I've noticed that Switzerland, using a lot of hydropower, has a worse intensity than I expected.
The CO2 numbers for the different types of power generation seem to come from Wikipedia [1], where Hydropower has a median gCO2eq/kWh of 24 and a maximum of 2200 – much worse than coal. This seems to be based on the fact that large areas may be flooded when filling the dam initially, and CO2 from rotting plants is released [2]. The numbers vary depending on the amount of vegetation.
According to a study [3] from 2012, "electricity generated in storage hydropower stations in Switzerland causes emissions of 10.8 g CO2-eq/kWh", so it's less than shown in the emissions chart and comparable to nuclear.
> I've noticed that Switzerland, using a lot of hydropower, has a worse intensity than I expected.
The carbon intensity on the map seems to be for consumed kWh, not produced kWh. The map indicates Switzerland imports a lot of electricity from Austria and Germany which have a much higher carbon intensity.
Also, if it is really live data, all the high alpine hydro is just pumped storage now. In winter, the high reservoirs don't get much natural feed when no ice is thawing and any new precipitation will decoratively stick to the slopes until spring.
And this is a good representation, because this way it doesn't allow you to outsource your carbon emissions to countries that no one looks at (not on map, or not considered responsible for anything by activists).
I was talking to a CERN physicist once who joked that the reason for the LHC winter shutdown was because France needed heating. It's probably more to do with economics but it's almost true. France has a lot of cheap nuclear power in the summer, and only limited pumped storage capacity to cache it with.
Then this map is irrelevant. Winds blowing out of a country with high CO2 emission actually don't mean anything, since there is not actually high CO2 emission there, they import it from elesewhere.
That is true, but if the reservoir causes said "current" carbon to be emitted as CH4 not CO2 it will have a much higher greenhouse effect than it would under ordinary circumstances.
I guess the low end of the spectrum is for non-dam based hydro. Northern Ireland has tidal power from the tide coming into and going out of a natural lough
This is one of the great things we can do as developers. We can help society learn about the problems humanity faces. Creating amazing visualizations and experiences to educate the world and potentially encourage action to solve some of our biggest problems.
Hopefully we can drive awareness and change together.
Polish right-wing government is blocking any development that could hurt coal industry.
They passed the law that significantly constrains where windmills can be located. They also hindered development of solar by reverting the law that allowed individual owners of solar panels to be paid for the overproduced electricity.
Weasel words like "right-wing" are unproductive. Besides, no post-communist gov't in Poland had don't anything serious in this arena. Also, I encourage you to keep in mind the broader context, please.
Polish government is not right-wing. There may be right wing of it, but it is not right wing per se. Right wing of what? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanation for a better clue about what current polish government may aspire to be like. It may have some right wing parts of what is above all big centrist coalition.
Another issue is. How is this government blocking development that could hurt coal industry any different from what all former polish governments were doing ? But i agree that all those governments are mostly known for their "block everything" attitude.
The website makes my Firefox browser slurp 3GB of memory, renders it unresponsive and it crashes. And please do not color Poland black, if as Wikipedia says (Yes I know. I know). Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless and odorless gas that is vital to life on Earth. Paint Poland and Estonia green. Green as in Greenhouse. Painting it black may suggest some form of blame for some imaginary "pollution" which i hope was not the point of the authors of the site. Or was it ? Come on. Don't make us look like Mordor.
The gradient goes from green to black. Black represents a carbon intensity of 700 gCO2/kWH. If you want Poland to be green, Poland has to consume less carbon.
As Polish government being right-wing: Since it's a coalition of two parties, it would be wrong to call the entire government right-wing. But the Law and Justice party certainly is.
I thought it was about emitting CO2. If it is about consuming carbon (coal), then we would take black badge for being leader in coal consumption in Europe. Black is ok then. But we are not even a leader in coal consumption.
Colors are just colors, but it seems as if black here suggests pollution (opposite to green on the scale). CO2 does not qualify as a pollutant that easily as NO2, S02 or NH3 for that matter. If anything it should be more on the green end of the scale. But it would make the scale seem nonsensical in that context. Wouldn't it ?
