y ago
        There is something similar [1] in Nevada, USA that uses molten salt to store energy. I drove through a few months ago and was blown away by it. The top of the tower was so bright that I could see it from the moment it started to crest the horizon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr...
    • atemerev 4y ago
      Nuclear is pure heat, though.
      • vorpalhex 4y ago
        How do you transfer that heat? Every conversion is lossy.
        • atemerev 4y ago
          Small modular reactors being closer to consumers, or, well, just excess electricity (since nuclear generates no CO2, it is trivial to do overprovision).
        • senectus1 4y ago
          not a nuclear proponent. but the maxim "don't let perfect be the enemy of good". just because its lossy doesn't mean we can the idea.
    • ceejayoz 4y ago
      98% of Norway's energy comes from renewable sources.
      • haunter 4y ago
        Oh we just need to build some fjords! How come we didn't think about that? 96% of the renewable energy comes from hydropower https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/renewable-energy/renewable-energy-production-in-norway/id2343462/ https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/renewable-energy...
        • ceejayoz 4y ago
          Norway doesn't generate power from fjords. Cold climates have a variety of renewable energy options; wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, etc. If solar and wind can be used in Greenland (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01189-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01189-x), they can be used virtually anywhere.
          • haunter 4y ago
            >If solar and wind can be used in Greenland, they can be used virtually anywhere. Population: 57,000. Not even comparable to most countries at all
            • ceejayoz 4y ago
              The claim is that solar can't work in cold climates. That's demonstrably untrue. (The original upthread post also said renewables, not just solar, so the objections are doubly silly.)
              • JoeAltmaier 4y ago
                Cold climates are often at high latitudes. The sun is oblique at those latitudes. So solar is at it's most inefficient there. An argument can be made that solar is not a good choice in 'cold climates'
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
      Solar panels gain efficiency in the cold. In winter there is less sunlight so they produce less power overall (40-60%), but you could double up the panels or add alternative energy generating methods.
      • yodelshady 4y ago
        • ceejayoz 4y ago
          I went to https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html, clicked on southern UK, and it gave me "Total loss [%]: -18.6". Changes in output due to: Angle of incidence [%]: -3.08 Spectral effects [%]: 1.48 Temperature and low irradiance [%]: -3.77 I think you’ve mixed up total efficiency with efficiency loss.
        • olddustytrail 4y ago
          No they aren't; don't be daft. Power companies and grid operators do their own research. They're not reading HN comments and blindly following their advice. Use some common sense. And there is plenty of solar in Scotland so it's clearly not that bad.
    • pstuart 4y ago
      It needs to be addressed from every angle simultaneously. Wind/solar/geothermal/smart grid/heat pumps/efficiency upgrades/etc. It's a solvable problem if we all agreed to do it.
  • Animats 4y ago
    It had better. The UK was, for a few years, an oil and gas exporter. Look at it now. The North Sea fields have run down.[1] Fracking bought another decade or so, then the downtrend resumed. [1] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/946/cpsprodpb/10F88/production/_124721596_nsta-oil-production-nc.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/946/cpsprodpb/10F88/production...
    • pstuart 4y ago
      Offshore wind seems to have arrived -- competitive pricing even without subsidies. We should be going full tilt boogie with them.
  • voidr 4y ago
    Ukraine has increased its coal mining because it's going to burn it and it will give Poland some as well. In Hungary Mr Orbán came up with the genius idea of burning wood. I would love to live in the world of renewables, but reality is that it's not as easy as flipping s switch. We can't even make batteries without causing immense pollution and harm to the environment.
    • nathanaldensr 4y ago
      Not only harming the environment but virtually enslaving people to mine materials.
    • pstuart 4y ago
      I know that good intentions and $5 will get you a coffee these days, but the economics of renewables is getting more compelling day by day. We need more carrot (cheaper prices) and more stick (taxes/regulations) on fossil fuels to accelerate this change. I would think that energy independence would be valuable to sovereign nations -- relying on others for the energy you need is risky business when things get messy.
