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

[bojan]

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

...It still wouldn't help with substituting for heating...

Germans are again forgetting their own solutions

Edited July 27, 2022 by bojan

[bd1]

estonia is going to use shale oil for gas repalcement

One-third of district heating gas can be replaced by shale oil

https://news.err.ee/1608668563/one-third-of-district-heating-gas-can-be-replaced-by-shale-oil

Quote

Due to Russia's war in Ukraine, the gas shortage in the region, and the availability of shale oil in Estonia, it is possible to replace nearly a terawatt-hour (TWh) of gas with shale oil in the district heating sector this winter. This will reduce Estonia's district heating gas consumption by about one-third.

as my own local village central heating runs on  biomass(wood chippings) and has oil backup, i must admit that i´m a bit relieved that we  considered the heating system type when looking for apartment. not thinking about war as such, but that russia will use the energy leverage at one point for certain. 

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by bd1

[rmgill]

 

[DB]

The presence of multiple interconnectors between the UK grid and the rest of Europe shows some interesting behaviour at times.

At the moment, the UK is a net energy exporter by about 0.8GW. We're importing from Belgium and the Netherlands and exporting to France, with some small change to Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Quote

Interconnectors make money in the wholesale market from congestion revenues. Congestion revenues are dependent on the existence of price differences between markets at either end of the interconnector.

All interconnection capacity is allocated to the market via market-based methods, i.e. auctions, and the trading arrangements on electricity interconnectors are governed by Access Rules and Charging Methodologies as noted in each interconnector’s licence.

Says our electricity regulator. they also note that there are Cap and Floor agreements to limit price excursions, usually agreed to protect investors in the interconnect.

That money can be made by diverting electricity from the Low Countries to the UK and then back to France seems odd, so I assume there is a capacity limit for the direct routing.

(The deeper you dive into this, the more interesting and confusing it all gets!)

[lucklucky]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/28/germans-forced-take-cold-showers-public-buildings-save-energy/

Quote

A German city has ordered heating and hot water to be turned off in gyms, sports halls and swimming pools in response to Russia gas crisis

 

[Ssnake]

Hannover, uh-huh... well, we have a Green mayor who wants to turn the city into a car-free bicycle paradise whose main message is that we need to cut back our lifestyle and repent for our sins, or something. I guess he won't let a good crisis go to waste. Fits his personal agenda and message, and save the city a pretty penny. Are people beginning to realize the true consequences of the failed policies of the last 20 years? Yes, absolutely.

Is it a panic? Hell, no.

[rmgill]

 

Slightly different angle on this...

[BansheeOne]

As usuaI I didn't watch the video, but chuckled at the "Is this the end of Europe?" headline which I've been seeing for 20 years, so feel reasonably qualified to answer with "no" without any further investigation. 😁

[Ssnake]

Summary for you based on the video that Ryan posted (but didn't make - unfortunately there is no decent method with this forum software to attribute a quote to "Someone on Youtube"):

7 hours ago, rmgill said:

Opens the video that, finally, the politicians have realized that the situation is serious and that there might not be enough gas to go around. Continues ... to call it a crazy suggestion that by lowering room temperatures gas consumption might also be reduced (because we're used to high standards of living).

Then continues to laud the next paper to point out that in a consecutive string of worst-case events society might collapse. Mid-video conclusion: Prepping is good.

Next, poor people hardest hit by inflation and supply scarcity. Politicians should do something about gas prices. The middle class will vanish. If these hypothetical trends continue and accelerate, hyperinflation and recession, or both, might happen.

Finishing remarks: Has now an alarm that goes off in a blackout, and a meter to determine appliances' electricity consumption.

The actual title of the video is "I can't believe they let this happen"; the video thumbnail therefore is, classic clickbait (well done, I clicked).

 

In all fairness, she's not hysterical (funny, or otherwise), just a bit shocked, and tends to take a lot of "what ifs" at face value, extrapolating worst cases to further extremes. That's not to say that societal collapse can't happen - history shows that it's happening, and that it can happen rather quickly when it does. Nevertheless, while she's reporting on her own and the neighbors' mitigation strategies, there doesn't seem to be a connect that if a lot of people are following mitigation strategies this makes the occurrence of extreme cases even less likely.