Sanation: a populist political movement for "moral sanation (healing) of the Polish body politic". It's nationalistic, anti-democratic, authoritarian and was gagging/killing/imprisoning the opposition.
Didn't your government effectively take away all powers from the top constitutional court, allowing the government to pass any law without judicial backlash? Meanwhile you are all hung up on what the color green represents.
Btw, that's not at all accurate where Poland's constitutional court is concerned (mind you, the court was created by a communist dictator to guard the regime against the rising tide of the Solidarity movement; couple that with Poland's mediocre constitution today and the previous ruling party's machinations and involvement in manufacturing the crisis). The issue is more complicated than what the media has presented us with. It's also rather banal in itself and is being used by powerful interest groups to keep the post-communist boat steady. In general, I recommend deeper familiarity with the topic before commenting. Many journalists possess superficial comprehension of the topics they report about and basing one's opinions on a few articles is not good practice. (Furthermore, Anne Applebaum, who I claim has been quite influential in influencing American opinion on the subject, has written about this and related topics in the WaPo a number of times in what amounts to a conflict of interest: her husband Radek Sikorski was a high ranking minister in the previous gov't and member of the previous ruling party, the same party embroiled in numerous corruption scandals and stands to lose under this gov't, never mind that they have a long history of demonizing ands scapegoating the current ruling party when it was in the opposition as a way of deflecting from its own failures and as a way of trying to secure its elite status. Mind you, Sikorski was himself a central figure in some of these corruption scandals, one of which involved making illegal backroom deals with the central bank to influence the elections in his party's favor.)
> the court was created by a communist dictator to guard the regime against the rising tide of the Solidarity movement
Funny for you to say that since the creation of constitutional court was one of the Solidarity's demands to the goverment.
Besides, now, once the "law and order" forcefully injected into the court their own mediocre but loyal laweyrs it appeals to the people (with the voice of the president) to respect thet constitutional court.
>Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless and odorless gas that is vital to life on Earth. Paint Poland and Estonia green. Green as in Greenhouse. Painting it black may suggest some form of blame for some imaginary "pollution" which i hope was not the point of the authors of the site.
Ever heard of benefits greenhouse effect or photosynthesis.
Come on get rid of CO2. Because of course it is the root of all evil. And by reference Poland is the root of all evil too. We even dare to still produce coal. Not as much as Germany though.
Edit:
And of course thanks for all the downvotes. It really just emphasize the level of discussion and tasty bias here. And thanks for bringing up the constitutional court topic here and upvoting it. Which of course has nothing to do with the discussion. Good job.
Does anyone know of interesting tours you can take of electricity production in Europe or energy infrastructure in general? I'm in The Netherlands, but would be willing to travel for it.
A real tour of a nuclear plant would be awesome (i.e. getting to hear / see the reactor), but tours of wind farms / turbines / dams etc. would also be great. Preferably in English.
Travel to the island of Islay (off the west coast of Scotland) and head to the tiny village of Portnahaven. From there, walk north along the coast for half an hour or so and look out for the Islay LIMPET, the world's first commercial wave power device connected to the United Kingdom's National Grid.
It's not a "tour" (it's unmanned) but it's fascinating. While you're on Islay, you can also enjoy whisky, wildlife and being in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
And if you're so inclined you can pop over to Jura and have a nosey around the cottage Orwell wrote most of 1984 in :-) It's quite a pretty spot too :-)
It would be next to impossible to get access to a commissioned nuclear powerplant and enter containment as a visitor. However, there is a nuclear power plant in vienna that was never used and can be visited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
Additionally, many universities have research reactors - they often have tours or a tour can be easily arranged.
> It would be next to impossible to get access to a commissioned nuclear powerplant and enter containment as a visitor.
Pish posh, it's absolutely possible to visit active nuclear plants, usually for free, though you may need a small group (half a dozen or more) depending on the operator.
