Getting Europeed on by Russia for expensive gas prices.
>The latest IPCC report suggests that average wind speeds over Europe will reduce by 8%-10% as a result of climate change.
Cool, Russia is happy
> So should we be worried about this period of low wind? In short, no.
>Combining wind with other renewable resources such as solar, hydropower and the ability to smartly manage our electricity demand will be critical at times like this summer when the wind is not blowing.
What if you live in a place where hydropower can never exist? Or where solar generates 10% of what it does in december as compared to july. When you have these events where the wind dies down for prolonged periods, what remains?
And if your answer is “storage”, then I ask you how? Realising battery storage that will be able to bridge these periods will be nigh on impossible, due to expense (one KwH of battery storage is projected to cost 250USD in 2050), not to mention the environmental consequences.
The fairy-tale that it is possible to only rely on these extremely variable sources needs to die. Smart management of the electricity grid will be meaningless when millions of people will want to remain warm during the winter.
Can it ever really be a case of either or? At least the more integrated the EU electricity grid becomes the better the mix of sources and the greater potential minimise imported fuels.
I can’t help but notice that France is doing just fine for itself, while Germany is decommissioning their nuclear plants without plans to build more
Means that one should drop their German companies’ stocks and invest into nuclear.
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Getting Europeed on by Russia for expensive gas prices.
>The latest IPCC report suggests that average wind speeds over Europe will reduce by 8%-10% as a result of climate change.
Cool, Russia is happy
> So should we be worried about this period of low wind? In short, no.
>Combining wind with other renewable resources such as solar, hydropower and the ability to smartly manage our electricity demand will be critical at times like this summer when the wind is not blowing.
What if you live in a place where hydropower can never exist? Or where solar generates 10% of what it does in december as compared to july. When you have these events where the wind dies down for prolonged periods, what remains?
And if your answer is “storage”, then I ask you how? Realising battery storage that will be able to bridge these periods will be nigh on impossible, due to expense (one KwH of battery storage is projected to cost 250USD in 2050), not to mention the environmental consequences.
The fairy-tale that it is possible to only rely on these extremely variable sources needs to die. Smart management of the electricity grid will be meaningless when millions of people will want to remain warm during the winter.
Relying on nuclear next to renewables will also make the energy transition cheaper overall:
https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Nuclear%20power%20brief_EN_0.pdf (pp. 14)
Can it ever really be a case of either or? At least the more integrated the EU electricity grid becomes the better the mix of sources and the greater potential minimise imported fuels.
I can’t help but notice that France is doing just fine for itself, while Germany is decommissioning their nuclear plants without plans to build more
Means that one should drop their German companies’ stocks and invest into nuclear.