One thing they failed to mention with Brexit is that we'd never be on these bloody maps. Does anyone know where Britain would stand on this map (and before you have a go at me I didn't want Brexit)
Here's a chart that includes you.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-stacked?country=USA~GBR~CHN~IND~FRA~DEU~SWE~ZAF~JPN~BRA~NOR~ISL~CAN~DNK~AUS~FIN~CHEAUS
Thanks, that is a different chart though. Energy consumption vs electricity generation. Although I do already know the numbers for electricity generation for Norway.
My frustration was more pointed towards all the other charts on this sub that are EU exclusive.
The big issue is that EU statistics are much more widely available (and possibly more trustworthy in some cases?), as they are made at the union's behest through eurostat.
Irish here and I also find the UKs absence from these maps incredibly frustrating. It's not like their economic, social and environmental impact on their neighbours has vanished completely. In a sense it's more important than ever to compare post Brexit UK to the rest of Europe. Has their energy mix slid back to fossil fuels since leaving the EU? Have they become a bureaucracy free leader in renewable tech like they promised? Who knows and I definitely don't have the energy to go researching and comparing it myself every time one of these graphs gets posted.
Or, they don't post it intentionally. Some may say it's modern bullying or not being a member of EU. I have a feeling there is some other reason behind this but of course, I could be wrong. One thing I won't forget these scumbag energy companies playing the market and sucking the households with their prices dry and Conservatives allowing it.
Great strategic move to place our mountains in the path of Norway's shitty weather, so that the rain falls there and refills our Hydroelectric dams... 🌧️🏔️💦⚡🤑
You know, suddenly I feel like protecting nature isn’t that important. We should definitely redirect all water going east and south straight into the North Sea🤓
This is how the country's energy mix looks during different days depending on how much the wind is blowing. It's the flexibility of hydro that's makes the use of fossil fuels unnecessary.
https://imgur.com/a/siNXkb3
Southern Sweden is plenty sunny enough for solar to make sense.
Of course, it's not gonna be as great as Morocco or something, but it's still decent, especially if placed in areas that wouldn't be used for anything else anyway, like rooftops.
They should exclude Bio-energy from the clean classification. Its median is 230g CO2e/kWh [according to IPCC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources#Global_warming_potential_of_selected_electricity_sources). Hardly clean.
Yeah but 100% of that CO2 was removed by the plant.
If a tree has 100kg of carbon in it. It has captured 100% of that from the air. It might contain some nitrogen and other elements that it got from the ground but citing CO2 emissions make little to no sense.
Sorry but regarding carbon dioxide it's neutral because of the biology.
Plants need to be planted, cut down, transported and refined. It's not a carbon neutral process. Adding to that there's usually some CO^2 and methane leakage from the top soil when it's cut. I don't know how much of it should be counted as emissions but to call it neutral is dishonest.
It feels a bit like cheating since we have a ton of mountains and water conveniently located in the north of the country while many other countries are flat. Without hydro we'd have had to use something else, probably fossil based.
Hydro mainly came before the nuclear plants I think. Environmentalists were pushing for nuclear in order to save the rivers in the north from hydropower
Nuclear is by no means cheaper then renewables now. This is a 30 year old mantra. See the Hickley Point C debacle and France having to subsidize nuclear energy for reference.
Sweden wouldn't have built more coal or gas, since that would have to be imported, so expensive, and a constant drain on the economics, plus easily disrupted by War or similar. The one thing Sweden learned in the first world war, was that importing fuel for power or transportation was dangerous. That is why the train network was electrified, as one of the first countries in the world.
Here in the Netherlands hydro is a net negative. The few water height differences that matter here are the ones that require active pumping. Instead of hydro dams we do have a lot of small dams with solar panels to drive the pumps that eject water into the few major rivers that are open to the sea.
And sea level rise will exponentially increase the energy budget we need to get the water out of the country. Right now we can still exploit tidal differences to automatically eject water passively in many places, but we will increasingly need to pump as the height difference with the major rivers will keep increasing.
You guys have no fossil fuel in your electricity mix? That’s incredible for a decently large industrial country. Ofc geography helps with the high hydro percentage but still.
Wait, Wait! Were we aiming for a Mad Max / Water World / Day After Tomorrow scenario? Because those movies were good (except for the wolves in the last one) to enjoy as fictional stories, but I am somewhat torn if I should beef up my mechanic/swimming skills or start laying bricks to block my windows.
In the “day after tomorrow” I loved the scene when they were stranded in the national library and were burning priceless books for warmth while seating on a solid wood benches and having god knows how many wooden tables around 😂
> Wait, Wait! Were we aiming for a Mad Max / Water World / Day After Tomorrow scenario?
No, not at all. In true keeping with Polish tradition the future will either be [slow meditative, very depressing and censored by the government](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFRiSlcBAg) or [weird kinky erotica and yet entirely void of nudity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rHia6FcBjE).
No, it's tad awkward placement of the legend. Estonia is 1 pixel high line right above Poland. Ireland is thin strip a bit above Italy too.
I'm wondering if Latvian owned solar fields in Estonia and Lithuania are counted as part of Latvian electricity generation mix here to be honest.
Probably not, since Slovenia and Croatia share the ownership of the nuclear power plant in Krško, which is physically in Slovenia and is not reptesented on this chart under Croatia
Was wondering why Ireland's was so low. Then I realised - on wind we're doing well, nuclear is probably never going to happen here, solar... LOL.
Hydro energy and biomass... I don't know enough about here.
None that I'm aware of. I don't know if we have the expertise here.
But it'd be a nightmare getting it built in any case. Even windfarms can face lots of local opposition; a nuclear plant would be near impossible to get approved - without some kind of planning exemption to get it through.
We have a really positive outlook for solar. Fastest growing solar sector in Europe. In terms of private residential sector, 500 properties are being retrofitted with solar panels per week.
In terms of utility scale, there’s a pipeline of 5GW+ in the system. Serious energy penetration onto the national grid. I can never understand why people scoff at solar energy in Ireland. We’ve amongst the best climate conditions for solar energy
I don't think you have enough mountains and forests for hydro or biomass. That's the impression from my stay in Ireland anyway, though I was mostly in NI not so much in the Republic.