Yes, you can. The only area we didn't visit when I toured Isar 2 was the control room (we looked through the window and got a description of the various parts and their function).
How did you arrange this? Is this something you just sign up, or do you call them and assure them you're enthusiastic about nuclear energy and eventually they relent?
Nuclear power stations are surprisingly boring. It's mostly solid state, relatively quiet and inaccessible (for obvious reasons). I went on a trip to Dungeness (Kent) and it looks like you still can[0] along with 6 others.
For pumped storage there is Dinorwig[1] (North Wales) and Cruachan (West Scotland). If you arrive by public transport you can get a free tour of the Cruachan pumped storage hydro plant.
I’ve been to two power plants in the Czech republic:
Temelin, nuclear power plan [1]. Pretty nice information center in a historical building with models, plant simulator and a small cinema. Although the most exciting part is visiting the actual power plant site - generators, accompanying infrastructure, going through radiation check point. Not sure if the site visit is publicly available.
Lipno, hydro plant [2]. Not as interesting information center as in Temelin, but the underground facility with turbines, generators and outlet tunnels makes you realize the huge mass of water in the dam and the amount of power the plant is able to generate.
The next item on my bucket list is pumped-storage in Dlouhe Strane [3], which looks like a hill with the peak cut off, having there a large pond instead.
You can take a tour in the nuclear plant in Hungary (Paks). Also, the technical uni has a mini reactor and you can actually look at the glowing blue water (Cherenkov radiation).
In addition to the other ones listed, the Olkiluoto nuclear plant in Finland takes tour groups. You have to book it 2 weeks in advance, and send personal information ahead, and have ID with you, but it is nice.
Vilnius has a small Energy and Technology Museum[0] located in the building of the first power plant (opened in 1903) in country. Probably not worth going to Vilnius just for it, but if you happened to be nearby, it's worth its time.
That power plant was supposed to be upgraded and expanded as a part of a joint project between Lithuania and its neighbors to deliver power to Lithuania and those neighbors. Nothing came of it.
You could do tours of Isar 2 a few years ago (German nuclear plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Nuclear_Power_Plant), including walking through the inner reactor area. I'm not sure if they still do these tours now that Germany has decided to phase out nuclear energy, but asking couldn't hurt.
I went last year to Forsmark here in Sweden, they have a very awesome tour, didn't go to the actual reactor (heard that they had it but don't know if it's still possible to do).
They showed us the nuclear waste disposal facility on the grounds of the power plant, it's temporary while Sweden builds a huge disposal facility for all of the country's nuclear waste (and it looks like a scenario for Half-Life, it was very cool).
Apart from the nuclear disposal facility our tour also went to the reactor control room simulator where the technicians practice and get certified (we could even try the SCRAM procedure and all) and also showed the grounds around the facility, where the water that cools the reactor comes and goes to, etc.
Would completely recommend doing it if you are ever in Sweden and can manage to go there.
Another Scotland recommendation- Ben Cruachan hydro dam has a nice visitor center. Its on the west coast.
I work for Vandebron in the Netherlands. Some of our smaller producers are happy to show visitors around. It helps if you are one of the households they are supplying of course ;)
Ben Cruachan is great and free if you come by train. The walk up to the top is good on a nice day but not easy. I went in the summer and there's a photo at the bottom of this blog post: https://unop.uk/mobile-gb-rail-live-departure-boards/
Yes, I also climbed it once, on a fantastic clear summer day. The view was amazing, could see many of the islands from the summit. Would love to do it again sometime.
Chernobyl is still open for tours, afaik. You won't get very close to any of the running reactors (and not the closed one, of course) but the tours generally go through the complex' main road and through the Pripyat ghost town.
> You won't get very close to any of the running reactors
They've all been decommissioned. #3 was the last one to shut down in 2000.
On a related note, this Youtube user [0] has videos from what appear to be tours inside units 2, 3 and 4 (the one which suffered the meltdown in '86). The one from the reactor hall in unit 2 [1] is particularly interesting.
