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> what with France rationing power this winter Said like that it sounds like rolling blackout and the state enforcing energy consumption at gun point. There w

> what with France rationing power this winter Said like that it sounds like rolling blackout and the state enforcing energy consumption at gun point. There was a lot of noise because the government planned some of these things. But in practice it meant reducing the temperature of public swimming pools a bit, reducing/shutting down public lighting deep in the night, reducing temperatures in office building by one or two degrees. I would even say this "stressor" will be beneficial, at least at a local level. The real downside is the increased energy bill for people. Finally, a large part of this issue is self-inflicted as a failure to plan power plants maintenance.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
From what I gather, it's not just France. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine the price of gas and electric power in the European Union has gone up enormously. https://jacquesmattheij.com/drastically-reducing-our-powerbill/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/drastically-reducing-our-powerbi...
- Roark66 4y ago
  Indeed, here in Poland there have been state subsidies for replacing individual household heat sources from coal to gas(and heat pumps etc) for quite some time. This year a lot of people were scrambling to find those old coal burners and reinstall them in the heir homes again. You can actually smell a difference. I live in non-industrial North of the country basically in the country side. Nearest town has 5k people and even here when temperatures dropped I could smell shitty coal being burned when I went to town. I know the smell because I have a hobby forge and I use (good) coal sometimes. I have to say this is the first time in my life I could actually smell it in the air used by other people here. This is a heavily forested region and most people used wood as fuel. However with current prices and availability, coal (and shitty one too) is back. As for prices I can assure you it could've been much worse if not for the state subsidies that were put in place very quickly and the state bringing in coal on massive ships from abroad. I heat my house with wood pellets and a "smart" furnace that has very high efficiency. Also I have a benefit of good insulation. In previous years I would pay about $500 for a year's supply of fuel (this is just house heating, water for bathrooms is heated with electricity). This year I bought before the majority of the price increases hit and I paid $1200 (this is for 2.5 tons of the "premium" version of the stuff). Then I got $800 back from the state as heating subsidy. So overall it cost me less than in an usual year. Then there is the state sanctioned freeze on the price of gas for private people (not businesses) and same for electricity until you use up 2MWh.Imagine how bad it would be without it. Still this cost is well worth it.
- mynameisnull 4y ago
  Yes but we should have been effectively immune because we have so much nuclear power and we were brought to this situation by a combination of several things: lack of will to continue building new power plants, maintenance schedules being behind due to Covid, and the way regulations are retroactively applied means the technical challenges are substantial in the more aged plants leaving France well below optimal nuclear capacity when it is most needed, even with that our share of gas usage to generate electricity is small and the price of electricity should be largely decoupled from gas in a normal situation. We still use too much gas to heat our homes, but I believe if we had had the capacity expected we could have reduced that substantially by having people use electric heaters without raising everyone’s electricity bill hugely .. but alas not enough plants online have lead to France feeling the pain like everyone else.
Arnt 4y ago
The maintenance plans weren't bad. "Inspect [x] thoroughly every [y] years": Good. "Take plants offline for repairs immediately if problems on [long list] are seen": Good. "Build a few extra plants because some will be down for maintenance": Good. "Arrange for gas-fired power in case lots of plants are down": Good. IMO what's bad is some people's expectations. One of the countries within the power grid is at war. Some people expect that to have no impact on the grid.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Ukraine wasn't even on the power grid when the war began, they took IIRC 2-3 months to sever the ties to Russia and integrate the Ukrainian power grid. The problem, at least for the sorry state of electricity prices, isn't that Ukraine was at war... it was/is that the French did an absurdly large bet on nuclear power while at the same time tying at least 40% of heating to resistive heating, but failed to have a backup plan other than "hope the rest of Europe has excess capacity" once it became clear that Flamanville was under massive delays, and on top of that they massively neglected maintenance of their aging nuclear fleet even before Covid hit and prevented maintenance. They also did not plan ahead for climate change-induced massive droughts that led to an almost complete lack of cooling water for the plants. They were essentially closing their eyes to the pile-up of delays at Flamanville and as a result they had a "perfect storm" event in the summer.
  - Arnt 4y ago
    The planning started in 2005 and physical work started 2017. It finished months ahead of schedule, but Ukraine would have been connected today even if work had finished on schedule.
  - berkes 4y ago
    Which is to be expected when you build a massively centralized, both physical and organisational, power system. And which is my main issue with nuclear power: it isn't distributed, but centralized and heavily dependent on governments and extreme long-term-planning. Which is a recipe for disaster. The chance that Flamaville would be delivered late is about 100%. Reacting to rapid changes like a war (spiking fuel prices or making NG unattainable) always slow, and always late if possible at all. So, aside from all the other arguments against nuclear power, it is slow, expensive, centralized and heavily dependent on governments; it's the closest you'll get to a government-ran electricity production. All of which make me wonder every time why the European left (pro- government) are against it, but the right (market liberalism) love it. It should be the exact opposite. The entire opposite is solar: heavily distributed, privately owned and immensely fast. Wind is somewhere in-between, cheaper and faster to build than a CHP, but obviously more centralized than solar.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

From what I gather, it's not just France. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine the price of gas and electric power in the European Union has gone up enormously. https://jacquesmattheij.com/drastically-reducing-our-powerbill/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/drastically-reducing-our-powerbi...