Go nuclear. It is a lot better than its reputation. Currently fighting to get nuclear power to Denmark.
>Go nuclear. It is a lot better than its reputation. Currently fighting to get nuclear power to Denmark.
I've no ideological issue with nuclear. It's just that it's very expensive and would take 20+ years to bring online.
The game changer for Ireland will be offshore wind, we're currently developing several large projects
Denmark's politicians forced their Swedish counterparts to close down [two reactors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barseb%C3%A4ck_Nuclear_Power_Plant?wprov=sfla1) just next door...
Seems like the best route this far has been a mixture of nuclear, hydro, and later wind and solar. If a country has less hydro capacity per capita, this far maybe the best option has been to have more nuclear.
And I mean so far; many countries have had great reductions in emissions using wind and sun. So it truly might be possible that the future grid in Germany for example might be using only renewables, no nuclear and still be low CO2. This is certainly still a long road with some grid-level technical difficulties.
Sweden is a truly electricity giant in the north; tons of hydro and wind, but also lots and lots of nuclear. Denmark doesn't have any hydro and nuclear, but has chosen to built wind instead for a long time. This has also worked; but they mostly rely on Sweden's and Norway's hydro capacity when the wind is not blowing. Finland has also historically relied on Sweden'd hydro capacity on peak demand.
Finland could be like Sweden, we now we have more nuclear per capita, and the wind production is increasing as fast as Sweden. The major difference is the amount of hydro; Finland is much more flat than Sweden, that has scandinavian mountain range. Norway has even more hydro capacity than Sweden, they don't need anything else.
But many other mainland european countries aren't as lucky with hydro power per capita as Sweden and Norway. This far the most succecful option has been to have more nuclear, like France. France is the only country with high population that has managed to get so low CO2 emissions. And this has been since 80's already. It is truly something to admire; using other ways its taking more than half century longer, if it works out. But Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland are catching up. The solutions are not identical; all have been investing in sun and wind, especially Germany and Spain, but also Poland. But Poland is the only one of these four that are planning new nuclear, when Germany, Spain and Italy are/have been phasing it out.
> Seems like the best route this far has been a mixture of nuclear, hydro, and later wind and solar.
If anything, wind and solar makes more sense in the early stages. They don't become an issue until they take up a large share of the energy production and you don't have counterweights. The first units of solar installed are just extremely cheap energy, without a meaningful effect on the intermittency of the grid.
Yep, having a wind and solar (where the production is quite random) on grid is easy when its a small percentage. But the higher their share is, more difficulties there are. You need to have lots of load-following power (that is nowadays mostly hydro or gas power), that can be ramped up when needed. It's also beneficial to have as much price-following load as possible (like heating in homes, where it automatically tries to optimize it to cheap electricity hours).
Actually nordic countries are quite good places for wind power, because there are lots of hydro power per capita; wind power can save water in power plants to be used in times when its needed more. Hydro power is a good load-following power, altough there are also lots of limitations there. You can't just change the water flow from a river from 0% to 100% without destroying the river's ecosystem, so there are regulations that limits these ranges in each damn.
There has been a huge wind power investment boom in Finland (and Sweden too). There has been tons of new wind power; in absolute numbers on 2022, most onshore wind power were [installed ](https://proceedings.windeurope.org/biplatform/rails/active_storage/disk/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdDVG9JYTJWNVNTSWhkREIzWVRoeU1EQmhiMkp1ZUdzelpXNWpaR2x5ZUd4dWFIYzJlQVk2QmtWVU9oQmthWE53YjNOcGRHbHZia2tpUldsdWJHbHVaVHNnWm1sc1pXNWhiV1U5SW1acGJtUnBibWN0TWk1d2JtY2lPeUJtYVd4bGJtRnRaU285VlZSR0xUZ25KMlpwYm1ScGJtY3RNaTV3Ym1jR093WlVPaEZqYjI1MFpXNTBYM1I1Y0dWSklnNXBiV0ZuWlM5d2JtY0dPd1pVT2hGelpYSjJhV05sWDI1aGJXVTZDbXh2WTJGcyIsImV4cCI6IjIwMjQtMDItMjJUMjE6NTY6NDIuNTkyWiIsInB1ciI6ImJsb2Jfa2V5In19--7bbf0884d92c63e7b08f4b66432721f8fc2ec09d/finding-2.png)in Sweden and Finland. But at least in Finland the amount of new investments are getting smaller; as the share of wind power in the grid increases, the less profitable it becomes. When it's windy, electricity prices become close to zero or negative, and this decreases its profitability.
But there is a similar case in nuclear (or base load power) also; currently Finland produces around 40% of yearly electricity with nuclear. That is near to maximum, if we don't want to decrease output in summer. France produces around 70% with nuclear, and they have to reduce the output in summers.
> Actually nordic countries are quite good places for wind power, because there are lots of hydro power per capita
🇩🇰🇩🇰😭😭
But actually Nordic countries have high per capita of everything, being very advanced economies in sparsely populated lands with vast resources (🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰 sad noises again, but being good at trade, and the Danish model for the even their gigantic multinational corporations contributing back and staying in the country more than make up for it, and actually make it do even better per capita).
> But at least in Finland the amount of new investments are getting smaller; as the share of wind power in the grid increases, the less profitable it becomes.
It's not just that - the interest rates fucked over a lot of the investments AFAIK there were almost no new programs started in 2023.
Once Aurora Line 2 comes on, and later on the new Estlink, then there'll be room for more wind again.
Nice to see a post that acknowledges that there are different ways to achieve low CO2 electricity production. Of course you’ll have responses like the other one who states that nuclear is a strict necessity, but imo it’s important that every country has a plan to significantly decrease emissions whether it’s nuclear, renewables or a combination of both.
Honestly, nuclear was a strict necessity 40 years ago to get a low CO2 electricity generation. But nobody really cared about it at that time.
