Green Energy, and the German Grid, from: Kiev Is Burning

[urbanoid]

 

[urbanoid]

Quote

France threatening to fly solo on electricity market reform

France may come up with national rather than European solutions to reduce electricity prices if discussions on reforming the EU market do not progress fast enough, the country’s Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said on Tuesday (29 August).

French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at Germany on Monday, accusing Berlin of deliberately countering the growing acceptance of nuclear power across the EU.

“It would be a historic mistake to […] slow down investment in nuclear power […] in Europe”, especially if this ends up favouring “more coal,” asserted Macron.

With winter approaching and energy bills likely to rise as a result, Macron seems aware that an agreement on reforming the EU’s electricity market is needed.

The European Commission tabled its proposal in March but Berlin and Paris have since appeared at odds on key aspects of the reform.

Brussels has proposed that any public support for new energy generation capacity – or major repowering of existing power plants – be financed through public-private contracts for difference (CfDs).

But while the system will apply to new nuclear projects, France wants to extend the CfD scheme to existing nuclear assets.

This is opposed by Germany and other EU member states like Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and Italy, who say this amounts to state aid and will lead to distortions in the EU’s internal market.

Most other EU countries have remained silent on the issue, not even those who have joined the new “nuclear alliance” set up in Paris.

The outcome? The most recent negotiations held in June failed, delaying the timetable for approving the reform.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/france-threatening-to-fly-solo-on-electricity-market-reform/

[urbanoid]

 

[sunday]

12 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

 

Who said the Viking raids were a thing of the past?

[JWB]

Green energy is already causing blackouts in the USA – and it’ll get worse (msn.com)

[urbanoid]

40GW of clean energy from France:

 

[sunday]

4 hours ago, urbanoid said:

40GW of clean energy from France:

 

I could sell you rights of use of my avatar here, you know...

[urbanoid]

I could, but my current one also represents one of my priorities. Maybe after the war?

Quote

Electricity from wind isn’t cheap and it never will be

Politicians should stop endorsing an energy source that isn’t particularly clean or secure, and won’t bring down prices

The MPs who have forced Rishi Sunak into a U-turn on onshore wind power love to repeat the favourite slogan of the wind industry: “wind is cheap”. “Cheap, clean, secure,” says Sir Alok Sharma. “Cheap,” cheeps Ed Miliband.

It conceals the truth. Electricity from wind is not cheap and never will be. The latest auction of rights to build offshore wind farms failed to attract any bids, despite offering higher subsidised prices. That alone indicates that wind is not cheap or getting cheaper.

But the real reason for the lack of interest in the auction is that, for the first time, bidders are not free to walk away from their bids when it suits them. In the past, they could put in low offers, boast about them being cheap, then take the higher market price later. The Government has at last called their bluff, so they are having to admit that electricity prices need to be higher to make wind farms pay.

The cost of subsidising wind is vast. Then add the cost of getting the power from remote wind farms to where people live. And the cost of balancing the grid and backing wind up with gas plants for the times when the wind drops. And the cost of paying wind farms to reduce output on windy days when the grid can’t take it.

If wind power is so cheap, how come energy bills have risen in step with the amount of installed wind power? Says the energy expert John Constable: “We had a huge amount of wind... and it not only did absolutely nothing to protect against the recent gas crisis: it actually made it worse, because the UK’s security of supply now hangs by the single thread of gas, as the sole thermodynamically competent fuel in the system, coal being near absent and nuclear a small fraction.”

And yet the wind industry is complaining that today’s high electricity prices are not high enough, and without more subsidies they will stop building: “The race to the bottom on strike prices incentivised by the current auction process is at odds with the reality of project costs and investment needs, jeopardising deployment targets,” said RenewableUK recently. How does that square with claims it is cheap?

The wind industry’s capital costs were very high before the Ukraine crisis, and now, like everybody else’s, are shooting up still further: the cost of steel, concrete, carbon fibre, copper and all the other ingredients of a wind turbine have risen sharply. Operating costs are rising. Inevitably, the energy generated by wind is expensive.

And, as Constable suggests, wind itself is thermodynamically inferior. Consequently, it takes a huge machine – the building of which requires a lot of energy – to extract a small amount of electricity from randomly fluctuating, low-density wind, which bloweth as and when it listeth. By contrast, in a nuclear plant, it takes a small machine to produce a flood of energy from a dense, “thermodynamically competent” energy source, and on demand.

The man and woman in the street understand this intuitively. Politicians not at all. Here is a simple analogy to help them. Electricity, like coffee, is only any good if you can buy it when you feel like it. If I set up a chain of coffee shops and sell coffee no better than Costa’s, but I make hundreds of excess cups one morning and none at all the next, from a facility that towers hundreds of feet into the sky, ruins views, slaughters birdlife and requires government subsidies, I suspect the customer would prefer Costa. But in our benighted electricity market, you are forced to buy my coffee except on the days when I produce none, when you are allowed to go to Costa – which has put its prices up to compensate for my existence.

