There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Yesterday the price of electricity in Finland was negative 1.5 cents / kWh

It’s still not earning you money to spend electricity because you still have to pay the transfer fee which is around 6 cents / kWh but it’s pretty damn cheap nevertheless, mostly because of the excess in wind energy.

Last winter because of a mistake it dropped down to negative 50 cents / kWh for few hours, averaging negative 20 cents for the entire day. People were literally earning money by spending electricity. Some were running electric heaters outside in the middle of the winter.

DrunkenPirate ,

Welcome to the world of renewables. We have quite some negative hours in Germany in summer when sun and wind are active simultaneously. Unfortunately Finland relies on nuclear, does it?

a_robot ,

What’s wrong with nuclear?

Irremarkable ,
@Irremarkable@fedia.io avatar

People still buying into oil company FUD from the 70s

DrunkenPirate ,

The toxic and deadly trash it makes. Deadly for centuries.

In Germany we still search for an area to dig for ages. We search since 30 years.

a_robot ,

In the mean time, you seem to be a big fan of burning coal instead, which only pollutes the atmosphere instead of easily storable material to be buried when we feel we have found a sufficient deep hole that no one is going to look in.

DrunkenPirate ,

I. Germany we haven’t found this sufficient deep hole since 30 years.

a_robot ,

And yet, Germany prefers to pollute the atmosphere with the smoke of coal and other fossil rules, than to simply maintain the storage of nuclear waste until a hole can be found or created.

Cobrachicken ,

Fukushima, Tchernobyl.

MossyFeathers ,

It’s been a while since I read about it, but iirc Chernobyl is suspected to have been sabotage because they turned all the safeties off and then basically walked away until it started melting down.

Fukushima was doomed from the start. Iirc they were told not to build the plant there due to extreme earthquake and tsunami risk, but they did it anyway.

Those two disasters were caused by stupidity and negligence. You can argue that humans can’t be trusted with radioactive materials, but the process itself is pretty safe. Meanwhile coal plants release significantly more radiation over their lifetimes than nuclear reactors do.

FarraigePlaisteach ,

You can’t separate humans from any process. The risks with nuclear are the risks of the most reliable person to eventually work at the plant. It might not be today or tomorrow, but it’s a possibility.

MossyFeathers ,

It’s entirely possible for a natural nuclear reactor to occur. So yes, you can separate humans from the process. Make a reactor that a human can’t reasonably open and has zero chance of melting down, and you have safe nuclear.

Also yes, you can make a reactor that can’t melt down (without human interference). It’s called an RTG and they’re commonly used on spacecraft.

DrunkenPirate ,

At least we‘re on a track to carbon zero as you can see here: cleanenergywire.org/…/germanys-energy-consumption…

It‘s not perfect and could be faster. However, we‘re way better than other countries that don’t move.

Edit: I forgot to mention, that half the year Germanies power is over 50% from renewables. Share is increasing every year.

Slayer , (edited )

Still your corrupt politicians are rather taking people’s homes in a town i forgot the name of (with police going there daily so people sell their homes) and clearing forests to mine coal… fucking stupid corrupt politicians.

DrunkenPirate ,

Yes, that was close to where I live in Western Germany. Last outburst of old thinking (I hope). Meanwhile, the power company said in the news, it doesn’t need that entire area and forest anymore, because renewables have gone too competitive. Coal is too costly now.

If you like to see a moon-alike area in a densly populated area in Western Germany - the open field coal area Hambaxh: maps.app.goo.gl/H47EKatEDyKut3XZ6?g_st=com.google…

As big as city of Cologne. I‘m happy that this is going to stop by 2030. Or even faster

cows_are_underrated ,

The nuclear energy made up about 1.5% of our entire energy production in 2023 the final shutdown didnt really made any difference, since we were able to replace this fairly easy with renewable energy. This year we had the lowest use of fossile energy since about 60 years(if I recall correct). Yes, we still use coal and this is bad, but the nuclear energy didnt had any noticeable difference for our energy production. Also: the shutdown of nuclear energy was planned after Fukushima happened, so its nothing that was anywhere in the power of our current government.

