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As a Swede the third one is terrifying, unifying the energy market has been catastrophic for us, both price and environment wise. The latest is added taxes due

As a Swede the third one is terrifying, unifying the energy market has been catastrophic for us, both price and environment wise. The latest is added taxes due to choke points designed by EU from the first place..

causalscience 9mo ago
Wanna tell us more? Why has unifying the energy market been catastrophic for Sweden?
- techpression 9mo ago
  Having to pay more because of Germany going fossil fuel like crazy. When there’s no wind and it’s dark they cause most of EU to suffer since the cost of their coal plants are so high. We also send a lot of green energy out of the country only to import coal powered from Denmark (not as major, mostly happens due to high consumptions) And we’re also getting a price spike fee, don’t dare to put on the dish washer when your neighbor is! All this in a country where electricity was almost free (to be fair, our dismantling of nuclear doesn’t help here)
- brabel 9mo ago
  Sweden has plenty of cheap hydropower. But as prices are now tied to countries like Germany which made catastrophic decisions around energy, Swedes have to pay much more than if Sweden had an independent energy market.
  - causalscience 9mo ago
    In that case it sounds like "unification was bad" is an unfair characterization. Unification was bad by proxy, due to the bad decisions of Germany. If Germany had made better decisions, unification would've been good as Sweden would've had lower prices on a larger market.
    - techpression 9mo ago
      ”Bad or good by proxy” is how all policy plays out though, your ideas mean nothing if reality says otherwise. And Germany going coal was well known by time of unification (one might think it was because of that, tinfoil hat on).
      - causalscience 9mo ago
        Personally, I try to not think of the world in binary terms. I don't find "unification bad" useful.
  - AndrewDucker 9mo ago
    Presumably because Sweden is selling some of that cheap power to Germany. The solution to which is to generate even more power in Sweden (so you can sell it off cheap and have it cheap too) or that Germany produces power more cheaply so that it's not giving Sweden so much money for electricity. Both of these should happen if the market is set up well.
  - Limeray 9mo ago
    [dead]
  - wasmitnetzen 9mo ago
    That has nothing to do with the EU, it's just capitalism. Even if the EU wouldn't exist, the energy companies would have found a way to sell the cheap Swedish hydropower to Germany.
- postepowanieadm 9mo ago
  I may tell from Polish perspective - loosely speaking: Germany and Austria used to share single bidding zone: electricity was produced by wind at the north and then consumed by factories at the south. The problem: no sufficient grid connection - Polish and Czech grids were used instead, what caused major problems - loop flows. It lasted from 2001 to 2018. Unification needs to be real, including grids, not on paper only.
embedding-shape 9mo ago
It's the Euro all over again, mostly because of this: > Just look at the dispersion of prices across European electricity hubs. Same Swedes were complaining (and still are!) about having to bail out the poorer members of the Union, should Sweden adopt the Euro and have a tighter integration with the Eurozone. The common motivation of the EU is to smooth out these things across the countries, so we don't have these wild differences between countries. That might mean electricity gets more expensive for some members, and cheaper for others, but overall should lead to better usage across everyone. Basically socialism, applied to energy, so if you're OK with that for people, health and other things, maybe it makes sense to be fine with it for energy too?
- techpression 9mo ago
  Well it didn’t work for the Euro, and that didn’t require building massive on demand infrastructure that degrades over distance. Socialism for people only work within the confines of a society, my parents putting up solar panels to offset german fears of nuclear is far away from them paying taxes so their neighbor can get health care.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    > Well it didn’t work for the Euro What? Yes, it did work for the Euro, countries that are participating are now more equal than they were before, which is the goal. Who knows what will happen in the future, maybe Greece or someone else will truly sink the entire union, but it hasn't happened yet, so lets not confidently claim "it didn't work". > my parents putting up solar panels to offset german fears of nuclear is far away from them paying taxes so their neighbor can get health care That's been the thinking for a long time, but for how long can we continue thinking like this? If the world is fucked, it'll be fucked for all of us, not just for people in Sweden or Germany, so the faster we can realize we're all in the same boat, the better.
    - techpression 9mo ago
      Equal in that hey suffer together? When even the SEK outperforms the EUR in times of distress you know it’s incredibly bad. Is it better that all of Europe sinks, maybe, but I’m happy I’m not losing my job because of pension plans in France or financial neglect in Greece, and I’m sure they would say the same if roles were reversed. And to be clear, it’s not about the people, but how governing is done. The same boat is actually a good metaphor, you tend to want many smaller ones and not one big, risk of losing everything vs something (to a point).
ViewTrick1002 9mo ago
I think you’re getting cause and effect wrong. Previously Sweden was much tighter coupled to German prices, but since fossil fuels were cheap people didn’t really notice. Today due to CO2 cap and trade fossil emissions are expensive. [1] Couple it with a massive renewable buildout leading to a decoupling of the prices that didn’t happened before. We now have maximum volatility. Jumping between expensive fossil prices and an absolutely mindbogglingly large surplus leading to essentially free energy. As Germany, and the rest of Europe, transitions to renewables we will spend less and less time on fossil fuel marginal prices and see our energy systems stabilize on renewable and storage prices. Outside of emergency reserve style situations. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Trading_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...
Gud 9mo ago
As a Swede(working in the energy sector no less), Sweden has only themselves to blame for their catastrophic decisions, like killing a world leading nuclear industry. Don’t blame Germany for Swedens incredibly stupid decision to shut down functioning nuclear reactors prematurely.
- vaylian 9mo ago
  Why was the German shutdown premature?
  - Gud 9mo ago
    I was speaking about Sweden.