So, no, wind power is not cheap or secure. Nor is it clean. The mining of minerals and pouring of concrete that is required for a wind farm have a huge pollution impact and a massive carbon footprint. Voters know wind farms are a futile gesture and they will now punish the Tories accordingly.

https://en.desk-russie.eu/2023/09/06/the-second-front.html

[sunday]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

I could, but my current one also represents one of my priorities. Maybe after the war?

Well, the old Polandball avatar was cute, too.

[DB]

Of note, and correlating with the news above about US offshore wind, there were no bidders on the most recent UK offshore site auctions. The issue is that there is overcapacity when the wind is blowing consistently across the country, which causes prices to go negative...

[sunday]

4 hours ago, DB said:

Of note, and correlating with the news above about US offshore wind, there were no bidders on the most recent UK offshore site auctions. The issue is that there is overcapacity when the wind is blowing consistently across the country, which causes prices to go negative...

That makes an excellent business case for some new pumped-storage hydro power plant. 

[Harold Jones]

3 minutes ago, sunday said:

That makes an excellent business case for some new pumped-storage hydro power plant. 

Good luck getting planning/enviro approval to build a huge new reservoir and generation plant. 

[sunday]

57 minutes ago, Harold Jones said:

Good luck getting planning/enviro approval to build a huge new reservoir and generation plant. 

And that brings us to the most important barrier to economic advance in the Western World...

Note that massive windpower farms have that easier, too.

[DB]

21 hours ago, sunday said:

That makes an excellent business case for some new pumped-storage hydro power plant. 

It does, but the available, suitable options are sparse in the UK.

Of course, there are those who are pushing for battery storage, but as noted previously, that's more a peak shaving item unless costs drop by an order of magnitude (and supply availability increases).

There's also the weird "elevator" style storage systems being played with - raising massive weights in mine shafts. I have no idea how those scale to tens of GW, though. (1 tonne through 1m is ~10kJ, so quite badly is my thought.)

[sunday]

Pumped storage in the UK is not insignificant: 2.8GW over a hydropower total of 4.7GW, but I suppose the larger power plants were built when NIMBYism was not still a thing.

https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/united-kingdom

[seahawk]

22 hours ago, sunday said:

That makes an excellent business case for some new pumped-storage hydro power plant. 

Or for H2 production.

[JWB]

 

[lucklucky]

They followed Associated Press ideology.

[DB]

How dare Germany try to steal the title from the UK? According to our doomsayers, the OECD, we're still worst of anyone they don't like, whilst at the same time ignoring "surprise" lower inflation figures.

Dismal indeed.

[Ivanhoe]

2 hours ago, DB said:

How dare Germany try to steal the title from the UK? According to our doomsayers, the OECD, we're still worst of anyone they don't like, whilst at the same time ignoring "surprise" lower inflation figures.

Even their inferiority is better than yours.

[Colin]

On 9/20/2023 at 10:50 AM, Ivanhoe said:

Even their inferiority is better than yours.

LOL

[sunday]

In related news, it looks like basic arithmetic is not Green

https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2023-09-26/Lufthansa-would-need-half-of-Germany-s-electricity-to-go-green-1nouSWLvyTK/index.html

Quote

Lufthansa would need 'half of Germany's electricity' to go green

Air transport giant Lufthansa would need to consume half of Germany's electricity production to run its entire fleet on green fuel, its boss has said, illustrating the complicated challenge of reducing emissions in the aviation industry.

Lufthansa, which has the largest airline fleet in Europe, "would need around half of Germany's electricity to convert it into synthetic fuel," estimated Carsten Spohr, the group's CEO, at a national aviation conference in Germany's Hamburg.

But both economics minister Robert Habeck and Federal Network Agency, which regulates Germany's electricity "won't give me that amount of energy," he added.

(...)

Another view to the same issue:

https://simpleflying.com/carsten-spohr-lufthansa-ceo-saf-goals-not-achievable/

 

[urbanoid]

Autotranslated:

Quote

Out with Germany from Swedish nuclear power

Almost exactly a year ago, the energy company Fortum announced that it was selling all its shares in the energy giant Uniper to the German state. Thus, the ownership in Uniper went from a company with the Finnish state as the main owner, to today being more than 99 percent under German state control.

It could have been a deal like any other, were it not for Uniper's ownership in Swedish nuclear power and the German state's crusade against reactors.

Just ten days before Uniper was sold to Germany, Ulf Kristersson's government documents had won the parliamentary election. One of their big election promises, and one of the voters' most important issues in the wake of electricity shortages and skyrocketing electricity prices, was more nuclear power. Today, it is a key part of Tidöpartierna's political project. If Sweden is to be able to meet a doubled electricity demand in the coming decades, nuclear power is also required.

Therefore, the German ownership in Uniper should have received more attention already last year. After all, we are talking about a country that already at the turn of the millennium decided to gradually shut down its nuclear power fleet. A decision that was temporarily overturned but then revived by Angela Merkel who set 2022 as the cut-off year following the nuclear accident in Fukushima in 2011. Since then, the German state has systematically dismantled its reactors as part of its now infamous energy transition, in which nuclear power has effectively been replaced of renewable and coal power.