WaterSword ,
@WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

If you look at the actual stats it isn’t really closed nuclear plants being replaced by coal, they got replaced by other renewables, while coal still kept going at about the same rate as while the nuclear plants were active.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Most nuclear waste issues are vastly over-exaggerated. Most of the nuclear waste is not long term waste. It’s not things like spent fuel rods, it’s things like safety equipment and gear. Those aren’t highly contaminated, and much of it can almost be thrown away in regular landfills. The middle range of materials are almost always kept on site through the entire life of the nuclear plant. Through the lifetime of the plant that material will naturally decay away and by the time the plant is decommissioned only a fraction will be left to handle storage for a while longer from the most recent years.

Nuclear waste can be divided into four different types:

  1. Very low-level waste: Waste suitable for near-surface landfills, requiring lower containment and isolation.
  2. Low-level waste: Waste needing robust containment for up to a few hundred years, suitable for disposal in engineered near-surface facilities.
  3. Intermediate-level waste: Waste that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation than that provided by near-surface disposal.
  4. High-level waste: Waste is disposed of in deep, stable geological formations, typically several hundred meters below the surface.

Despite safety concerns, high-level radioactive waste constitutes less than 0.25% of total radioactive waste reported to the IAEA.
These numbers are worldwide for the last 4 years:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/bef56440-9078-434e-b308-994f2afdc684.png

Tryptaminev ,

Your entire argument is a fallacy of saying it is either nuclear or coal, when in reality it is either renewables or coal+nuclear.

It is the same companies that want to continue both coal and nuclear, because it requires similar components in the power plants and similar equipment for mining.

Also the same government in Germany that expanded the nuclear power slashed the build up of renewables, resulting in the long time for coal in the first place.

Stop being a fossil shill. If you shill for nuclear you shill for coal too.

cm0002 ,

Many active reactors rely on old designs, we have new ones now that are far cleaner. Some even use existing waste as fuel, so we would be able to get rid of those old stock piles.

Ofc the oil industry is fighting that tooth and nail since it doesn’t jive with their FUD campaign

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Not only doesn’t it follow their FUD, but their existing business cannot easily transition to it since the entire process is completely different. Oil, coal, and natural gas are all fairly similar from their perspective.

cows_are_underrated ,

The only thing I’m curious about in terms of using waste as energy source is how much it costs. If we can build reactors that have a good efficiency and don’t cost too much its great. However if it costs way to much it isn’t really useful even if the Idea of reducing our waste is good, since ain’t anyone is paying for it if you can much cheaper renewable energy.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

In Finland we have Onkalo

DrunkenPirate ,

Yepp, that is the luck of geology.

FarraigePlaisteach ,

Kiitos. That took me down an interesting rabbit hole. There’s even a song inspired by it.

Onkalo en.wikipedia.org/…/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo…

Song invidious.private.coffee/watch?v=amn3kn0XPLQ

Lyrics songlyrics.com/…/10000-year-earworm-to-discourage…

ABCDE ,

Look at the clean-up cost of Fukushima, it’s mental. Then look at the set-up costs, and how long it takes. Compare that to renewables.

cows_are_underrated ,

Not that I want to disagree with you, but even without comparing to two of the biggest fuckups in human(energy) history nuclear energy is always much more expensive than renewable energy, because it needs a lot of safety mechanisms a much longer and more complicated supply chain, and then finally the costs of decontamination.

Eheran ,

Look at costs of dam failures. Or how many people they killed. Or look at the cost of climate change. Fukushima is nothing in comparison. You can also compare it to the cost of the tsunami that actually caused the issue to begin with.

ChairmanMeow ,
@ChairmanMeow@programming.dev avatar

It’s a poor solution for what people like to call “baseline power”.

The argument goes: solar and wind don’t provide consistent power, so there has to be some power generation that doesn’t fluctuate so we always have X amount of power to make up for when solar/wind don’t suffice. Nuclear is consistent and high-output, so it’s perfect for this.

Unfortunately, reality is a little different. First problem is that solar/wind at scale don’t fluctuate as much. The sun always shines somewhere, and the wind always blows somewhere. You have to aggregate a large area together, but that already exists with the European energy market.

Second issue is that solar/wind at scale regularly (or will regularly) produce more than 100% of the demand. This gives you two options: either spend the excess energy, or stop generating so much of it. Spending the excess requires negative energy prices so people will use it, causing profitability issues for large power plants. As nuclear is one of the most expensive sources of energy, this requires hefty subsidies which need to be paid for by taxpayers. The alternative is shutting the power plant down, but nuclear plants in particular aren’t able to quickly shut off and on on demand. And as long as they’re not turned on they’re losing money, again requiring hefty subsidies. You could try turning off renewable power generation, but that just causes energy prices to rise due to a forced market intervention. Basically, unless your baseline power generator is able to switch off and on easily and can economically survive a bit of downtime, it’s not very viable.