There's an oil shale museum in Estonia. The tour covers visiting actual underground oil shale mine tunnels and a general museum about oil shale enrichment, chemistry and energetics. See: http://kaevandusmuuseum.ee/eng/
I had no idea there was such a widespread difference in the source of electricity a among citizens of countries in Europe, even neighbouring countries. Look at how most of France is nuclear powered (!) compared to coal for Germany and gas for Netherlands. Such differences in a very small space!
Germany decided to close all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022 in wake of Fukushima. Nuclear is getting replaced mostly with renewables but coal remains unchallenged[1]
Finland is currently building two nuclear power plants to provide more green energy. Wind & Solar, aren't that great options at all. Btw. I love the visualizations.
I think the visualization is misleading, it seems to highlight energy mix rather than absolute numbers. eg Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same) Germany looks better because it has some other sources mixed in there.
It's literally a visualisation of how green the country's energy policy is (electricity production sources), the color coding is gCO2/kWh.
> rather than absolute numbers
Absolute numbers would mostly just track population, that's way more misleading as a small country with sparse population but 100% hydrocarbon energy production would appear greener than a large country with dense population on 10% hydrocarbon energy sources.
An other interesting visualisation would be per-capita as it would include consumption patterns rather than just production ones
> Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same)
Poland would still look bad, it has 40% of Germany's population, and according to the site's sources currently produces 15.5GWh from coal while Germany is at 23.4GWh from Coal, that's 65% more coal-sourced electricity per capita than Germany.
And the map is live and it's winter hence the low levels of e.g. solar in countries with large solar capacity (like Belgium, or Austria,… or Germany)
No, it does not according to your number Poland still uses almost 40% more coal per capita than Germany, meaning it still looks bad if you switch to that metric.
I think showing the mix of energy sources is also insightful. Germany has spent a lot of effort into diversifying and upgrading their energy system. Meanwhile, Poland is lagging in investment and relying almost exclusively on one piece of energy source. This piece of knowledge is also insightful.
This is what I thought as well.
Adding a wind to this visualization touches a manipulation. In current data it makes no sense, and when we conciser absolute numbers (or even number/capita) it doesn't look so bad.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/CO2_per_...
At least Germany is not putting its neighbours at risk with rotten nuclear plants. Looking at you, Belgium [0].
Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France [1].
The current situation with coal is bad and we have to solve it. And I know HN is pro nuclear and downvotes opposing opinions, but history has proven several times, that nuclear energy is not a very good option, either.
> Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France.
I guess this is incorrect :
Gorleben Nuclear Waste Repository. The waste comes from Germany's nuclear power plants, was reprocessed in France at La Hague, and the unusable remains then sent back to Germany in spent nuclear fuel shipping casks for final storage, according to the contract with the reprocessing company, Cogema [0].
But even if it comes from France what's the matter? If nuclear wastes go to Gorleben it is obviously because the city allows it, because they have a deal with french firms and they have facilities to store it. If you want to blame someone for it blame the city.
In contrast I am sure France does not 'export' its air pollution as much as our dear Germany :p. And France does not have much of a say in that.
Just because poisoning us slowly with coal emissions (the silicates and heavy metals, never mind the CO2) isn't as easy to pin on the powerplants, doesn't mean it isn't an even bigger problem than nuclear power.
These incidents are an exception to the rule where coal is worse every other day of the year, as well as when looking at the total.
Chernobyl was the decisive moment for me: you have the Soviets screwing it up in the worst way possible, my home place in southern Finland being one of the most affected places on Earth due to winds in April 1986, and the results are not worse than this? Bring it on, it's surely better than coal.
Fascinating to see the potential use, vs. the actual 'right now' capacity viewing this at 3pm GMT.
And also interesting to see the import/export power figures: How one region supports, though nothing like the capacity needed to substitute renewables' variance.
France is really leading consistency of capacity vs. generation with Nuclear.
