Will the EU energy crisis start to pull us away from reliance on fossil fuels?

[Vakna]

Here in the UK we are facing potential 3 hour planned blackouts in the winter if our energy plants are unable to source enough gas to fulfil peak demands, especially on the coldest days and if wind power is especially still, and I know there is more of the same in other places around Europe that relied on gas imports from Russia. I would like to make it clear though that I fully support planned blackouts and other such measures if it keeps Europe clean of Russian resources, I think it's a reasonable price to pay for getting out from under that reliance, and supporting Russia right now is obviously the wrong thing to do.

However, I think this is a good time for our countries to start seriously looking at other energy sources to supply most if not all demand. There has never been a better excuse to start dropping fossil fuels in recent years. What really annoys me though is that the western European countries seem to be also moving to drop nuclear energy, which seems totally absurd. Here in the UK we are actively decommissioning nuclear plants and with only 1 new one being built we are set to have only a third of current nuclear energy capacity in the next few decades than we have now, and I know the story is much the same in places like France and Germany. We also had plans in the early 2000's to build a whole bunch of new nuclear plants but the plans got scrapped after public backlash and government changes. I think a whole lot of that came from the fact that most people are uneducated and think nuclear power is dangerous, when it is factually the safest source of energy on the planet. It has caused the least deaths or negative environmental effects of all energy sources in history - it is even statistically safer than wind and solar.

It annoys me to no end that we must respect the opinions of the uneducated masses when it comes to critical infrastructure. In my opinion, and with all due respect, I say screw the people, just build what we need. Europe would not be in the energy crisis we are in now if we had all just gone forward with nuclear power instead of decommissioning plants and building no new ones. Even forgetting all that, fossil fuels are not infinite, there will come a day on Earth where there is no oil, no coal, no natural gas left to plunder and our atmosphere is utterly ruined from consuming it all. What then?

[luc54]

I mean you kinda pointed the obvious fault with the renewables that is reliability. Power grids have to match the load and that's why you want fast acting gas turbines to help with it. Now of course you can do smart grids that help with matching load with increased availability of wind/solar energy so you can charge your car batteries or use other appliances during high availability, but there's always the problem when there's very little power available and you still need to match certain base demand.

Now this isn't as big of a problem when you live in somewhat south like the UK but I live up in Finland and if we don't get certain power you lose heating. Losing heating when it's -20C outside isn't situation I'm looking forward to next winter. Now you could have more wind power but when it's not windy it's not going to help. You can rely on other countries because they could have wind, but part of the reason this happened because we relied too much on Russia. Norway could decide to use power they generate for themselves and thus forcing other countries into blackouts. Is self suficiency of cotunries necessary? It can and probably will be used as a weapon against countries.

As for the future getting away from not burning something is going to be pretty much impossible. Now you can produce renewable fuels, but it's going to costly. There are some other ways to store the energy in non chemical forms. Water can either be pumped up in potential energy storage or just heated up as heat storage. They are relaible although the first one does need right geography to work.

There's also batteries you can use for storage, but such solutions are not very feasible considering the capacity of batteries. Massive facilities can only hold enough power for few hours the very most. The second problem with them comes down to resources required to produce the batteries. Since we are moving to electric cars all known reserves aren't enough for cars alone. Oh and we get the very same problem as with Russian energy as well: largest lithium reserves are located in China. I don't think I need to say anything else about this problem.

[Draco-Onis]

I mean you kinda pointed the obvious fault with the renewables that is reliability. Power grids have to match the load and that's why you want fast acting gas turbines to help with it. Now of course you can do smart grids that help with matching load with increased availability of wind/solar energy so you can charge your car batteries or use other appliances during high availability, but there's always the problem when there's very little power available and you still need to match certain base demand.

Now this isn't as big of a problem when you live in somewhat south like the UK but I live up in Finland and if we don't get certain power you lose heating. Losing heating when it's -20C outside isn't situation I'm looking forward to next winter. Now you could have more wind power but when it's not windy it's not going to help. You can rely on other countries because they could have wind, but part of the reason this happened because we relied too much on Russia. Norway could decide to use power they generate for themselves and thus forcing other countries into blackouts. Is self suficiency of cotunries necessary? It can and probably will be used as a weapon against countries.

As for the future getting away from not burning something is going to be pretty much impossible. Now you can produce renewable fuels, but it's going to costly. There are some other ways to store the energy in non chemical forms. Water can either be pumped up in potential energy storage or just heated up as heat storage. They are relaible although the first one does need right geography to work.