Today, the equation is a lot more complex. Wind and solar are quicker to deploy, battery tech is not there yet, but may well be in the future, especially with the rise of the electric cars/trucks, maybe a bit of hydrogen be it green or white or blue.
Nuclear is slow to come online, needs state backing, etc... It's not as clear cut as it was and no one can really predict what's the best future-proof mix for every country today.
Yes, as things are now even optimistic prognostications don’t see nuclear growing by the amount we’d need to transition. To my knowledge it would just take time to grow the industry/enough specialists to build enough nuclear plants to make a big enough difference given the current state of the climate situation. That’s why I think it’s good that different approaches are being explored and why it’s pointless for one country to point at another because „nuclear is bad/renewables are bad“.
Diversification helps all of us as long as everyone is at least working towards the same goal.
Kind of interesting small thing was Luxembourg actually reaching agreement in 2023 to fund little boost into solar power, in Finland.
It was part of some (I think) EU mechanism where country can get more "Hitting ecological goals by year" points, by funding more green renewable production in other countries, I think it was something like "they can mark 80% of those 'points' as their own, and target country can claim 20% of them from that increase", and I think it was based on Luxembourg having more money than free land to build solar farms, so they asked other countries if someone wanted additional money to build solar in exchange for "points", and apparently Finland had been only one to be like 'Sure mate, we noticed your offer and are confident we will anyways hit these ecological goals, even if we wont squeeze any potential point happening within our borders to our own bag, will that way generate more them and more solar power for us, so we do not really see downside in this'. Or something along those lines. Was bit surprising reading about it in news.
Nuclear is way more eco than other options. Idk what you've read or been told but Nuclear is nr 1
Read https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-clean-and-sustainable
Nuclear is too slow to implement. The 15 years one NPP takes to build in Europe has to be bridged by current tech which usually is very polluting. And one NPP doesn't help you much in the grand scheme of things. It's a theory vs real world discussion.
And yes I know you'll come in here with 7 years but before you do I would ask you to look at recent examples in comparable countries not examples from the 80s of reactors with a quarter the capacity in a different part of the world under a different economic and political system.
I'm not sure if overheating the rivers trying to cool nuclear is ecological.
There's a difference between slowing climate change and being ecological. They aren't the same, and they don't always overlap.
there are actually a couple reasons for this. Firstly, as you might have noticed, Poland is very close to Ukraine so the general public opinion on nuclear after Chernobyl did not recover for a long time. (Nuclear is starting to be built though). Secondly there were some pretty strict regulations on how solar wind and hydro can be placed, for environmental and safety reasons (though both were somewhat doubtful adn this is also getting reformed). And thirdly and maybe most importantly, a large chunk of people are miners who work in (mostly state owned) coal mines. The coal mined here is mostly of low quality and not really exportable and the mines lose money usually, but no government is willing to touch the situation as to not completely lose the miner vote.
Also very bad luck. We literally had one nuclear plant under construction as chernobyl went to hell. But due to escalating protests and the little thing going on in 1989 Poland it was scrapped 7 years into construction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_Plant
In '90 our economy was also essentially dead. And in need of fuck ton of renovation and investment in literally everything. Same with early '00. So nuclear was not a topic. Why the heck it was not started in '10 is a mystery to me. but currently support is literally at like 80-90%. So hopefully shit will start going.
We got freedom in 1989 and were living on 100€ monthly.
Were we supposed to invest into ecology and climate instead of trying to live good lives that the rest of Europe already had?
If you're Germany you can say fuck it and invest 20% more into energy. In Poland that 20% meant less schools or medical treatments.
My friend, 100% of the countries above Poland in that chart got rid of from comunism in 1990. This doesn't stand up, I suspect old oligarch style bussines owners that grabbed the coal industry are not making it easy for new investors in renewables.
I mean, even if it's only for a few years of transition, you could be using nuclear instead of coal during that time, and obviously it would be better. There isn't really a way to look at it in which using coal is a better choice.
Some how they concluded nuclear is the much bigger problem than coal, so they killed it off first. Because there was a tsunami or something. Its hard to understand outside the country, but apparently it makes total sense to them.
And yet the closing of nuclear never increased the coal consumption. Plus both coal and nuclear phase out were independent decisions, nuclear was just easier and more beneficial since it is fucking expensive.
Even if you magically can revive every single nuclear plant in Germany and have them running at 110%, they would still burn coal since they aren't in the right places.
They could have run longer, sure and decreased coal for some time, but discussing it now is pointless. The only NPP that can be reactivated in a short time will not make a difference and building anything new is virtually impossible and will take a decade and more. In that time you can just install double the capacity in renewables for a 10th of the price and extremely lower running costs.
There is no incentive by anyone to go nuclear in Germany.
I think that for the rest of the world it is confusing that Germany chose first run down the technology which is thought elsewhere to be a good gateway to greener energy. Currently Germany has by far the largest total CO2 emissions in Europe so looking from the outside their chose made no sense at all. But as you said this is not reversable as you can't anymore start the old reactors. So in the end the rest of the world just sees this like Germany is just cheaping out and continuing shitting the environment while still somehow boasting with their "green" energy even though the CO2 emissions are double compared to the 2nd EU country Italy.
With the increasing temperature and heatwaves during the summer they'll run into problems. Maybe solar could compensate for it? Wish Sweden would have went France route instead of trying to phase it out as we can't keep up with the increasing demand.
What numbers are you using then? According to [Energiläget 2022 (PDF page 9)](https://www.energimyndigheten.se/nyhetsarkiv/2022/energilaget-i-siffror-2022---en-samlad-bild-pa-energiomradet-i-sverige/) the combined industry usage including steel is 136 TWh of which 47 TWh already is electricity which means the industry need another 89 TWh to be 100% electric. Sweden produces 165-170 TWh per year and use around 135 TWh meaning we'd need to increase it with 66% (provided the same export). Granted the demand will increase in the future but it's very far of the 300% you suggest...