France also seems to have 4 times hydro capacity of Portugal, which is interesting given Portugal's recent 100% renewables day but inability to use it today.
Why is Norway consuming 22GW but UK only about 40-45GW, and Germand 60-65GW, given the great disparity in population of Norway?
Norway is heating houses almost exclusively using electricity, and also has a cold climate.
In addition, a substantial aluminium production and other smelters, as well as running many oil and gas platforms as well as processing plants and refineries on land on electricity. Electricity from hydropower is cheaper than running them on gas or oil.
Perhaps. Both Norway and Finland have a population of a little more than 5 million, but Finland is at about 10GW, so a difference of double. Sweden at around 20MW net which is consistent with Finland pro-rata.
Did Norway just decide to do all-electric heating as vastly all electric power, as displayed here, comes from hydro?
Yes. Gas heating is for the most part just not a thing in Norway. The cities don't have gas infrastructure (with some minor exceptions), so if you want to have gas heating you need to store it on your property. In addition, the government discourages it. The vast majority of home heating in Norway is electric.
Spain right now: solar plants off (OK, that's normal, it's night time here), wind plants off, hydro and gas plants mostly off, but burning coal at near maximum capacity while we import energy from Portugal who are also burning coal like madmen.
I already knew that we had serious problems in our grid, caused by politics (overdimensioned gas, insistence on using coal due to pressure by miners, etc.). That's more or less widely known, but I had no idea it was SO messed up. And why the imports when we have most of the renewable sources sitting idle? Wow.
Yes. Sadly, Poland doesn't have much room to maneuver at the moment. Putting aside the coal miner unions and the economic collapse of coal mining regions it would cause if Poland had the option to quickly move off, cleaner sources remain either prohibitively expensive and/or blocked by environmental groups (you're as likely to find environmental groups protesting nuclear as shale gas). Add to that the dependence on Russian gas (save for some Norwegian gas), the low cost of coal and Germany's smarmy deals with Russia including Nordstream that are designed to cut central Europe out with serious political consequences, Poland really is in no position to choose otherwise right now.
Not eating beef will not reduce your "carbon emmisions" (except for transport etc, which would presumably be substituted). They will reduce your "greenhouse gas emissions" though.
It's a nice visualization, but cpu usage shoots through the roof ! Deleting the animated arrows between the countries helps a bit, but then it still uses around 50% cpu (and that's on a fast desktop computer. Can't imagine my laptop trying to display this page). Using Ubuntu + firefox (it's a little better with chromium).
Is it a problem with this page ? With my setup ? Or is it just impossible to do something of this quality on the web without monster cpus ?
Same here. It was already sluggish and using a lot of CPU power but as soon as I clicked on the check-boxes the whole thing ground to a halt... took 30 seconds to close the tab.
Also interesting to look at the solar power potential map.
Of course, I knew it already: I offered a birthday lunch to wife's relatives today. A nice inn on a hilltop. We went there just after sunrise (11:00 AM) and left just before sunset (1:30 PM). The map kind of showed that.
Nothing is wrong with Poland. If something is wrong then your ability to read presented data.
It doesn't mean we are emitting more CO2 - for all colored map lovers see[1] CO2 emission per capita for Germany or other European countries before jumping to conclusions.
Are you saying that, in spite of high CO2 emissions _for energy_, Poland's per capita emissions are on par with the rest of Europe?
The map's color-scale is not ideal. Germany and France look similar, but Germany's emissions are 500% higher than France. In contrast, Poland is just 35% worse than Germany, but looks like the Death star on the map. It would work better with a single one-color gradient, rather than a green-yellow-black.
To be fair, that was a poor choice of words. It came off as flippant and presumptuous, so irritation isn't surprising. Also, pegging it as "nationalistic pride" is not constructive on your part and also comes off as ignorant.
Yup. Also the previous gov was going nowhere near fast enough on renewables and current government believes that renewables is something that pro-european rich thieving gay vegetarians like so it blocks it however it can.