The German opposition to reactors can best be described as ideological, and is deeply rooted across party lines from right to left. Even when the country faced a feared collapse in energy supplies last winter, they did not manage to reconsider the line. The operation of the three remaining reactors was extended from the turn of the year until April, but now they are shut down for good. As recently as the other week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that "nuclear power is over". They can hope for a mild winter.

Germany operates the same nuclear power line in the EU. Rarely do the great powers collapse in the way that nuclear nation France and "energiewende" Germany do when it comes to nuclear power. For example, the electricity market reform stands and stomps because the Germans oppose a demand from the French that existing reactors should be able to be upgraded by using public funds. German opposition was also massive on the issue of whether nuclear power should be classified as a sustainable investment in the EU's taxonomy.

The same state is now a partner in all Swedish nuclear power plants. In Oskarshamn, Uniper is the majority owner with 55 percent, with Fortum FORTUM -0.84%as minority owner. Sweden's largest reactor is located there, which is not only the largest electricity producer in the country but also has an important role in securing transmission capacity in the electricity grid. Vattenfall is the main owner of the reactors in Ringhals and Forsmark, but Uniper owns 30 and 10 percent of the facilities, respectively. The closed nuclear power plant in Barsebäck is also owned by Uniper.

It is naive to think that the German state's nuclear power line would not affect business operations in Sweden. In fact, it already does.

Last November, the CEO of Barsebäck kraft, Uniper's subsidiary, came out and said that they wanted to build a new nuclear power plant to solve Skåne's electricity shortage. Shortly thereafter, she was fired by the parent company. "Whether in Sweden or elsewhere, Uniper has plans to build new nuclear power, that is a fact," the company announced.

The message was underlined by Uniper's CEO Michael Lewis in Düsseldorf in August this year. "We intend to keep those power plants, but we will not invest anything more in nuclear power". It is difficult to interpret as anything other than that, in addition to new reactors, it would also apply to investments in existing ones. Instead, the company will focus on renewables and gas. The decision to still keep nuclear power in Sweden is not entirely logical, certainly not for German voters either.

"The German state's ownership risks becoming a Trojan horse in the Swedish nuclear power ambitions."

As the owner of all three locations where there are reactors in Sweden today, Uniper's line is problematic. Partly because it is in these places that there is already infrastructure and electricity grids, and where you can start building the easiest and fastest. But also because it raises questions about the lifetime extension of the existing reactors. Is the company really willing to make the billion investments required to extend their operation? That said, the German state could not even delay the shutdown of the last German reactors for more than four months in the midst of an energy crisis.

Sweden already has and needs more government and private actors, Swedish and foreign, who actually want to invest and develop nuclear power. One of these should buy the Germans out of the Swedish reactors. Ultimately, it is about securing the companies' transition, a stable electricity supply and Swedish competitiveness. Both Finnish Fortum and state-owned Swedish Vattenfall are already at the frontline of that work. On Thursday , for example, it was announced that Vattenfall will buy more land to build reactors at Ringhals.

In the ownership picture of the Swedish nuclear power fleet, Uniper stands out. The company's reluctance to invest in nuclear power is not business, it is ideological. The German state's ownership risks becoming a Trojan horse in the Swedish nuclear power ambitions. It is a problem that should also concern the government with its nuclear agenda.

https://www.di.se/ledare/ut-med-tyskland-ur-svensk-karnkraft/

[lucklucky]

 

Quote

 

Ursula von der Leyen has welcomed the idea of industrial subsidies in the field of nuclear energy, a highly divisive topic in the European Union.

Speaking in the Czech Republic, a country that receives more than a third of its electricity from its nuclear power plants, the president of the European Commission said each member state was free to pave its own path towards climate neutrality.

"The choice of the energy mix is and will remain a national prerogative," von der Leyen said in a short press statement next to the country's prime minister, Petr Fiala.

"We know that nuclear plays a central role in Czechia's energy system and that it will continue to require investment to play its role in the Czech energy transition," she went on.

"And this is why we're always willing to consider state aid, of course, provided the conditions are right. But this is important."

 

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/09/26/european-commission-is-willing-to-consider-subsidies-for-nuclear-technology-says-von-der-l

 

[BansheeOne]

National gas storage reached 95 percent capacity on Monday, well ahead of the mandated 1 November threshold. That's actually earlier than last year when it was 91 percent at this date, so worries that the lack of Russian pipeline gas which was still flowing for the first half of 2022 would make it harder to meet targets this year seem to have been unfounded. Of course stocks remaining from last winter were a lot higher after the frantic buildup and saving efforts, with a low point of 64 vs. 24 percent; fall has been very warm so far (thanks again, climate change), and I suspect the recession since the last quarter of 2022 has also curbed demand.

Still, buildup in September was slower than last year, so depending on the weather ahead we may not reach full capacity like last year, and need more in winter. Gas prices remain below the September 2021 level around 40 Euro per MWh, but have been consistently about four times that of pre-2021 since dropping from last year's panic spikes of up to 340. So while supply will probably no more problem, the economic impact is far from over.