There's also batteries you can use for storage, but such solutions are not very feasible considering the capacity of batteries. Massive facilities can only hold enough power for few hours the very most. The second problem with them comes down to resources required to produce the batteries. Since we are moving to electric cars all known reserves aren't enough for cars alone. Oh and we get the very same problem as with Russian energy as well: largest lithium reserves are located in China. I don't think I need to say anything else about this problem.

The problem isn't renewables it's lack of proper insulation and heat management in home discouraged by the right wing governments. The fix is multiple folds it involves renewable and nuclear energy along with properly insulation and energy generation on individual homes. I am not sure countries like he UK can meet the challenge since so much is put on preserving the look of houses instead of their utility, things like geothermal heating, solar panel and insulating windows won't look as "historic".

[Attackrabbit]

I am not sure countries like he UK can meet the challenge since so much is put on preserving the look of houses instead of their utility, things like geothermal heating, solar panel and insulating windows won't look as "historic".

Not sure where you got that from, we have some listed buildings (and to be fair in some cases nearly entire villages are listed) but not all of us live in 17th century cottages or whatever lovely picture you have in your head For example my house is 'historic' in that it was built in the 1840s but I'm still allowed to do more or less anything I want to it other than put a skylight on the front of the house, however now that one house down the road went ahead and did it anyway and nothing happened it's pretty much open season on that as the council can't say anything due to not forcing the 1st guy to remove it.

[Endus]

I mean you kinda pointed the obvious fault with the renewables that is reliability. Power grids have to match the load and that's why you want fast acting gas turbines to help with it. Now of course you can do smart grids that help with matching load with increased availability of wind/solar energy so you can charge your car batteries or use other appliances during high availability, but there's always the problem when there's very little power available and you still need to match certain base demand.

Not all renewables have consistency issues; hydro is nearly immune to consistency problems, with proper design. Even in drought conditions, you can have significant reservoirs at elevation that you use "extra" power to pump water to when power production is high, and if drought conditions emerge, you release water from that reservoir. While that can, eventually, run out, so can fossil fuels, and with a lot longer of a lead-time before you're in crisis. Geothermal's also pretty darned reliable. The issues with solar are largely mitigated by demand cycles; solar doesn't produce during the nighttime, but that's the lowest power draw period, so solar makes for a perfect supplement because it almost naturally increases power production alongside demand, more or less.

Beyond that, sure, you want diverse sourcing, but the ideal backup is nuclear, not fossil fuels.

[Unholyground]

There are solutions but governments like problems that they can solve even though the answers have existed for like 70 years+ lol.

If governments would foot the bill to help convert homes residential solar/wind a lot of these issues are non-existant.

The biggest issue is surpression of information due to lobbying from power and fuel corporations, which they cannot do anymore because information is everywhere.

[luc54]

The problem isn't renewables it's lack of proper insulation and heat management in home discouraged by the right wing governments. The fix is multiple folds it involves renewable and nuclear energy along with properly insulation and energy generation on individual homes. I am not sure countries like he UK can meet the challenge since so much is put on preserving the look of houses instead of their utility, things like geothermal heating, solar panel and insulating windows won't look as "historic".

I suppose that's the problem in the UK. Meanwhile we do have proper insulation up north. It's not like you can live without it. Even then we have to replace some heating systems. I went to help my mom order an air heat pump. There's 2 months queue for installation and it's more efficient than the previous electric heating. There's also possibility of going for fireplace although it does require more expensive installation.

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Not all renewables have consistency issues; hydro is nearly immune to consistency problems, with proper design. Even in drought conditions, you can have significant reservoirs at elevation that you use "extra" power to pump water to when power production is high, and if drought conditions emerge, you release water from that reservoir. While that can, eventually, run out, so can fossil fuels, and with a lot longer of a lead-time before you're in crisis. Geothermal's also pretty darned reliable. The issues with solar are largely mitigated by demand cycles; solar doesn't produce during the nighttime, but that's the lowest power draw period, so solar makes for a perfect supplement because it almost naturally increases power production alongside demand, more or less.

Beyond that, sure, you want diverse sourcing, but the ideal backup is nuclear, not fossil fuels.