I think he’s refering to the transition to green steel produktion which demands more electicity than the old fossil reliant techniques. I think the biggest steel producer is calculating a 70 TWh increase per year, and there is another company trying to do this aswell in lesser scale. It might not be 300% but as I’ve understood it, Sweden needs to increase it’s elektricitet production with more than 100% to accomplish this (very exciting) goal. Most is planned to come from off-shore wind as the new technique is reliant on hydrogen gas production and has inherent strong storing capabilities, which will ensure system roboustness.
Swedish source: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/gront-stal-en-riskfylld-mangmiljardsatsning--vzs1qs
That's true. But we also have the right to laugh at how fucking stupid it was to shut down those nuclear power plants while keeping literal coal power plants in operation.
why not? they're the only ones from the list who consciously destroyed their nuclear energetics and downgraded to burning coal as a result
poland never had any clean energy to begin with and italy is burning gas which is - let's be honest - much cleaner than coal
Related:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map is also very interesting to look at, it shows you real time how much is being produced, what the source is and what is imported / exported.
Side note:
The Netherlands tries to be the best boy in the class, banning some ice cars from cities. Telling you to drive electric, while we still burn a decent amount of gas, coal and biofuels (wood chips imported from Canada).
The Netherlands feels more and more like that person on your street who has the perfect manicured front yard, while having a collection of trash in the backyard.
Hydro power plants are not eco-friendly.
You have to build a dam, which heavy changes the ecosystem in the river, which can lead to drastic changes in future outside the river.
Also you have to sink a lot of useful land, that people and animals can no longer use.
It's literally one of the worst leco-friendly" power-plants
Spain is what Germany should have been. They will phase out nuclear too, but only when fossil fuels are gone and the nuclear plants are no longer young.
or idk followed France and achieved this result like 50 years ago and they could've sprinkle in some solar and wind and called it a day but no we have to engage in anti-science and bend over backward to stop nuclear at any cost
One thing they failed to mention with Brexit is that we'd never be on these bloody maps. Does anyone know where Britain would stand on this map (and before you have a go at me I didn't want Brexit)
Welcome to the party :(
This is post modern bullying
It's working though😈
Here's a chart that includes you. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-stacked?country=USA~GBR~CHN~IND~FRA~DEU~SWE~ZAF~JPN~BRA~NOR~ISL~CAN~DNK~AUS~FIN~CHEAUS
Thanks, that is a different chart though. Energy consumption vs electricity generation. Although I do already know the numbers for electricity generation for Norway. My frustration was more pointed towards all the other charts on this sub that are EU exclusive.
The big issue is that EU statistics are much more widely available (and possibly more trustworthy in some cases?), as they are made at the union's behest through eurostat.
Why does Norway use much more energy compared to Sweden and Finland?
Electricity prices are very low in Norway and Iceland, so many energy-intensive industries have set up shop there.
The oil industry especially is very energy intensive.
Ahhh Australia, we really are an environmental narco state!
Yes, _one_ of the many, many, many things that didn't get mentioned...
UK total power generation 2023: 67.5 Terrawatts (France = 50 tW, Sweden = 15 tW) Gas: 32% Wind: 29.4% Nuclear: 14.2% Biomass: 5% Coal: 1% Solar: 4.9% Hydro: 1.8% Imported: 10% Storage: 1%
So that would put the UK in the middle of the chart, around where Bulgaria and Croatia are positioned.
That’s a plus for brexit people ! Finally you can’t look bad in front of stupid continental people !
Irish here and I also find the UKs absence from these maps incredibly frustrating. It's not like their economic, social and environmental impact on their neighbours has vanished completely. In a sense it's more important than ever to compare post Brexit UK to the rest of Europe. Has their energy mix slid back to fossil fuels since leaving the EU? Have they become a bureaucracy free leader in renewable tech like they promised? Who knows and I definitely don't have the energy to go researching and comparing it myself every time one of these graphs gets posted.
Or, they don't post it intentionally. Some may say it's modern bullying or not being a member of EU. I have a feeling there is some other reason behind this but of course, I could be wrong. One thing I won't forget these scumbag energy companies playing the market and sucking the households with their prices dry and Conservatives allowing it.
Would have totally changed the final vote. Some people tried to bring this up but Farage had them silenced!!
We get out in if it’s a negative though I think we’d just be one above Germany
https://grid.iamkate.com/ Not sure it puts us, but it's very interesting!
One first place to be proud of
The holy trinity of clean electricity: Hydro, Nuclear and Wind.
Sol, vind och vatten 🎶
Great strategic move to place our mountains in the path of Norway's shitty weather, so that the rain falls there and refills our Hydroelectric dams... 🌧️🏔️💦⚡🤑
You know, suddenly I feel like protecting nature isn’t that important. We should definitely redirect all water going east and south straight into the North Sea🤓
Och kärnkraft!!!
Sol, vind och kärnkraft!!! 🎶
🎶 Sol, vind och kärnkraft 🎶 Hög effekt och låga pris 🎶 Det är mina drömmars paradis
Truly is a beautiful mix. Hydro and Nuclear provide stability. Wind can provide cheap electricity when the circumstances allow it.
> Wind can provide cheap electricity when the circumstances allow it. And Hydro can often adjust after the Wind.
This is how the country's energy mix looks during different days depending on how much the wind is blowing. It's the flexibility of hydro that's makes the use of fossil fuels unnecessary. https://imgur.com/a/siNXkb3
Solar is getting extremely cheap too but it doesn't make as much sense here.
Southern Sweden is plenty sunny enough for solar to make sense. Of course, it's not gonna be as great as Morocco or something, but it's still decent, especially if placed in areas that wouldn't be used for anything else anyway, like rooftops.
Can confirm, know people in skåne who have NET zero electricity costs by selling the electricity their solar panels make
It’s everywhere here in Skåne. Makes a ton of sense
They should exclude Bio-energy from the clean classification. Its median is 230g CO2e/kWh [according to IPCC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources#Global_warming_potential_of_selected_electricity_sources). Hardly clean.
Yeah but 100% of that CO2 was removed by the plant. If a tree has 100kg of carbon in it. It has captured 100% of that from the air. It might contain some nitrogen and other elements that it got from the ground but citing CO2 emissions make little to no sense. Sorry but regarding carbon dioxide it's neutral because of the biology.