[DB]

if everyone does the same thing, you'll run out of toilet paper before you run out of gas.

I know that the pump price makes this less likely, but until you've seen people filling supermarket carrier bags with petrol/diesel, you can be sure that society has not yet collapsed.

[MiloMorai]

 

The first video is in Ohio.

3 hours ago, DB said:

if everyone does the same thing, you'll run out of toilet paper before you run out of gas.

I know that the pump price makes this less likely, but until you've seen people filling supermarket carrier bags with petrol/diesel, you can be sure that society has not yet collapsed.

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by MiloMorai

[DB]

I know. I was implying that society has already collapsed in the US. go on now, you know you want to blame Trump.

[MiloMorai]

The English can be blamed for the Irish, be sure.🙂

[BansheeOne]

Quote

The Energy Shock

Germany Plans for a Winter Without Gas from Russia

Vladimir Putin is toying with Germans by further reducing gas flows from Russia. Companies are worrying about a potential financial abyss as politicians do what they can to prevent the worst this winter.

By Markus Feldenkirchen, Jan Friedmann, Simon Hage, Claus Hecking, Martin Hesse, Christine Keck, Benedikt Müller-Arnold, Martin U. Müller, Christian Reiermann, Gerald Traufetter, Steffen Winter, David Böcking und Cornelia Schmergal

29.07.2022, 18.52 Uhr

From his office on the 13th floor, Klaus Müller has a good view over the Rhine River and the Siebengebirge mountains. He can see landscapes, houses, offices and factories, the sources of Germany's prosperity.

He can see some of the very businesses for which his agency may have to turn off the gas tap in a worst-case scenario.

Müller, 51, is the president of Germany's Federal Network Agency. The day before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the federal government cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave the green light for his appointment. Since then, he has been preoccupied with one question more than any other: Will Germany have enough gas in the next few months, in the autumn and the winter? And what happens if it doesn't?

"In the event of a gas shortage," Müller says, "I won't be able to make good choices." His gaze wanders out the window. "I hope it's just going to be fewer bad choices."

Putin Knows Germans and Their Fears

Of course, much of this is out of his control, anyway. Müller can do whatever he wants in his office in Bonn, Germany, but at the end of the day, Vladimir Putin has the upper hand. If Russia's president were to decide to send even less gas to Germany, there would eventually be nothing left for Müller to distribute. In any case, there would be far too little to keep the country running.

As of this week, the outlook is even bleaker, with Russian state-owned Gazprom now allowing only 20 percent of potential gas volumes to flow through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline – purportedly due to technical problems. People inside the German government, however, assume the reason is political, that gas is being used as a weapon.

Putin is playing the West these days. And he appears to be taking particular pleasure in playing Germany, which in the past has made itself more dependent on cheap Russian gas  than any other major industrialized nation. Putin knows Germany intimately from his years of living in Dresden as a KGB agent, and he also knows German fears. Their worry that exorbitant energy prices will wipe out their prosperity. Of unemployment if industries collapse.

A gas supply volume from Russia of 40 percent had previously been taken into account, says Müller. Based on that figure, it would have been possible to just barely avert a gas shortage – if, that is, gas was being conserved at the same time. But now Germany is only receiving half that gas. "The Russian president's decision this week has significantly increased the stress on our gas supply," Müller says.

Given these developments, Müller may be forced to make decisions this autumn and winter that will affect the existence of industries and businesses that employ tens of thousands of people. A European Union regulation stipulates that private households and small to medium-sized businesses are to be supplied for as long as possible, as are facilities that are absolutely critical for public safety and the protection of health and life: police, fire departments, hospitals and nursing homes, for example.

The first industries to be hit with outages would likely be those that don't produce essential things. But which ones are they? For months, a brutal competition has been playing out in Germany, and Müller's Network Agency has been besieged with inquiries. "My mailbox is overflowing," he says. Business owners are writing him about how important their businesses are and arguing that they should not be the first to be cut off from gas supplies. Lobbying groups, meanwhile, are pushing for entire industries to be exempted from rationing. "Just take paper manufacturers or glass producers," says Müller. At first glance, they would not appear to be crucial to the functioning of society, but flour is packed in paper and vaccines in glass.

Indeed, good choices aren't even possible in a situation this dire.