Roark66 4y ago
Indeed, here in Poland there have been state subsidies for replacing individual household heat sources from coal to gas(and heat pumps etc) for quite some time. This year a lot of people were scrambling to find those old coal burners and reinstall them in the heir homes again. You can actually smell a difference. I live in non-industrial North of the country basically in the country side. Nearest town has 5k people and even here when temperatures dropped I could smell shitty coal being burned when I went to town. I know the smell because I have a hobby forge and I use (good) coal sometimes. I have to say this is the first time in my life I could actually smell it in the air used by other people here. This is a heavily forested region and most people used wood as fuel. However with current prices and availability, coal (and shitty one too) is back. As for prices I can assure you it could've been much worse if not for the state subsidies that were put in place very quickly and the state bringing in coal on massive ships from abroad. I heat my house with wood pellets and a "smart" furnace that has very high efficiency. Also I have a benefit of good insulation. In previous years I would pay about $500 for a year's supply of fuel (this is just house heating, water for bathrooms is heated with electricity). This year I bought before the majority of the price increases hit and I paid $1200 (this is for 2.5 tons of the "premium" version of the stuff). Then I got $800 back from the state as heating subsidy. So overall it cost me less than in an usual year. Then there is the state sanctioned freeze on the price of gas for private people (not businesses) and same for electricity until you use up 2MWh.Imagine how bad it would be without it. Still this cost is well worth it.
mynameisnull 4y ago
Yes but we should have been effectively immune because we have so much nuclear power and we were brought to this situation by a combination of several things: lack of will to continue building new power plants, maintenance schedules being behind due to Covid, and the way regulations are retroactively applied means the technical challenges are substantial in the more aged plants leaving France well below optimal nuclear capacity when it is most needed, even with that our share of gas usage to generate electricity is small and the price of electricity should be largely decoupled from gas in a normal situation. We still use too much gas to heat our homes, but I believe if we had had the capacity expected we could have reduced that substantially by having people use electric heaters without raising everyone’s electricity bill hugely .. but alas not enough plants online have lead to France feeling the pain like everyone else.

Arnt 4y ago

The maintenance plans weren't bad. "Inspect [x] thoroughly every [y] years": Good. "Take plants offline for repairs immediately if problems on [long list] are seen": Good. "Build a few extra plants because some will be down for maintenance": Good. "Arrange for gas-fired power in case lots of plants are down": Good. IMO what's bad is some people's expectations. One of the countries within the power grid is at war. Some people expect that to have no impact on the grid.

mschuster91 4y ago
Ukraine wasn't even on the power grid when the war began, they took IIRC 2-3 months to sever the ties to Russia and integrate the Ukrainian power grid. The problem, at least for the sorry state of electricity prices, isn't that Ukraine was at war... it was/is that the French did an absurdly large bet on nuclear power while at the same time tying at least 40% of heating to resistive heating, but failed to have a backup plan other than "hope the rest of Europe has excess capacity" once it became clear that Flamanville was under massive delays, and on top of that they massively neglected maintenance of their aging nuclear fleet even before Covid hit and prevented maintenance. They also did not plan ahead for climate change-induced massive droughts that led to an almost complete lack of cooling water for the plants. They were essentially closing their eyes to the pile-up of delays at Flamanville and as a result they had a "perfect storm" event in the summer.
- Arnt 4y ago
  The planning started in 2005 and physical work started 2017. It finished months ahead of schedule, but Ukraine would have been connected today even if work had finished on schedule.
- berkes 4y ago
  Which is to be expected when you build a massively centralized, both physical and organisational, power system. And which is my main issue with nuclear power: it isn't distributed, but centralized and heavily dependent on governments and extreme long-term-planning. Which is a recipe for disaster. The chance that Flamaville would be delivered late is about 100%. Reacting to rapid changes like a war (spiking fuel prices or making NG unattainable) always slow, and always late if possible at all. So, aside from all the other arguments against nuclear power, it is slow, expensive, centralized and heavily dependent on governments; it's the closest you'll get to a government-ran electricity production. All of which make me wonder every time why the European left (pro- government) are against it, but the right (market liberalism) love it. It should be the exact opposite. The entire opposite is solar: heavily distributed, privately owned and immensely fast. Wind is somewhere in-between, cheaper and faster to build than a CHP, but obviously more centralized than solar.