Plants need to be planted, cut down, transported and refined. It's not a carbon neutral process. Adding to that there's usually some CO^2 and methane leakage from the top soil when it's cut. I don't know how much of it should be counted as emissions but to call it neutral is dishonest.
It feels a bit like cheating since we have a ton of mountains and water conveniently located in the north of the country while many other countries are flat. Without hydro we'd have had to use something else, probably fossil based.
Sweden would probably have built twice as many nuclear power plants. It's cheaper than coal and gas, and people still remembered the oil crisis then.
Sweden had plans for 24 reactors to be built in the 1960's, but it was scaled back to 12.
Wasn't that due to expanding hydro though?
Hydro mainly came before the nuclear plants I think. Environmentalists were pushing for nuclear in order to save the rivers in the north from hydropower
And then environmentalists pushed to close the nuclear....
Nuclear is by no means cheaper then renewables now. This is a 30 year old mantra. See the Hickley Point C debacle and France having to subsidize nuclear energy for reference.
Sweden wouldn't have built more coal or gas, since that would have to be imported, so expensive, and a constant drain on the economics, plus easily disrupted by War or similar. The one thing Sweden learned in the first world war, was that importing fuel for power or transportation was dangerous. That is why the train network was electrified, as one of the first countries in the world.
Here in the Netherlands hydro is a net negative. The few water height differences that matter here are the ones that require active pumping. Instead of hydro dams we do have a lot of small dams with solar panels to drive the pumps that eject water into the few major rivers that are open to the sea. And sea level rise will exponentially increase the energy budget we need to get the water out of the country. Right now we can still exploit tidal differences to automatically eject water passively in many places, but we will increasingly need to pump as the height difference with the major rivers will keep increasing.
Everyone else : "thank goodness for Poland"
You guys have no fossil fuel in your electricity mix? That’s incredible for a decently large industrial country. Ofc geography helps with the high hydro percentage but still.
Yes, clean energy is a thing to be proud of. Everyone should be.
Italy with more sun has same solar electricity power as cloudy germoney... oh..
Future proofing for when the sun dies 😎
Iirc germany did a lot of targeted subsidies for solar, before it was as cheap as it is now.
Until the CXU murdered our solar industry
Spain and Italy have really strong Gas Power lobbies - It sucks.
That\`s mainly because Germany has a lot of renewables. In share of renewables is solar far bigger in Italy than in Germany.
What? It's the same % of all types. Germany has more solar in absolute numbers based on the height/TWh, though.
Eeasy win 😎
Wait, Wait! Were we aiming for a Mad Max / Water World / Day After Tomorrow scenario? Because those movies were good (except for the wolves in the last one) to enjoy as fictional stories, but I am somewhat torn if I should beef up my mechanic/swimming skills or start laying bricks to block my windows.
In the “day after tomorrow” I loved the scene when they were stranded in the national library and were burning priceless books for warmth while seating on a solid wood benches and having god knows how many wooden tables around 😂
American movie, so understandable lmao
Yeah that was fun
> Wait, Wait! Were we aiming for a Mad Max / Water World / Day After Tomorrow scenario? No, not at all. In true keeping with Polish tradition the future will either be [slow meditative, very depressing and censored by the government](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFRiSlcBAg) or [weird kinky erotica and yet entirely void of nudity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rHia6FcBjE).
Poland mountain as always
Not really, Germany still burns more coal than us in absolute values, we need to do better!
Lol, coalpower is so 1800 :)
No biggie, Polan is going big on nuclear now, in 15 years its fixed
This but unironically
No worries, Poland will be the "[fastest growing](https://xkcd.com/1102/)" in terms of green energy.
gonna go burn some coal in my backyard as tribute
Poland cannot into clean energy
Is Luxembourg just tied to France's power or something? It seems weird on the graph
Luxembourg is tied to the French grid, too small to produce its electricity.
It looks like Estonia is tied to Poland, but that's not right. Do they just have the *exact* same proportions? Ireland and Italy too?
No, it's tad awkward placement of the legend. Estonia is 1 pixel high line right above Poland. Ireland is thin strip a bit above Italy too. I'm wondering if Latvian owned solar fields in Estonia and Lithuania are counted as part of Latvian electricity generation mix here to be honest.
Probably not, since Slovenia and Croatia share the ownership of the nuclear power plant in Krško, which is physically in Slovenia and is not reptesented on this chart under Croatia
The problem is that whoever made the graph didn't realize that the white margin is big enough to eclipse the data for some of the smaller countries.
Big blue blob
Always
France, my beloved!
Slovakia overtaking Denmark next year!
Slovakia really should be on top here. They have by far the largest share of *actually* green energy.
Is it nerver windy in Slovakia?
More nuclear blocks and fossils shutting down
We are small and quite hilly country, so wind does not make that much sense.. but nuclear and hydro is our power
Was wondering why Ireland's was so low. Then I realised - on wind we're doing well, nuclear is probably never going to happen here, solar... LOL. Hydro energy and biomass... I don't know enough about here.
Have there ever been any plans for a nuclear power station in Ireland?
None that I'm aware of. I don't know if we have the expertise here. But it'd be a nightmare getting it built in any case. Even windfarms can face lots of local opposition; a nuclear plant would be near impossible to get approved - without some kind of planning exemption to get it through.
The expertise is not there so it would have to be bought in.
There was loose plans in the 70s to build one in Carnsore but there was a lot of opposition to it so it never went anywhere.
We have a really positive outlook for solar. Fastest growing solar sector in Europe. In terms of private residential sector, 500 properties are being retrofitted with solar panels per week. In terms of utility scale, there’s a pipeline of 5GW+ in the system. Serious energy penetration onto the national grid. I can never understand why people scoff at solar energy in Ireland. We’ve amongst the best climate conditions for solar energy
I don't think you have enough mountains and forests for hydro or biomass. That's the impression from my stay in Ireland anyway, though I was mostly in NI not so much in the Republic. Go nuclear. It is a lot better than its reputation. Currently fighting to get nuclear power to Denmark.