[...]

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-energy-shock-germany-plans-for-a-winter-without-gas-from-russia-a-3058931c-d3c8-4146-9144-3f957f490f88

[NickM]

21 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Hannover, uh-huh... well, we have a Green mayor who wants to turn the city into a car-free bicycle paradise whose main message is that we need to cut back our lifestyle and repent for our sins, or something. I guess he won't let a good crisis go to waste. Fits his personal agenda and message, and save the city a pretty penny. Are people beginning to realize the true consequences of the failed policies of the last 20 years? Yes, absolutely.

Is it a panic? Hell, no.

Will the population of said city send this fool mayor a message by publicly vivisecting him?

[Ssnake]

We'll see. In the last elections, where I live he had the strongest result, some 70%+ of the votes; in all likelihood, from that level of support there's only one direction, and that's down. How much down? Who knows. I'm surrounded by well-off eco urbanites who, I suspect, can absorb the rising costs without too much trouble. And to be perfectly honest, from where I live I can reach about 80% of where all other people live in Hannover in under 30 minutes by bicycle. As long as the weather is fair I do prefer riding the bike over every other form of transportation. And it is possible, here, to replace your car with an electrically powered bike for hauling heavier loads, and still live comfortably.

It's just, I try not to be oblivious to the fact that there are other people who don't have it that easy - financially, or fitness-wise, or other - and that, just because these policies won't hurt me personally, it still doesn't make them wise and balanced. But the question here was, is it doom here and panic, and the answer is a clear: No.

 

Maybe I should add an excursion to the general living conditions in my area, as far as transportation and daily life is concerned. In under 1km actual distance, not as the crow flies, there are nine schools, 10 supermarkets (or more, depending on where your cut-off is for store size), more restaurants than I care to count. There are 14 car-sharing stations, not counting the flotilla of free-floating cars (and the even bigger swarm of electrically powered scooters (a real pest) that, most of the time, block the sidewalks). There's five or six bus lines that are serviced at least every 15 minutes, and five subway lines (with the central hub just three stations away; unlike Berlin, buses and subway are clean and free of knife-wielding maniacs or criminals).

Objectively speaking, owning a car is not a necessity. It's not even the fastest method to get you anywhere for most parts of Hannover. The convenience of car ownership is moderated by the scarcity of parking spots; the roads are lined with cars, bumper to bumper. In principle I agree with the mayor that Hannover needs fewer cars, not more, and that it actually is feasible to achieve that goal without losing, but rather gaining comfort. With fewer cars, those who need one can get around better. Not owning a car saves money (insurance, operating costs, decay). If I need a car I can get one from the car sharing station in under 30 minutes, at pretty much any moment I want, 99% of the time. In a worst case I could call a taxi, and be it just to take me to the next rental station that still has a car available.

Now, living in the outskirts or in the rural towns around Hannover, this service level quickly drops. I'm aware of that. But then again, most people live in the city because of the convenience and proximity of everything - and because people congregate, investments into public/urban infrastructure pay off. I'm under no illusion however that this recipe for success can easily be transferred anywhere. But for medium and large cities (Hannover is about half a million), at least in Europe, it's very much transferable. In principle.

[Huba]

17 hours ago, Ssnake said:

We'll see. In the last elections, where I live he had the strongest result, some 70%+ of the votes; in all likelihood, from that level of support there's only one direction, and that's down. How much down? Who knows. I'm surrounded by well-off eco urbanites who, I suspect, can absorb the rising costs without too much trouble. And to be perfectly honest, from where I live I can reach about 80% of where all other people live in Hannover in under 30 minutes by bicycle. As long as the weather is fair I do prefer riding the bike over every other form of transportation. And it is possible, here, to replace your car with an electrically powered bike for hauling heavier loads, and still live comfortably.

It's just, I try not to be oblivious to the fact that there are other people who don't have it that easy - financially, or fitness-wise, or other - and that, just because these policies won't hurt me personally, it still doesn't make them wise and balanced. But the question here was, is it doom here and panic, and the answer is a clear: No.