Yes I did forget to mention that although I did address the pumping of water as a possibly energy storage. That's basically hydropower reservoirs, but you are righ hydro is a good one for load following power. . Problem this summer has been low reservoir levels due to low rainfall this summer. Especially the problem in Norway might cause some issue next winter: https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...er-2022-07-07/
Norway also happens to be far the biggest producer of hydropower for Europe and it's going to reflect badly for UK as well.
https://hydropower-europe.eu/assets/images/figure-2.png

Also graph shows that the rivers have been tapped quite well so far. Norway does miss about 30% of possible power they could use but for rest of countries with few execption have utilized this natural power source well.

[PC2]

Will the EU energy crisis start to pull us away from reliance on fossil fuels?

I think the world will innovate past fossil fuels pretty quickly and that this crisis will speed up that process a bit. However that does NOT mean Europeans should suffer through the next couple winters without enough energy merely because some green party wackos don't want Europe to have its own fossil fuel energy production options.

[tehdang]

Here in the UK we are facing potential 3 hour planned blackouts in the winter if our energy plants are unable to source enough gas to fulfil peak demands, especially on the coldest days and if wind power is especially still, and I know there is more of the same in other places around Europe that relied on gas imports from Russia. I would like to make it clear though that I fully support planned blackouts and other such measures if it keeps Europe clean of Russian resources, I think it's a reasonable price to pay for getting out from under that reliance, and supporting Russia right now is obviously the wrong thing to do.

However, I think this is a good time for our countries to start seriously looking at other energy sources to supply most if not all demand. There has never been a better excuse to start dropping fossil fuels in recent years. What really annoys me though is that the western European countries seem to be also moving to drop nuclear energy, which seems totally absurd. Here in the UK we are actively decommissioning nuclear plants and with only 1 new one being built we are set to have only a third of current nuclear energy capacity in the next few decades than we have now, and I know the story is much the same in places like France and Germany. We also had plans in the early 2000's to build a whole bunch of new nuclear plants but the plans got scrapped after public backlash and government changes. I think a whole lot of that came from the fact that most people are uneducated and think nuclear power is dangerous, when it is factually the safest source of energy on the planet. It has caused the least deaths or negative environmental effects of all energy sources in history - it is even statistically safer than wind and solar.

It annoys me to no end that we must respect the opinions of the uneducated masses when it comes to critical infrastructure. In my opinion, and with all due respect, I say screw the people, just build what we need. Europe would not be in the energy crisis we are in now if we had all just gone forward with nuclear power instead of decommissioning plants and building no new ones. Even forgetting all that, fossil fuels are not infinite, there will come a day on Earth where there is no oil, no coal, no natural gas left to plunder and our atmosphere is utterly ruined from consuming it all. What then?

I do expect the EU and UK to move more towards reinvestment in nuclear. Moving away from nuclear never made sense in terms of weaning off of fossil fuel reliance. It's just too much MW bang for buck spent. Other green sources don't come close, at least as they exist today.

The politicians and leaders of today need to push nuclear as a stable non-greenhouse-gas-emitting option to eventually reduce the public skepticism of nuclear. There's just been too little education and speaking campaigns to counteract the 1960s and 70s era safety standards and construction, versus modern reactor designs. Wind and solar are fine for what they're good at, but they'll need a backbone of nuclear until and unless more technological breakthroughs occur in those areas.

I do think the gas imports from Russia crisis will help in moving the conversation towards more investment in non-fossil fuels.

[Vakna]

The problem isn't renewables it's lack of proper insulation and heat management in home discouraged by the right wing governments. The fix is multiple folds it involves renewable and nuclear energy along with properly insulation and energy generation on individual homes. I am not sure countries like he UK can meet the challenge since so much is put on preserving the look of houses instead of their utility, things like geothermal heating, solar panel and insulating windows won't look as "historic".

It's honestly ridiculous the whole preserving historical looks bs we have here. I totally agree that should be a thing on big old structures like cathedrals and monuments, but when it comes to homes that should be out the window. Solar roofs should be standard on every single house, not an optional extra.

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I do expect the EU and UK to move more towards reinvestment in nuclear. Moving away from nuclear never made sense in terms of weaning off of fossil fuel reliance. It's just too much MW bang for buck spent. Other green sources don't come close, at least as they exist today.

The politicians and leaders of today need to push nuclear as a stable non-greenhouse-gas-emitting option to eventually reduce the public skepticism of nuclear. There's just been too little education and speaking campaigns to counteract the 1960s and 70s era safety standards and construction, versus modern reactor designs. Wind and solar are fine for what they're good at, but they'll need a backbone of nuclear until and unless more technological breakthroughs occur in those areas.