      • voidr 4y ago
        > the economics of renewables is getting more compelling day by day. It's actually not getting much better, let's assume that we have multiple clean energy sources that can sustain our demands and I'll explain why I don't think we are not a in a good place. Building electric cars causes so much pollution that you have to drive a lot (see: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d... ) to reach parity with gasoline powered cars and even then I'm not sure if you are still able to use your battery. At the moment the single problem electric cars actually solve is air quality within bigger cities, however it merely shifts the pollution elsewhere. In countries where it can get cold, you usually have gas heaters, replacing those would be a Herculean task, it would cost astronomical amounts of money which is just unimaginable in the current economy. Even if you have your clean energy sources the economics are not there yet. > We need more carrot (cheaper prices) and more stick (taxes/regulations) on fossil fuels to accelerate this change. You will likely end up accelerating the decline of your economy and will be forced into burning coal. We do't need more incentives, they are already there, fossil fuels are horribly expensive so if there is a way to get around them, the private sector will find a way, you don't need to give them handouts and you don't need to punish them with taxes. Unfortunately we do need to be realistic and stop nuclear shaming. > I would think that energy independence would be valuable to sovereign nations -- relying on others for the energy you need is risky business when things get messy. Absolutely, unfortunately geography is not equally kind to all countries, therefore not all countries can be truly sovereign, large blocs like the US and EU have a chance to do become independent, however not all individual EU countries have that luxury. I am pro renewable energy and I do believe we need to move closer and closer to a world where we use clean energy more and more, however I also believe we need to be sober, understand reality and not give in to the hype marketing and cults.
• blackhaz 4y ago
  Clearly ignoring all the signals since the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008.
  • r00fus 4y ago
    s/ignoring/profiting from/ In Germany, Gerhardt Schroeder and Angela Merkel were perfectly fine promoting Russian gas and shutting down nuclear to improve their own positions and economic outcomes. The same corruption happened in many places throughout Europe. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
    • Zealotux 4y ago
      >Since leaving public office, Schröder has worked for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom.
  • simonh 4y ago
    And the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Obama's policy of not arming Ukraine because Ukraine was not a US priority and more important to Russia than to the USA (yes, he said that). Trump shaking down Zelensky for political favours as a condition on security assistance probably didn't help either, way to signals support for an ally.
• warinukraine 4y ago
  > What will go down as one of the worst blunders in history is allowing Europe to become so dependent on a single hostile country for energy. Correctomundo, thank you so much for this. It was making my skin crawl to see this called an "economic blunder". Your take is 100% correct. In fact I would go farther and suggest that decision makers should be investigated at the highest level. Lots of German ones have interest in Russian oil companies. If "compromising European security to further your own interests" isn't a crime yet we need to make it so. One as serious as espionage or treason.
• voidr 4y ago
  > Europe to become so dependent on a single hostile country for energy. Name peaceful countries that have the capacity for energy export at that scale to Europe.
  • dijit 4y ago
    I'm downvoting you for attacking a straw-man. 1) the capacity should exist for the EU to be energy independent 2) capacity that cannot be attained need not be supplied by only a single source 3) peaceful countries exist in great amounts but we would consider them either too far to be serviceable without impact to the planet (importing/shipping fuel from Australia or the USA); or we would consider ourselves to be exploiting people (Africa).
    • voidr 4y ago
      > I'm downvoting you for attacking a straw-man. It's not that I care, but you should be downvoting spam, not people who have different takes. I'm also puzzled how is it a strawman if I was quoting it. > 1) the capacity should exist for the EU to be energy independent Please show it then and I'll go to Brussels myself and inform them about it. > 2) capacity that cannot be attained need not be supplied by only a single source Maybe instead of downvoting, you should read things first, I used plural 'countries'. > 3) peaceful countries exist in great amounts but we would consider them either too far to be serviceable without impact to the planet I'm sure there is also plenty of gas in the Solar system, yet somehow it might as well not exist from our point of view. > the USA I said peaceful, countries that are constantly at war with other countries don't count as peaceful. > or we would consider ourselves to be exploiting people (Africa). The reason Europe does not buy gas from Africa is because of wars and high terrorism, it would be a nightmare to secure it, even in the Baltic terrorists can blow pipelines up. I also find it curious that you would consider buying energy from Africa exploitation.
  • alkonaut 4y ago
    All of them, as almost all developed nations can now build nuclear, for example. It just requires not being reliant on fossil fuel. Which would have been easy to avoid had the process started earlier. The first mistake was being reliant on gas for energy. The second mistake was that it was Russian gas. It’s the first mistake that should have been avoided, not the second.
• htk 4y ago
  A sample of article's titles by the same author: -Freezing Yourself To Own Putin -Demanding roubles for gas is a victory for Putin -Sanctions won’t hurt Russia -The West played itself with Russia sanctions -You can’t blame Russia for all the world’s problems -Banning Russia from SWIFT will hurt the West
  • dcdc123 4y ago
    I think I will pass on reading those...