 

Maybe I should add an excursion to the general living conditions in my area, as far as transportation and daily life is concerned. In under 1km actual distance, not as the crow flies, there are nine schools, 10 supermarkets (or more, depending on where your cut-off is for store size), more restaurants than I care to count. There are 14 car-sharing stations, not counting the flotilla of free-floating cars (and the even bigger swarm of electrically powered scooters (a real pest) that, most of the time, block the sidewalks). There's five or six bus lines that are serviced at least every 15 minutes, and five subway lines (with the central hub just three stations away; unlike Berlin, buses and subway are clean and free of knife-wielding maniacs or criminals).

Objectively speaking, owning a car is not a necessity. It's not even the fastest method to get you anywhere for most parts of Hannover. The convenience of car ownership is moderated by the scarcity of parking spots; the roads are lined with cars, bumper to bumper. In principle I agree with the mayor that Hannover needs fewer cars, not more, and that it actually is feasible to achieve that goal without losing, but rather gaining comfort. With fewer cars, those who need one can get around better. Not owning a car saves money (insurance, operating costs, decay). If I need a car I can get one from the car sharing station in under 30 minutes, at pretty much any moment I want, 99% of the time. In a worst case I could call a taxi, and be it just to take me to the next rental station that still has a car available.

Now, living in the outskirts or in the rural towns around Hannover, this service level quickly drops. I'm aware of that. But then again, most people live in the city because of the convenience and proximity of everything - and because people congregate, investments into public/urban infrastructure pay off. I'm under no illusion however that this recipe for success can easily be transferred anywhere. But for medium and large cities (Hannover is about half a million), at least in Europe, it's very much transferable. In principle.

+1

It works basically the same where I live. I'd note  that on top of all of that, Uber/ taxi apps added whole other level of convenience to city dweller's live, making the car ownership really a matter of want, as opposed to need.

[BansheeOne]

On 7/30/2022 at 7:26 AM, Ssnake said:

There's five or six bus lines that are serviced at least every 15 minutes, and five subway lines (with the central hub just three stations away; unlike Berlin, buses and subway are clean and free of knife-wielding maniacs or criminals).

Oy, as someone who has used Berlin public transport on a weekly-to-daily basis for 15 years, I've yet to encounter a knife-wielding maniac. Unlike bad buskers, beggars, people hawking several different homeless support magazines, folks engaging in spirited conversation with themselves, and those trying to make you find Jesus. 😁

I also sold my car years ago and never looked back.

[Rick]

For BansheeOne, Huba, and Ssnake, how is this public transportation system funded?

[Huba]

As a user of Poznań's (it's a 600K city, 1m+ for whole agglomeration) public transport network, you have options of regular paper tickets (valid either for a single travel or for certain time; a complete rip-off used mostly by tourists), a pre-paid card allowing to pay for number of stops you travel, with progressingly  lower per-stop fee, or a monthly ticket for the whole system costing about $30 (half of that fro schoolkids, seniors etc) for the city itself, and about $50 for all suburban zones, up to 30km from the city limits and more. You get access to a network of trams, buses, and rail. A system of park-and-ride parking lots at rail stations in nearby towns/ villages is being added lately.

The system is not funded from the tickets alone and both city and neihgbouring municipalities are subsidizing it from their budgets. It get's really complicated to get to the bottom of the costs for the whole system as you could imagine, but here's some data regarding the city itself:

 - from the budget of 4.3 billion PLN, 1.3 billion is spend on transport and communication

- this included about 600m for investments (including renovation projects of existing infrastructure) for roads, tram lines etc. A note here that this often includes re-doing of underground infrastructure below road like piping etc, it is hard to delineate it.

- 700M goes for upkeep of existing infrastructure - including paying all the employees, upkeep of vehicle fleet, energy bills etc - but it also included upkeep of roads in the city in general, including fixing potholes, removing snow in the winter etc.

- last year, city got around 200M from selling public transport tickets. For comparison, it got around 80M from parking fees in the city center

Edit: oh, and of course network is city/ municipality run. Some work is sub-contracted to private operators, but only at low level (serving a particular line/ lines on a agreed schedule, or just leasing some vehicles).

What is crazy is that my city actually owns a majority stock in a tram producing factory (guess who wins all the tenders for new vehicles..) and operates is successfully, selling trams to other cities in PL and AFAIK even abroad lately, as well as doing all the maintenance work internally.