I do think the gas imports from Russia crisis will help in moving the conversation towards more investment in non-fossil fuels.

The sad part is that if we as a species had continued to invest in nuclear power like we did in the second half of the 1900's, and continued to improve and refine the processes and technology, electricity today would be abundant and inexpensive worldwide. Also makes you wonder what the world would be like today if Chernobyl had never happened, since I think that was the big turning point where the uneducated started campaigning against nuclear energy.

It's just frustrating when you're in the middle of an energy crisis, but you've had the technology to solve energy issues for the last 70 years and choose to ignore it.

[Poopymonster]

It's honestly ridiculous the whole preserving historical looks bs we have here. I totally agree that should be a thing on big old structures like cathedrals and monuments, but when it comes to homes that should be out the window. Solar roofs should be standard on every single house, not an optional extra.

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The sad part is that if we as a species had continued to invest in nuclear power like we did in the second half of the 1900's, and continued to improve and refine the processes and technology, electricity today would be abundant and inexpensive worldwide. Also makes you wonder what the world would be like today if Chernobyl had never happened, since I think that was the big turning point where the uneducated started campaigning against nuclear energy.

It's just frustrating when you're in the middle of an energy crisis, but you've had the technology to solve energy issues for the last 70 years and choose to ignore it.

Also when people, educated or not, realized that a corporation will do anything nearly anything to keep profits high. Cutting corners and lowest bidders with shoddy materials.

If we go nuclear, the construction should not have the lowest bidder who will go overbudget and cut corners win. Then the company in charge in the name of profit fail to keep maintenance or properly trained staff. And that's what you get, mostly in the US.

[tehealadin]

The sad part is that if we as a species had continued to invest in nuclear power like we did in the second half of the 1900's, and continued to improve and refine the processes and technology, electricity today would be abundant and inexpensive worldwide. Also makes you wonder what the world would be like today if Chernobyl had never happened, since I think that was the big turning point where the uneducated started campaigning against nuclear energy.

It's just frustrating when you're in the middle of an energy crisis, but you've had the technology to solve energy issues for the last 70 years and choose to ignore it.

It has always frustrated me. I do get the hesitancy towards nuclear, however the problems of waste are far less urgent (to the best of my knowledge, I stand willing to be corrected on this) than the ones we currently face. And disasters are pretty much man made, we know they can be built and operated safely. I always felt like the drive away from nuclear was more to do with ideology/fear over pragmatic politics. The fact is that we aren't yet in a state to switch entirely to renewables, something needs to fill the gap, and to the best of my knowledge, nuclear is really the only gig left in town.

I have also heard that there are issues with long term storage with renewables, but I haven't looked into it enough, I have heard differing opinions on this, but have heard sane, pro renewable people cite this as a bottle neck, but likewise I have heard the opposite, so don't really know what to think.

[Ivanstone]

I always felt like the drive away from nuclear was more to do with ideology/fear over pragmatic politics.

One problem I have with nuclear power generation always seemed to be tied up with a country's nuclear weapon aspirations rather than having nuclear power for its own sake.

The US has many enriched uranium reactors because it has an interest in enriched uranium for military purposes.
Canada on the other hand uses reactors that don't require enriched uranium and its military is non-nuclear.

[Nymrohd]

It has always frustrated me. I do get the hesitancy towards nuclear, however the problems of waste are far less urgent (to the best of my knowledge, I stand willing to be corrected on this) than the ones we currently face.

I think the issue with waste is that most countries will just dump it in a third world country instead of properly disposing it, like we do with almost all of our garbage.

I challenge the idea that we cannot do just with renewables. We will need some flexible energy supply like nuclear to cover up for fluctuation but to a minor degree. The main issue is how grossly inefficient most electric grids are. The energy savings that could be achieved by proper energy infrastructure and green urban planning are daunting in scale.

[CostinR]

In the short term? Not likely, in fact we're going to see a lot of countries increasing coal production to make due.

Long term? Possibly though I think we're far more likely to find alternative gas sources to Russia and get more nuclear capability.

I think the issue with waste is that most countries will just dump it in a third world country instead of properly disposing it, like we do with almost all of our garbage.

No country will ever dispose of nuclear waste like this. Partly due to the fact it's dangerous and a lot more expensive to even move it to begin with, and also because it would be sheer madness. Nuclear waste could be used to make dirty bombs, and no nation is maniacal enough to allow that.