Nuclear is safe. It produces a lot of power, the waste problem is perfectly manageable and the tech has that cool-factor. But with the rapid rise of solar and wind, which are becoming cheaper every day, it’s economic viability is under strong pressure. It just costs too much, and all that money could have been spent investing into clean and above all cheap energy instead. I used to be pro-nuclear, but after seeing the actual cost calculations for these things I think it’s not worth doing at the moment.

As for what I think a good baseline power source would be: I think we have to settle for (bio-)gas. It’s super quick to turn off and on and still fairly cheap. And certainly not as polluting as coal. We keep the gas generators open until we have enough solar/wind/battery/hydrogen going, as backup. If nuclear gets some kind of breakthrough that allows them to be cheaper then great! Until then we should use the better solutions we have available right now (and no, SMRs are not the breakthrough you might think it is. They’re still massively more expensive than the alternatives and so far have not really managed to reduce either costs or buils times by any significant margin).

Maybe fusion in the future manages to be economically viable. Fingers crossed!

Eheran ,

The sun always shines somewhere and wind always blows somewhere. Now we just have to install x-times the global energy demand in production capacity and also the infrastructure to distribute it around the world and also make sure that this hyper centralized system is not used against us and then already we have a perfect solution without nuclear. Ez pz, no more CO2 in 500 years.

ChairmanMeow ,
@ChairmanMeow@programming.dev avatar

You don’t need to install X-amount of global demand. Battery/hydrogen storage can solve the issue as has been demonstrated repeatedly in various research. And with home battery solutions you can even fully decentralise it.

I don’t understand your centralisation argument, nuclear is about the most centralised power source there is. And it can be threatened, as seen in the current Ukraine-Russia war.

Solar and wind can scale up to the demand. Nuclear actually has a much harder time doing that, as materials are far more rare and expensive, and it takes much longer to build. If anything, the time argument works against nuclear, not in favour of it.

JovialMicrobial ,

What’s your opinion on smaller scale power plants? It seems like a decent way to cut the costs and still get that extra power in those seasonal low power periods. Or do you think it’s not worth pursuing at all?

I’m in the US which is quite large. I’ve always though small scale power plants in conjunction with solar and wind would be good.

Especially since a lot of states turn the land surrounding the power plant into wildlife sanctuaries since nothing can be built in the safety zone anyway.

It’s like bird watching heaven at the power plant near me. I guess I just really like the idea of a power source that also incidentally protects forested areas.

NiPfi ,

I know nuclear isn’t ideal but to rule it out completely while the alternative for stable baseline power is still coal and gas seems problematic to me

DrunkenPirate ,

Yes indeed. Best is to move to renewables as fast as possible. This will make power very cheap in the middle run.

Vailliant ,

Storing solar and wind isnt cheap enough. The battery costs are outrageous, not to mention the thing you dont want: the materials Arent easy renewable. Nuclear can generate 30% of you base powerload while the rest is powered by solar and wind (that way you dont need coal of gas).

Storing electricity from wind/solar with hydrogen isnt efficiënt and would drive up energy prices just like with batteries

ABCDE ,

It’s not ruled out, Finland already has nuclear, it exists.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

Unfortunately Finland relies on nuclear, does it?

Yeah we though relying on Russian natural gas might pose some issues in the future so we went with nuclear instead. I hope we build more of it.

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

And when the sun and wind aren’t active?

People will point to a few hours of negative energy prices as if it’s a triumph, but it just proves that there’s still nowhere near enough storage for renewables to provide baseline power.

ABCDE ,

They are not the only forms of electricity generation.

DrunkenPirate ,

And when the sun and wind aren’t active?

That is a serious issue. Under the hood the power grid is being reengineered to solve it. Lot of battery storages, pump lakes, and may be hydrogen conversion. Still this is an open issue. I love to follow the discussion in blogs and podcasts.

cows_are_underrated ,

for renewables to provide baseline power.

I think what people always forget is, that water energy exists. It is a form of renewable energy that has the potential to provide baseline power, since it isn’t that dependent on short term weather. I think in Spain they have a water power plant that produces as much energy as several nuclear power plants together.