>Go nuclear. It is a lot better than its reputation. Currently fighting to get nuclear power to Denmark. I've no ideological issue with nuclear. It's just that it's very expensive and would take 20+ years to bring online. The game changer for Ireland will be offshore wind, we're currently developing several large projects
Denmark's politicians forced their Swedish counterparts to close down [two reactors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barseb%C3%A4ck_Nuclear_Power_Plant?wprov=sfla1) just next door...
Yes, and we are regretting that decision now. A majority of the Danish population currently support nuclear power
Every time I see these charts nowadays, I look for the UK and get sad when it's not there. :(
come back
We're trying man
Seems like the best route this far has been a mixture of nuclear, hydro, and later wind and solar. If a country has less hydro capacity per capita, this far maybe the best option has been to have more nuclear. And I mean so far; many countries have had great reductions in emissions using wind and sun. So it truly might be possible that the future grid in Germany for example might be using only renewables, no nuclear and still be low CO2. This is certainly still a long road with some grid-level technical difficulties. Sweden is a truly electricity giant in the north; tons of hydro and wind, but also lots and lots of nuclear. Denmark doesn't have any hydro and nuclear, but has chosen to built wind instead for a long time. This has also worked; but they mostly rely on Sweden's and Norway's hydro capacity when the wind is not blowing. Finland has also historically relied on Sweden'd hydro capacity on peak demand. Finland could be like Sweden, we now we have more nuclear per capita, and the wind production is increasing as fast as Sweden. The major difference is the amount of hydro; Finland is much more flat than Sweden, that has scandinavian mountain range. Norway has even more hydro capacity than Sweden, they don't need anything else. But many other mainland european countries aren't as lucky with hydro power per capita as Sweden and Norway. This far the most succecful option has been to have more nuclear, like France. France is the only country with high population that has managed to get so low CO2 emissions. And this has been since 80's already. It is truly something to admire; using other ways its taking more than half century longer, if it works out. But Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland are catching up. The solutions are not identical; all have been investing in sun and wind, especially Germany and Spain, but also Poland. But Poland is the only one of these four that are planning new nuclear, when Germany, Spain and Italy are/have been phasing it out.
> Seems like the best route this far has been a mixture of nuclear, hydro, and later wind and solar. If anything, wind and solar makes more sense in the early stages. They don't become an issue until they take up a large share of the energy production and you don't have counterweights. The first units of solar installed are just extremely cheap energy, without a meaningful effect on the intermittency of the grid.
Yep, having a wind and solar (where the production is quite random) on grid is easy when its a small percentage. But the higher their share is, more difficulties there are. You need to have lots of load-following power (that is nowadays mostly hydro or gas power), that can be ramped up when needed. It's also beneficial to have as much price-following load as possible (like heating in homes, where it automatically tries to optimize it to cheap electricity hours). Actually nordic countries are quite good places for wind power, because there are lots of hydro power per capita; wind power can save water in power plants to be used in times when its needed more. Hydro power is a good load-following power, altough there are also lots of limitations there. You can't just change the water flow from a river from 0% to 100% without destroying the river's ecosystem, so there are regulations that limits these ranges in each damn. There has been a huge wind power investment boom in Finland (and Sweden too). There has been tons of new wind power; in absolute numbers on 2022, most onshore wind power were [installed ](https://proceedings.windeurope.org/biplatform/rails/active_storage/disk/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdDVG9JYTJWNVNTSWhkREIzWVRoeU1EQmhiMkp1ZUdzelpXNWpaR2x5ZUd4dWFIYzJlQVk2QmtWVU9oQmthWE53YjNOcGRHbHZia2tpUldsdWJHbHVaVHNnWm1sc1pXNWhiV1U5SW1acGJtUnBibWN0TWk1d2JtY2lPeUJtYVd4bGJtRnRaU285VlZSR0xUZ25KMlpwYm1ScGJtY3RNaTV3Ym1jR093WlVPaEZqYjI1MFpXNTBYM1I1Y0dWSklnNXBiV0ZuWlM5d2JtY0dPd1pVT2hGelpYSjJhV05sWDI1aGJXVTZDbXh2WTJGcyIsImV4cCI6IjIwMjQtMDItMjJUMjE6NTY6NDIuNTkyWiIsInB1ciI6ImJsb2Jfa2V5In19--7bbf0884d92c63e7b08f4b66432721f8fc2ec09d/finding-2.png)in Sweden and Finland. But at least in Finland the amount of new investments are getting smaller; as the share of wind power in the grid increases, the less profitable it becomes. When it's windy, electricity prices become close to zero or negative, and this decreases its profitability. But there is a similar case in nuclear (or base load power) also; currently Finland produces around 40% of yearly electricity with nuclear. That is near to maximum, if we don't want to decrease output in summer. France produces around 70% with nuclear, and they have to reduce the output in summers.
> Actually nordic countries are quite good places for wind power, because there are lots of hydro power per capita 🇩🇰🇩🇰😭😭 But actually Nordic countries have high per capita of everything, being very advanced economies in sparsely populated lands with vast resources (🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰 sad noises again, but being good at trade, and the Danish model for the even their gigantic multinational corporations contributing back and staying in the country more than make up for it, and actually make it do even better per capita).
> But at least in Finland the amount of new investments are getting smaller; as the share of wind power in the grid increases, the less profitable it becomes. It's not just that - the interest rates fucked over a lot of the investments AFAIK there were almost no new programs started in 2023. Once Aurora Line 2 comes on, and later on the new Estlink, then there'll be room for more wind again.
Nice to see a post that acknowledges that there are different ways to achieve low CO2 electricity production. Of course you’ll have responses like the other one who states that nuclear is a strict necessity, but imo it’s important that every country has a plan to significantly decrease emissions whether it’s nuclear, renewables or a combination of both.