Edit2: after reading BansheeOne post, it's worth mentioning that rail infrastructure is of course separate from this system, owned by national operator, with multiple operators of certain connections and trains themselves. There's ticket unification with the city public transport system, with city/ agglomeration ordering certain connections etc. It is immensely complicated, that's a given...

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Huba

[BansheeOne]

In the case of Berlin, there are two major transportation companies. Bus, tram, subway and ferry lines are run by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) which emerged in 1928 as a joint stock corporation amalgamated from previous separate operators. In 1938, the Nazis made it a public corporation of the city. After 1945 it was split into an Eastern and Western branch with the rest of the city. Reunited in 1992, it was turned into a municipal institution of public law, a more independent form of a public corporation.

Financing is obviously mostly through fares and other intake, topped up by public money. Coverage of expenses by their own income increased from 67 percent in 2007 to 99 in 2013, and in 2014 they actually made a profit before subsidies for the first time. Still, public money makes up about 20 percent of their budget (I suspect mostly for investitions into improving the network, like extending the former East Berlin U5 subway line all the way to Central Station) for a total of ca. 1.5 billion Euro in 2017, turning a profit of about 13 million.

The other major company is the S-Bahn Berlin light rail operator which is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn (previously run by the Reichsbahn, and by the BVG in West Berlin between 1984 and 1994). There's an integrated ticket system covering both operations though, with individual, multiple, day, week, month and year passes. DB itself is of course a former national public corporation reunited with the East German legacy Reichsbahn and nominally privatized in 1994, but with stock still owned 100 percent by the German government.

It has turned a profit for most of the last two decades, but not the last two years; in 2020 it ran up a deficit of nearly three billion, probably due to COVID effects. Not sure about the economics of S-Bahn Berlin specifically; a couple years ago they got caught cutting corners in maintenance, apparently trying to contribute to the corporation's overall net positive, and had a lot of their trains deadlined, leading to major chaos due to shortage of rolling stock.

Edited July 31, 2022 by BansheeOne

[Ssnake]

Hannover's ÜSTRA - surprisingly, an exchange traded stock (https://www.uestra.de/unternehmen/ueber-uns/investor-relations/) - had (2021 figures, so not an entirely typical year due to Covid) an annual turnover of about 230 million EUR, and ran a deficit of 65 million, if I'm reading their annual report right. So, these 65M would effectively be taxpayer subsidies.

[DB]

Things that make you go "Hmmm?"

Quote

In 2007, DB Regio achieved 70% of its turnover from payments made by the federal states for the provision of local public transport, 29% from ticket sales and 1% from other income.[9] More recent figures are not published.

It's easy to make a profit when you lay off all the costs onto your customer, which is carefully defined as the regional governments and not the passengers.

By implication, DB Regio in that year had a 70% subsidy.

[Huba]

14 minutes ago, DB said:

Things that make you go "Hmmm?"

It's easy to make a profit when you lay off all the costs onto your customer, which is carefully defined as the regional governments and not the passengers.

By implication, DB Regio in that year had a 70% subsidy.

Well, the economics of airlines (a form of public transport if you think of it) are also quite similar. Not many airports are build by airlines themselves from money from air fares alone...

The thing with "private" personal transport i.e. cars is that a huge part of it's actual cost is also funded from public budgets - I mean the road building and upkeep. Oh, and the cost of providing parking space, this is huge if you bother to count it. Yeah, there are taxes in fuel and in buying the vehicles themselves, (so are in cost of purchasing trains and electricity to run them), but it really doesn't cover the overall cost of the road infrastructure needed to support private cars. Not that I'm taking a jab at the idea of car ownership as such, cars are awesome, but to think this form of transport is not somehow "subsidized" too is a (easy to make) mistake.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Huba

[DB]

No Huba. These are direct subsidies to provide the services. Run these trains on these days, passengers or not.

DB is a giant scam organisation distanced from the inevitable losses that public services like rail *always* have by this type of contract.

It enables them to pretend that rail travel is profitable which then allows them to feed at the government trough in other countries where they win franchises on promises that are full of fine words and hot air.

Their very existence as a wholly owned government entity is a subversion of the intent of the EU to avoid massive (government) monopolies, but you know how it is - the rules are only selectively enforced in Germany and France.