causalscience 9mo ago

Wanna tell us more? Why has unifying the energy market been catastrophic for Sweden?

techpression 9mo ago
Having to pay more because of Germany going fossil fuel like crazy. When there’s no wind and it’s dark they cause most of EU to suffer since the cost of their coal plants are so high. We also send a lot of green energy out of the country only to import coal powered from Denmark (not as major, mostly happens due to high consumptions) And we’re also getting a price spike fee, don’t dare to put on the dish washer when your neighbor is! All this in a country where electricity was almost free (to be fair, our dismantling of nuclear doesn’t help here)
brabel 9mo ago
Sweden has plenty of cheap hydropower. But as prices are now tied to countries like Germany which made catastrophic decisions around energy, Swedes have to pay much more than if Sweden had an independent energy market.
- causalscience 9mo ago
  In that case it sounds like "unification was bad" is an unfair characterization. Unification was bad by proxy, due to the bad decisions of Germany. If Germany had made better decisions, unification would've been good as Sweden would've had lower prices on a larger market.
  - techpression 9mo ago
    ”Bad or good by proxy” is how all policy plays out though, your ideas mean nothing if reality says otherwise. And Germany going coal was well known by time of unification (one might think it was because of that, tinfoil hat on).
    - causalscience 9mo ago
      Personally, I try to not think of the world in binary terms. I don't find "unification bad" useful.
- AndrewDucker 9mo ago
  Presumably because Sweden is selling some of that cheap power to Germany. The solution to which is to generate even more power in Sweden (so you can sell it off cheap and have it cheap too) or that Germany produces power more cheaply so that it's not giving Sweden so much money for electricity. Both of these should happen if the market is set up well.
- Limeray 9mo ago
  [dead]
- wasmitnetzen 9mo ago
  That has nothing to do with the EU, it's just capitalism. Even if the EU wouldn't exist, the energy companies would have found a way to sell the cheap Swedish hydropower to Germany.
postepowanieadm 9mo ago
I may tell from Polish perspective - loosely speaking: Germany and Austria used to share single bidding zone: electricity was produced by wind at the north and then consumed by factories at the south. The problem: no sufficient grid connection - Polish and Czech grids were used instead, what caused major problems - loop flows. It lasted from 2001 to 2018. Unification needs to be real, including grids, not on paper only.

embedding-shape 9mo ago

It's the Euro all over again, mostly because of this: > Just look at the dispersion of prices across European electricity hubs. Same Swedes were complaining (and still are!) about having to bail out the poorer members of the Union, should Sweden adopt the Euro and have a tighter integration with the Eurozone. The common motivation of the EU is to smooth out these things across the countries, so we don't have these wild differences between countries. That might mean electricity gets more expensive for some members, and cheaper for others, but overall should lead to better usage across everyone. Basically socialism, applied to energy, so if you're OK with that for people, health and other things, maybe it makes sense to be fine with it for energy too?

techpression 9mo ago
Well it didn’t work for the Euro, and that didn’t require building massive on demand infrastructure that degrades over distance. Socialism for people only work within the confines of a society, my parents putting up solar panels to offset german fears of nuclear is far away from them paying taxes so their neighbor can get health care.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  > Well it didn’t work for the Euro What? Yes, it did work for the Euro, countries that are participating are now more equal than they were before, which is the goal. Who knows what will happen in the future, maybe Greece or someone else will truly sink the entire union, but it hasn't happened yet, so lets not confidently claim "it didn't work". > my parents putting up solar panels to offset german fears of nuclear is far away from them paying taxes so their neighbor can get health care That's been the thinking for a long time, but for how long can we continue thinking like this? If the world is fucked, it'll be fucked for all of us, not just for people in Sweden or Germany, so the faster we can realize we're all in the same boat, the better.
  - techpression 9mo ago
    Equal in that hey suffer together? When even the SEK outperforms the EUR in times of distress you know it’s incredibly bad. Is it better that all of Europe sinks, maybe, but I’m happy I’m not losing my job because of pension plans in France or financial neglect in Greece, and I’m sure they would say the same if roles were reversed. And to be clear, it’s not about the people, but how governing is done. The same boat is actually a good metaphor, you tend to want many smaller ones and not one big, risk of losing everything vs something (to a point).

ViewTrick1002 9mo ago

I think you’re getting cause and effect wrong. Previously Sweden was much tighter coupled to German prices, but since fossil fuels were cheap people didn’t really notice. Today due to CO2 cap and trade fossil emissions are expensive. [1] Couple it with a massive renewable buildout leading to a decoupling of the prices that didn’t happened before. We now have maximum volatility. Jumping between expensive fossil prices and an absolutely mindbogglingly large surplus leading to essentially free energy. As Germany, and the rest of Europe, transitions to renewables we will spend less and less time on fossil fuel marginal prices and see our energy systems stabilize on renewable and storage prices. Outside of emergency reserve style situations. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Trading_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...

Gud 9mo ago

As a Swede(working in the energy sector no less), Sweden has only themselves to blame for their catastrophic decisions, like killing a world leading nuclear industry. Don’t blame Germany for Swedens incredibly stupid decision to shut down functioning nuclear reactors prematurely.

vaylian 9mo ago
Why was the German shutdown premature?
- Gud 9mo ago
  I was speaking about Sweden.