Besides for all the noise on nuclear waste there's not a huge amount of it produced in the first place and the vast majority can be recycled.

I challenge the idea that we cannot do just with renewables. We will need some flexible energy supply like nuclear to cover up for fluctuation but to a minor degree. The main issue is how grossly inefficient most electric grids are. The energy savings that could be achieved by proper energy infrastructure and green urban planning are daunting in scale.

I doubt we're ever going to see renewables ever be good enough to cover even the majority of our needs. Some countries will work quite well and achieve high rates but others, especially those without good access to water ( the countries with the highest amount of renewable energy production all rely on hydro ).

The future? Some countries, which aren't being foolish ( see Germany ) will expand nuclear power with modern reactor designs that will be quite effective as opposed to decades old reactors many countries have running.

Beyond that? Fusion energy, if we ever manage to master, but I think in a few decades for certain it will be very workable.

[MoeSzyslak]

I think the issue with waste is that most countries will just dump it in a third world country instead of properly disposing it, like we do with almost all of our garbage.

I challenge the idea that we cannot do just with renewables. We will need some flexible energy supply like nuclear to cover up for fluctuation but to a minor degree. The main issue is how grossly inefficient most electric grids are. The energy savings that could be achieved by proper energy infrastructure and green urban planning are daunting in scale.

I just take you post as an example here to clarify some ideas regarding nuclear.

Nuclear is not suitable to compensate fluctuations in the energy grid. You need days to weeks to power up and power down a nuclear reactor. This is the big leg up for natural gas because this can be started in seconds to minutes. If you use nuclear with green energy sources you have only one additional inflexible energy source. This results in the need for energy storage capabilities which we already have due to the structure of green energy.

So if you are faced with the choice between nuclear and green energy it comes down to an economic choice and this is not even close. Even without taking nuclear waste into consideration green energy is much cheaper and fast build then a nuclear plant (check wiki as an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_o...city_by_source). Therefore the logical choice will be green energy without taking fearmongering regarding radiation into consideration.

This discussion was drastically different 10 years ago but due to the advances which were made in the green energy field it has changed. Please keep in mind that if you read about this topics on social media (facebook, reddit, youtube e.g....) there is a lot of pseudo grass roots movement generated due to financial interests from big companies. A lot of fresh accounts are very focused on being pro nuclear.

[bladeXcrasher]

I just take you post as an example here to clarify some ideas regarding nuclear.

Nuclear is not suitable to compensate fluctuations in the energy grid. You need days to weeks to power up and power down a nuclear reactor.

LMFAO, no it doesn't take days or weeks to power up or power down a reactor. Nuclear power is the best way to get off fossil fuels, provides a consistently reliable source that can be supplemented by any of the sustainable energy sources.

The cost of nuclear could easily be reduced in the US if the NRC had a pre-approved design instead of plants being a new approval process every time they are built as has been the case. With more plants, more tech can be invested in re-enactment technology to increase the amount of spent fuel recycling we do globally.

[MoeSzyslak]

LMFAO, no it doesn't take days or weeks to power up or power down a reactor. Nuclear power is the best way to get off fossil fuels, provides a consistently reliable source that can be supplemented by any of the sustainable energy sources.

The cost of nuclear could easily be reduced in the US if the NRC had a pre-approved design instead of plants being a new approval process every time they are built as has been the case. With more plants, more tech can be invested in re-enactment technology to increase the amount of spent fuel recycling we do globally.

Ok it is several hours to days but still to much to react to changes in the energy grid. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956

The french have faster reacting plants but they had to shut them down this summer because the water from the surrounding rivers was to low to keep them working. I also would like to build several fusion reactors and be done with this topic but this seems to be a possibility for 2050 and beyond. Until then solar, wind, geothermal and water are the tested solutions which gets us the most bang for our buck.

[Specialka]

Ok it is several hours to days but still to much to react to changes in the energy grid. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956

The french have faster reacting plants but they had to shut them down this summer because the water from the surrounding rivers was to low to keep them working. I also would like to build several fusion reactors and be done with this topic but this seems to be a possibility for 2050 and beyond. Until then solar, wind, geothermal and water are the tested solutions which gets us the most bang for our buck.

Sorry to break it to you but nuclear energy is the greenest energy. It will maybe change in the future. But as it stands now, it is like that.

[MoeSzyslak]

Sorry to break it to you but nuclear energy is the greenest energy. It will maybe change in the future. But as it stands now, it is like that.

Because you say so?