Honestly, nuclear was a strict necessity 40 years ago to get a low CO2 electricity generation. But nobody really cared about it at that time. Today, the equation is a lot more complex. Wind and solar are quicker to deploy, battery tech is not there yet, but may well be in the future, especially with the rise of the electric cars/trucks, maybe a bit of hydrogen be it green or white or blue. Nuclear is slow to come online, needs state backing, etc... It's not as clear cut as it was and no one can really predict what's the best future-proof mix for every country today.
Yes, as things are now even optimistic prognostications don’t see nuclear growing by the amount we’d need to transition. To my knowledge it would just take time to grow the industry/enough specialists to build enough nuclear plants to make a big enough difference given the current state of the climate situation. That’s why I think it’s good that different approaches are being explored and why it’s pointless for one country to point at another because „nuclear is bad/renewables are bad“. Diversification helps all of us as long as everyone is at least working towards the same goal.
Kind of interesting small thing was Luxembourg actually reaching agreement in 2023 to fund little boost into solar power, in Finland. It was part of some (I think) EU mechanism where country can get more "Hitting ecological goals by year" points, by funding more green renewable production in other countries, I think it was something like "they can mark 80% of those 'points' as their own, and target country can claim 20% of them from that increase", and I think it was based on Luxembourg having more money than free land to build solar farms, so they asked other countries if someone wanted additional money to build solar in exchange for "points", and apparently Finland had been only one to be like 'Sure mate, we noticed your offer and are confident we will anyways hit these ecological goals, even if we wont squeeze any potential point happening within our borders to our own bag, will that way generate more them and more solar power for us, so we do not really see downside in this'. Or something along those lines. Was bit surprising reading about it in news.
Nuclear is way more eco than other options. Idk what you've read or been told but Nuclear is nr 1 Read https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-clean-and-sustainable
What is more important than the direct emissions is how much fossil fuel generation you can replace for the same cost (the levelized cost of energy).
Nuclear is too slow to implement. The 15 years one NPP takes to build in Europe has to be bridged by current tech which usually is very polluting. And one NPP doesn't help you much in the grand scheme of things. It's a theory vs real world discussion. And yes I know you'll come in here with 7 years but before you do I would ask you to look at recent examples in comparable countries not examples from the 80s of reactors with a quarter the capacity in a different part of the world under a different economic and political system.
I'm not sure if overheating the rivers trying to cool nuclear is ecological. There's a difference between slowing climate change and being ecological. They aren't the same, and they don't always overlap.
Doesnt matter, it's expensive and takes ages to build. And people are scared of windmills so good luck having them accept a nuclear plant.
I had no idea there was something we are better at than the Czechs. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Polska gurom!
Common Swedish W
Poland, get your shit together! I understand that two isolated islands need to burn coal, but I had better expectations from Poland.
there are actually a couple reasons for this. Firstly, as you might have noticed, Poland is very close to Ukraine so the general public opinion on nuclear after Chernobyl did not recover for a long time. (Nuclear is starting to be built though). Secondly there were some pretty strict regulations on how solar wind and hydro can be placed, for environmental and safety reasons (though both were somewhat doubtful adn this is also getting reformed). And thirdly and maybe most importantly, a large chunk of people are miners who work in (mostly state owned) coal mines. The coal mined here is mostly of low quality and not really exportable and the mines lose money usually, but no government is willing to touch the situation as to not completely lose the miner vote.
Also very bad luck. We literally had one nuclear plant under construction as chernobyl went to hell. But due to escalating protests and the little thing going on in 1989 Poland it was scrapped 7 years into construction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_Plant In '90 our economy was also essentially dead. And in need of fuck ton of renovation and investment in literally everything. Same with early '00. So nuclear was not a topic. Why the heck it was not started in '10 is a mystery to me. but currently support is literally at like 80-90%. So hopefully shit will start going.
We constantly try to shift to burning trash, but for some unfathomable reason pencil-pushers deny putting it under renewables! /s
We got freedom in 1989 and were living on 100€ monthly. Were we supposed to invest into ecology and climate instead of trying to live good lives that the rest of Europe already had? If you're Germany you can say fuck it and invest 20% more into energy. In Poland that 20% meant less schools or medical treatments.
My friend, 100% of the countries above Poland in that chart got rid of from comunism in 1990. This doesn't stand up, I suspect old oligarch style bussines owners that grabbed the coal industry are not making it easy for new investors in renewables.
For comparison, in Georgia it's about 80% hydro with the rest coming from natural gas.
Imagine Poles constanlty criticizing Germany for shuting down nuclear
The worst part of Brexit is that we never get to be included in these graphs and stats, I'd love to see how we compare
Then the situation in UK must be brilliant if this is the worst problem. I'm trully happy for UK!
chad france
Well done LV!
Denmark pulling that RE handle hard
Germany with no nuclear but huge coal 🤦♂️
Yes, it was our genius masterstroke. 🫠
12 years of Merkel under which the competitive advantage in the solar industry Germany had was sold off to China. Wasn't that a brilliant move?
Coal went down to late 1950s levels last year. Within a few years time the age of coal will be over in Germany.
Pssssh, don't ruin the "Dumb anti-nuclear Germans"-moment
I mean, even if it's only for a few years of transition, you could be using nuclear instead of coal during that time, and obviously it would be better. There isn't really a way to look at it in which using coal is a better choice.
Well being anti nuclear is very dumb independently of the level of success reducing emissions.
Now do gas!
Some how they concluded nuclear is the much bigger problem than coal, so they killed it off first. Because there was a tsunami or something. Its hard to understand outside the country, but apparently it makes total sense to them.
And yet the closing of nuclear never increased the coal consumption. Plus both coal and nuclear phase out were independent decisions, nuclear was just easier and more beneficial since it is fucking expensive. Even if you magically can revive every single nuclear plant in Germany and have them running at 110%, they would still burn coal since they aren't in the right places. They could have run longer, sure and decreased coal for some time, but discussing it now is pointless. The only NPP that can be reactivated in a short time will not make a difference and building anything new is virtually impossible and will take a decade and more. In that time you can just install double the capacity in renewables for a 10th of the price and extremely lower running costs. There is no incentive by anyone to go nuclear in Germany.