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Why does it feel like every Nordic country is much better then Sweden these days.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

We each have our problems but I have to admit that I haven’t heard many positive news coming from there recently.

stoy ,

Because we have been riding high on believing that our infrastructure is the best in the world.

gopher ,

The energy prices in Sweden were also mostly negative yesterday, and today as well. Although probably not quite as much as in Finland.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

Because Sweden wants to be Nordic America these days.

nlgranger ,

A negative price is absurd and has no physical reality, it is the result of speculation and abstract rules not grounded on reality. It always costs to build and operate whatever power source and networks were involved, you don’t have to pay electricity to f*ck off if you produce too much of it.

peereboominc ,

Sure, but if there is too much electricity on the net, things will start to break. That electricity has to go somewhere. No one wants to buy electricity because everyone is trying to get rid of their surplus.

About the negative, I don’t know.

Rivalarrival ,

The issue is baseload generation like nuclear: we can’t switch it on and off quickly; we can’t ramp it up or down fast enough to match actual demand. There are times where we have to keep it online during a surplus, when we know that surplus will drop off and leave us with a shortage.

Combine that with variations between forecasted and actual weather conditions affecting solar and wind production, and yes, we will occasionally have surplus power to deal with.

The long-term solution is better demand shaping methods, to make use of any amount of power in excess of normal consumption. But until we have the ability to switch on loads and suck up such excesses, we are going to have this problem from time to time.

MrMakabar ,

No, it does have a reality. The problem is that an electricity grid can collapse, due to too much electricity. However some power plants can not be easily shut down. Nuclear for example can be throttled to about 50%, but shutting it down requires a restart, which takes a day. So loosing a little money for a few hours can be cheaper then a full shut down. There are other effects, like district heating power plants, which are needed to provide heat, hydro power, which has too much water in the reservoir and waste power plants, which have to burn the waste at some point.

Then you got to keep in mind that Finland is fairly is a country with a small population, which is rather isolated. They cut the power lines to Russia and Sweden and the Baltic countries are also low population and especially Sweden also has a lot of low carbon electricity. So export is not an easy option.

Rivalarrival ,

This is not a good thing. Any time generation has to pay to produce, solar and wind rollouts are slowed.

We need better demand shaping methods, to increase load on grids during periods of excess production, and decrease loads during shortages. We need to stabilize rates at profitable points to maintain growth of green energy projects.

We also need long-term grid storage methods, to reduce seasonal variation. A given solar project will produce more than twice as much power during a long summer day as it will during a short winter day. If we build enough solar to meet our needs during October and March, we will have shortages in November, January, February, and surpluses from April through September. We will need some sort of thermal production capability anyway; hydrogen electrolysis or Fischer-Tropsch synfuel production can soak up that surplus generation capacity and produce green, carbon-free or carbon-neutral, storable fuels for thermal generation and/or the transportation sector.

perviouslyiner ,

Or just export it - there must be nearby counties that don’t have such a good renewable electric situation.

Kecessa ,

Or water batteries for dams if your neighbors don’t need your surplus, this way you don’t need to extract lithium to produce regular batteries to store the surplus

science.org/…/how-giant-water-batteries-could-mak…

vrighter ,

and who will you sell it to? the other countries will be building their own infrastructure eventually and they’ll be trying to sell to you.

Creat ,

“just export it” sounds so simple, but the required infrastructure is actually incredibly expensive. Also most of Europe is already pretty tightly connected and trade does happen to a significant degree, but I have no idea what the actual percentage is or if it’s used to balance oversupply and/or shortages. Kinda hard to find reliable sources for that.

ElCanut ,

Negative pricing IS a demand shaping method, you need to have a certain % of the electricity produced that is consumed at the same time, otherwise you risk having an unstable electricity grid.

z00s ,

Does it ever make you want to turn on every appliance in the house just for the hell of it? Lol

vga ,

No, since we pay a flat transfer rate on top of that, about 2-6 cents per kWh depending on the area.

Of course, that doesn’t stop idiots from turning on all their stoves during these times anyway.

z00s ,

That’s still pretty cheap though

general_kitten ,

Yeah in summer the electricity here can be very cheap in summer but in winter it can go to 0.20-1€/kw/h

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

When you get energy that cheap you can always spin a few Bitcoin miners up. The rewards you get are rewards the other miners on fossil fuels won’t get

Transporter_Room_3 ,
@Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website avatar

Or I could just ignore crypto, and not contribute to the heat death of the planet.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •