4 ms·

"Reliability: Five-nines availability (99.999%, under 6 minutes downtime annually), typically achieved by combining high grid reliability with backup generation

"Reliability: Five-nines availability (99.999%, under 6 minutes downtime annually), typically achieved by combining high grid reliability with backup generation." https://speed2power.epri.com/demand-characteristics.html https://speed2power.epri.com/demand-characteristics.html I wrote software for monitoring and controling electric grids on country level and later software for controling nuclear power plants, I know a little bit about resiliency. Physicaly, you can do 3X redundancy in electric generation and electric grid, as there are no physical laws against it, but such large infrastructure is expensive and you have to pay the CAPEX even if the infrastructure is almost never utilized. Also transporting electricity over large distances is really expensive, therefor only relative small amount of electricity can be transport in europe and future targets are modest. "The EU has set an interconnection target of at least 15% by 2030 to encourage EU countries to interconnect their installed electricity production capacity. This means that each country should have electricity infrastructure in place that would allow it to import, from its neighbouring EU countries, an equivalent of at least 15% of the electricity production capacity on its territory." https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/infrastructure/electricity-interconnection-targets_en https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/infrastructure/electricit... https://pubs.rsc.org/ee/article-abstract/11/3/469/565531/Relative-costs-of-transporting-electrical-and https://pubs.rsc.org/ee/article-abstract/11/3/469/565531/Rel... Someone has to pay for this, either customers or tax payers (through goverment subsidies) and Europe already has high electricity prices (when compared with China and US). "The energy sector is one of the largest and most important sectors of the world economy. Accounting for 8%–10% of world GDP, it is second only to health care in size and is equally pervasive in scope" https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/energy-sector https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/energy-...

thelastgallon 1mo ago
I think you are trying to say something, but I'm not sure what it is. It is not clear what you are advocating for. More nuclear? Resiliency requires redundancy and that means excess production capacity. It is now mostly peaker gas plants that run only a few hours a day at most. Instead, solar panels are dirt cheap and you can have lots of redundancy pretty cheap. There are many uses for excess energy, it can be used for green hydrogen (industrial heat) and green ammonia (fertilizer) or pump water back if there is hydro. Most importantly, Europe has ~460 million vehicles, all of these can be EVs and have flexible demand. People are creative and they will find many uses with time-of-use pricing. As a civilization, we're only just getting started on solar. So far, its been horizontal panels to capture when the Sun is brightest. The next phase is vertical solar. It requires zero land and can be deployed anywhere, think of all the fences and walls and tall buildings. It can be deployed in cities, close to consumption, without requiring new transmission infrastructure. Vertical solar will add 4 hours solar production. And Europe is geographically a large area, ~3400 miles wide, which means with grid interconnect, you can add 4 more hours excess production, ship to the other countries and get paid. Or you can do what Romania does and install Solar with batteries: https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-Power-Is-Booming-in-Emerging-Markets.html https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-P.... If a poor Eastern European country can figure out how to build renewables, I'm sure its not a hard task for Western Europe? > I wrote software for monitoring and controling electric grids on country level and later software for controling nuclear power plants, I know a little bit about resiliency. You have a fixed worldview, the grid is an unchangeable fixed structure, and it can never be changed because you wrote a bit of software in COBOL 50 years back. What happened in your 20s is the best and ideal grid and it should never change. In your age of fossil fuel, production was far away, needed transmission infrastructure to bring power to the cities. Because coal is extremely polluting, hydro is geo-fixed and nuclear needs to be far (nobody will allow it). None of those assumptions are true anymore.
- leonidasrup 1mo ago
  I'm advocating for more nuclear, for deep decarbonization (removing 99% of CO2 output) and removing of all uses of fossil fuels. And as humanity we failing, because CO2 output is still rising. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-emissions https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-em... I think the best option would be a world wide CO2 tax, because we already see carbon leakage, competitive advantage of economies with more CO2 production, but cheaper energy and cheaper products. (China, US over Europe) > Resiliency requires redundancy and that means excess production capacity. Redundancy is good and desirable, but someone has to pay for the infrastructure even when it's not fully utilized or is used to full extend only few times a year (Dunkelflaute). Overbuilding electricity production and overbuilding electric grid is expensive. In the past get to high reliability countries had only about 5 - 10% spare electric production capacity, not a spare coal power plant for each running coal power plant. "Of course, the probability of Dunkelflaute is higher in winter, with peaks in November and January. Here, on average, there are 50-100 hours of Dunkelflaute per month, and as many as 150 hours in Sweden." https://www.kraftblock.com/blog/bringing-light-into-dunkelflaute https://www.kraftblock.com/blog/bringing-light-into-dunkelfl... When more solar/wind is installed on grid the necessary builds of backup peaker gas plants, expansion of electric grids to balance out the weather caused variations in production is no calculated in the LCOE of the solar/wind power plant. LCOE for solar PV plus battery storage is better indicator, but even then doesn't include the backup peaker gas plants and expansion of electric grids. (China builds backup coal power plants for solar). > solar panels are dirt cheap Solar panels are dirt cheap, because they are made in China. Polysilicon production is very energy intensive and China has a lot cheap electricity. Lot of production in Inner Mongolia, lot of sunshine and lot of coal. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/12/china-takes-9-of-top-10-polysilicon-manufacturer-spots-expanding-industry-dominance/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/12/china-takes-9-... > excess energy, it can be used for green hydrogen How to do it economically is a open research problem, because Alkaline water electrolysis has problems with fluctuating solar power supply (battery storage and solar overbuilding may be necessary) and Proton exchange membrane electrolysis is expensive (uses expensive metal because of corrosion). https://raw-science.org/iridium-pem-electrolysers/ https://raw-science.org/iridium-pem-electrolysers/ https://www.solas.capital/hydrogen-vs-energy-efficiency-investment-comparison/ https://www.solas.capital/hydrogen-vs-energy-efficiency-inve... Isn't the Romania Romania battery storage system buildout enabled by subsidies (tax payers money) ? https://cop31tr.com/romania-shifts-solar-subsidies-toward-battery-storage-systems/ https://cop31tr.com/romania-shifts-solar-subsidies-toward-ba... > You have a fixed worldview, the grid is an unchangeable fixed structure, and it can never be changed because you wrote a bit of software in COBOL 50 years back. What happened in your 20s is the best and ideal grid and it should never change. In your age of fossil fuel, production was far away, needed transmission infrastructure to bring power to the cities. Because coal is extremely polluting, hydro is geo-fixed and nuclear needs to be far (nobody will allow it). None of those assumptions are true anymore. I didn't see any COBOL code, oldest code was Pascal, but was been replaced because Sun stopped official support of Pascal compiler on Solaris. Coal burning is terrible, lot of particulate matter (depending on the filtering system of the coal plant), sulfur, toxic heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium), radioactive elements (uranium, thorium and decay products) (under normal situation coal power plant outputs more radioactive material then nuclear power plant into air). Gas is much cleaner, but still some methane leakage and lot of CO2. > nuclear needs to be far (nobody will allow it) We scared the people to death in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s with nuclear fear mongering. Movies: China syndrome, Dr. Strangelove, and other. Nuclear power production has been made equal with nuclear weapons. Activists presented each nuclear powerplant as ticking nuclear bomb. Chernobyl was a big Soviet failure, but probably smaller then the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
thelastgallon 1mo ago
Australia's free electricity: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3NTlKEd5IIY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3NTlKEd5IIY This is how the modern grid shifts demand.
- leonidasrup 1mo ago
  What is the average electricity price in Australia? Australia has still lot of work to do in decarbonization of economy, as on only 8% of primary energy is from low-carbon energy sources. https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/australia#how-much-of-australia-s-electricity-comes-from-low-carbon-sources https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/australia#how-much... Even China has currently higher share of energy from low-carbon sources. 12 % in 2025. https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china#how-much-of-china-s-energy-comes-from-low-carbon-sources https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china#how-much-of-... Comparison between China, Australia, Europe, France. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&country=CHN%7EEI_EUR%7EAUS%7EIND&source=low_carbon_energy&metric=share https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&count...

thelastgallon 1mo ago

I think you are trying to say something, but I'm not sure what it is. It is not clear what you are advocating for. More nuclear? Resiliency requires redundancy and that means excess production capacity. It is now mostly peaker gas plants that run only a few hours a day at most. Instead, solar panels are dirt cheap and you can have lots of redundancy pretty cheap. There are many uses for excess energy, it can be used for green hydrogen (industrial heat) and green ammonia (fertilizer) or pump water back if there is hydro. Most importantly, Europe has ~460 million vehicles, all of these can be EVs and have flexible demand. People are creative and they will find many uses with time-of-use pricing. As a civilization, we're only just getting started on solar. So far, its been horizontal panels to capture when the Sun is brightest. The next phase is vertical solar. It requires zero land and can be deployed anywhere, think of all the fences and walls and tall buildings. It can be deployed in cities, close to consumption, without requiring new transmission infrastructure. Vertical solar will add 4 hours solar production. And Europe is geographically a large area, ~3400 miles wide, which means with grid interconnect, you can add 4 more hours excess production, ship to the other countries and get paid. Or you can do what Romania does and install Solar with batteries: https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-Power-Is-Booming-in-Emerging-Markets.html https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-P.... If a poor Eastern European country can figure out how to build renewables, I'm sure its not a hard task for Western Europe? > I wrote software for monitoring and controling electric grids on country level and later software for controling nuclear power plants, I know a little bit about resiliency. You have a fixed worldview, the grid is an unchangeable fixed structure, and it can never be changed because you wrote a bit of software in COBOL 50 years back. What happened in your 20s is the best and ideal grid and it should never change. In your age of fossil fuel, production was far away, needed transmission infrastructure to bring power to the cities. Because coal is extremely polluting, hydro is geo-fixed and nuclear needs to be far (nobody will allow it). None of those assumptions are true anymore.

leonidasrup 1mo ago
I'm advocating for more nuclear, for deep decarbonization (removing 99% of CO2 output) and removing of all uses of fossil fuels. And as humanity we failing, because CO2 output is still rising. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-emissions https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-em... I think the best option would be a world wide CO2 tax, because we already see carbon leakage, competitive advantage of economies with more CO2 production, but cheaper energy and cheaper products. (China, US over Europe) > Resiliency requires redundancy and that means excess production capacity. Redundancy is good and desirable, but someone has to pay for the infrastructure even when it's not fully utilized or is used to full extend only few times a year (Dunkelflaute). Overbuilding electricity production and overbuilding electric grid is expensive. In the past get to high reliability countries had only about 5 - 10% spare electric production capacity, not a spare coal power plant for each running coal power plant. "Of course, the probability of Dunkelflaute is higher in winter, with peaks in November and January. Here, on average, there are 50-100 hours of Dunkelflaute per month, and as many as 150 hours in Sweden." https://www.kraftblock.com/blog/bringing-light-into-dunkelflaute https://www.kraftblock.com/blog/bringing-light-into-dunkelfl... When more solar/wind is installed on grid the necessary builds of backup peaker gas plants, expansion of electric grids to balance out the weather caused variations in production is no calculated in the LCOE of the solar/wind power plant. LCOE for solar PV plus battery storage is better indicator, but even then doesn't include the backup peaker gas plants and expansion of electric grids. (China builds backup coal power plants for solar). > solar panels are dirt cheap Solar panels are dirt cheap, because they are made in China. Polysilicon production is very energy intensive and China has a lot cheap electricity. Lot of production in Inner Mongolia, lot of sunshine and lot of coal. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/12/china-takes-9-of-top-10-polysilicon-manufacturer-spots-expanding-industry-dominance/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/12/china-takes-9-... > excess energy, it can be used for green hydrogen How to do it economically is a open research problem, because Alkaline water electrolysis has problems with fluctuating solar power supply (battery storage and solar overbuilding may be necessary) and Proton exchange membrane electrolysis is expensive (uses expensive metal because of corrosion). https://raw-science.org/iridium-pem-electrolysers/ https://raw-science.org/iridium-pem-electrolysers/ https://www.solas.capital/hydrogen-vs-energy-efficiency-investment-comparison/ https://www.solas.capital/hydrogen-vs-energy-efficiency-inve... Isn't the Romania Romania battery storage system buildout enabled by subsidies (tax payers money) ? https://cop31tr.com/romania-shifts-solar-subsidies-toward-battery-storage-systems/ https://cop31tr.com/romania-shifts-solar-subsidies-toward-ba... > You have a fixed worldview, the grid is an unchangeable fixed structure, and it can never be changed because you wrote a bit of software in COBOL 50 years back. What happened in your 20s is the best and ideal grid and it should never change. In your age of fossil fuel, production was far away, needed transmission infrastructure to bring power to the cities. Because coal is extremely polluting, hydro is geo-fixed and nuclear needs to be far (nobody will allow it). None of those assumptions are true anymore. I didn't see any COBOL code, oldest code was Pascal, but was been replaced because Sun stopped official support of Pascal compiler on Solaris. Coal burning is terrible, lot of particulate matter (depending on the filtering system of the coal plant), sulfur, toxic heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium), radioactive elements (uranium, thorium and decay products) (under normal situation coal power plant outputs more radioactive material then nuclear power plant into air). Gas is much cleaner, but still some methane leakage and lot of CO2. > nuclear needs to be far (nobody will allow it) We scared the people to death in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s with nuclear fear mongering. Movies: China syndrome, Dr. Strangelove, and other. Nuclear power production has been made equal with nuclear weapons. Activists presented each nuclear powerplant as ticking nuclear bomb. Chernobyl was a big Soviet failure, but probably smaller then the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

thelastgallon 1mo ago

Australia's free electricity: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3NTlKEd5IIY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3NTlKEd5IIY This is how the modern grid shifts demand.

leonidasrup 1mo ago
What is the average electricity price in Australia? Australia has still lot of work to do in decarbonization of economy, as on only 8% of primary energy is from low-carbon energy sources. https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/australia#how-much-of-australia-s-electricity-comes-from-low-carbon-sources https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/australia#how-much... Even China has currently higher share of energy from low-carbon sources. 12 % in 2025. https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china#how-much-of-china-s-energy-comes-from-low-carbon-sources https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china#how-much-of-... Comparison between China, Australia, Europe, France. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&country=CHN%7EEI_EUR%7EAUS%7EIND&source=low_carbon_energy&metric=share https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&count...