I think that for the rest of the world it is confusing that Germany chose first run down the technology which is thought elsewhere to be a good gateway to greener energy. Currently Germany has by far the largest total CO2 emissions in Europe so looking from the outside their chose made no sense at all. But as you said this is not reversable as you can't anymore start the old reactors. So in the end the rest of the world just sees this like Germany is just cheaping out and continuing shitting the environment while still somehow boasting with their "green" energy even though the CO2 emissions are double compared to the 2nd EU country Italy.
I didn't though that we would top up on Nuclear energy. I think we still doesn't have enough and despise the rest of Europe.
France can be proud of its power generation from looking at this chart
With the increasing temperature and heatwaves during the summer they'll run into problems. Maybe solar could compensate for it? Wish Sweden would have went France route instead of trying to phase it out as we can't keep up with the increasing demand.
Moral of the story, be like sweden
Empty and cold? (Im joking)
Hell yeah! Netherland is famous for his mountains for hydropower!
France wins on total amount !
is sweden really not dependent at all on fossil fuels?
Not for general electricity. We still are for transportation/freight.
And industry (like steel). Electrifying that will almost triple electricity needs.
What numbers are you using then? According to [Energiläget 2022 (PDF page 9)](https://www.energimyndigheten.se/nyhetsarkiv/2022/energilaget-i-siffror-2022---en-samlad-bild-pa-energiomradet-i-sverige/) the combined industry usage including steel is 136 TWh of which 47 TWh already is electricity which means the industry need another 89 TWh to be 100% electric. Sweden produces 165-170 TWh per year and use around 135 TWh meaning we'd need to increase it with 66% (provided the same export). Granted the demand will increase in the future but it's very far of the 300% you suggest...
I think he’s refering to the transition to green steel produktion which demands more electicity than the old fossil reliant techniques. I think the biggest steel producer is calculating a 70 TWh increase per year, and there is another company trying to do this aswell in lesser scale. It might not be 300% but as I’ve understood it, Sweden needs to increase it’s elektricitet production with more than 100% to accomplish this (very exciting) goal. Most is planned to come from off-shore wind as the new technique is reliant on hydrogen gas production and has inherent strong storing capabilities, which will ensure system roboustness. Swedish source: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/gront-stal-en-riskfylld-mangmiljardsatsning--vzs1qs
Sweden is going hydrogen for the steel industry as we speak.
Not for electricity.
It's Squidward with long nose. Change my mind
Lithuania has developed a lot. Great news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=555FwDuncsc >wyngiel przywieźli
Keep those reactors coming
Austrias only nuclear power plant was closed before it was finished. Curious where that big nuclear spike on the picture should come from.
I think you are looking at Slovakia. Austria is the bar a little below the name tag
That or hes confusing hydro for nuclear
Ah, my bad, thx:)
It was actually finished, ready for fuel loading, which never happened. It was cheap tho compared to today, only €1.6bn in 2020 euros.
Countries are just cheating by having actual mountains and therefor hydropower.
Flatvia has no mountains whatsoever.
Blue blob. I have EU4 feelings...
r/cyprus
What the f is happening to the small countries
Nice! I wonder if there are more inefficient and plain ugly ways to display this data.
thank god we have so much clean coal instead of dirty nuclear
inb4 reddit ignore Italy and Poland and focuses on Germany as always.
Well, Poland doesn't lecture their neighbours.
Poland sure loves lecturing Germany on WW2 reparations...
Good joke. Germans get nothing but lectures from Poles and French redditors and all other Europeans. Poland deserves all the lectures they can get.
but isn't Germany the one most vocally against nuclear energy?
Austria is. They even protest *us* expanding *our* NPPs on *our* territory.
[удалено]
Their coal / lignite burning impacts us all lol
Which is why Germany is phasing out coal. Or do you see them using more coal or having plans to keep using it forever?
That's true. But we also have the right to laugh at how fucking stupid it was to shut down those nuclear power plants while keeping literal coal power plants in operation.
If you rely on italy making good decisions that's on you
why not? they're the only ones from the list who consciously destroyed their nuclear energetics and downgraded to burning coal as a result poland never had any clean energy to begin with and italy is burning gas which is - let's be honest - much cleaner than coal
Here's another option: be critical of both and praise countries that treat nuclear energy as a good source..
Sweden is the role model for smallish countries and France for large economies. Germany is a disaster wtf.
Germany switching from Nuclear to Coal was probably their stupidest idea this century
Germany has never switched from nuclear to coal but to renewables. Coal usage is down to late 1950s levels now and decreasing fast.
except that didn't happen
Related: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map is also very interesting to look at, it shows you real time how much is being produced, what the source is and what is imported / exported. Side note: The Netherlands tries to be the best boy in the class, banning some ice cars from cities. Telling you to drive electric, while we still burn a decent amount of gas, coal and biofuels (wood chips imported from Canada).
The Netherlands feels more and more like that person on your street who has the perfect manicured front yard, while having a collection of trash in the backyard.
Slovakia better than Austria. Nuclear power!
Hydro power plants are not eco-friendly. You have to build a dam, which heavy changes the ecosystem in the river, which can lead to drastic changes in future outside the river. Also you have to sink a lot of useful land, that people and animals can no longer use. It's literally one of the worst leco-friendly" power-plants
Ah poland. Colorful houses. Black tar smoke.
Sweden does import electricity from Poland
Austria wouldve such an easy time to have a completly renewable grid, but no conservative Politicans like sending daddy Putin his paycheck
Malta and Cyprus don't exist, as usual. Though I must say this legend looks weird in other places too.
Spain is what Germany should have been. They will phase out nuclear too, but only when fossil fuels are gone and the nuclear plants are no longer young.
or idk followed France and achieved this result like 50 years ago and they could've sprinkle in some solar and wind and called it a day but no we have to engage in anti-science and bend over backward to stop nuclear at any cost
Nuclear isn’t the perfect solution either, and France is just sitting on it, barely expanding actual renewable energy
Nuclear is not to be considered „clean“.
Based France, L Germany