Combine that with existing coal power plants and ton of coal mines barely profitable to exist and you get current state.
Our saving grace is that we are poor so we don't buy new cars and stuff as often as people from western europe so our total per capita emissions aren't that horrible.
For example half of the co2 car's emmissions happens before it is eve bought.
Poland is huge coal producer. Coal is cheap, easily accessible so it is used widely by people. Poland is slowly moving towards wind, but for heating it is still using coal.
Timing of this post is good as I just read an interesting paper on various current vehicles impact on climate change based on electricity + carbon output. I posted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13270712
The real meaty quote from the automobile paper is:
> By 2050,
only electric vehicles supplied with almost completely carbon-free electric power are expected to meet climate-policy targets.
It would be neat to overlay the two: vehicles and electricity.
If you look at German power generation at this very moment you will see that they have huge wind and solar capacity, but the energy right now is mainly coming from coal. I'm not sure if I should prefer nuclear or coal to step in in these wind still winter days. Of course more energy storage would be even better.
Germany has some problems building the high voltage interconnects between north and south. Once these finally get built, their power grid will be more flexible, which will help.
Of course, those dreaded winter dips in both sunshine and wind are a nightmare...
Wind and solar are still growing in Germany. Wind turbines are a relatively common sight, but pretty sparse. Building nuclear plants even in an ideal fantasy world would be hugely expensive and slow.
Yes, building them would be. However, not shutting the existing once down because we learned that tsunamis can threaten nuclear power plants on the coast is a different story. Don't get me wrong I honestly don't know if nuclear is better than coal, but think it's a viable discussion.
> Thus, Alfvén identified two fundamental prerequisites for effective management of high-level radioactive waste: (1) stable geological formations, and (2) stable human institutions over hundreds of thousands of years. As Alfvén suggests, no known human civilization has ever endured for so long, and no geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository has yet been discovered that has been stable for so long a period.
In other words, we have no, zero, ZILCH real solutions, and just hand-wave it away. Future generations might come up with something. They may not. But hey, let's not be a "scaremonger", let's not be like great minds of the 20th century who paid attention. Let's be shitty consumers with the attention span of a goldfish. Fuck that so much.
> wind and solar are price competitive and very environment friendly
And don't forget they're not using up resources we have a a.) limited supply of and b.) could use for more interesting things than burning them, but instead using energy that the sun pelts us with anyway. That's kind of a fundamental difference. It's the elephant on the couch, I'd say.
it's so bizarre that you think _ph_ disagrees with these arguments. their parent comment likes nuclear but says it unfortunately always loses in HN discussions, and_ph_ summarizes why it loses.
I clicked your HN profile which says " Defend yourself. Your mindless, entitled pouting makes me aggressive. As it should."
HN is a place to be civil. it's in the rules. That's why it's better than other places. Please, improve your attitude here and don't have that profile text. If you do, you'll (rightly) be shadow banned for those toxic "contributions" and then you won't derail threads with gratuitous negativity.
Rather than lash out against someone who you completely agree with, you could have just written your comment to read "To elaborate on these points..." and then given your helpful information.
then you would have been upvoted. In the future please be more constructive :). and welcome to HN.
It doesn't solve the problem globally, but in Finland, there's been a decision of the method and location of the final disposal of the waste. Once the disposal is finished 50 years after end of waste production, the repository will be sealed in a way that makes the waste inaccessible.
Compared to the blood on the hands of people who don't seriously think about what they defend, I'll take offending people by asking them for arguments. You can prove you have a mind beyond a goldfish. If you just downvote and say nothing, I'll stick with "called it", kthxbai.
Currently there aren't that many wind turbines. I imagine the proposal is to have at least 100x the number to replace all of the fossil fuels. Imagine the planet covered with wind turbines.
Well, we are trying to reduce the other numbers. 10 million in the US is still a big number. We are 4% of the world population. As per capita energy use increases throughout the world, we're going to generate a lot more clean energy.
10 million in the US is not a big number, relative to other sources of bird deaths. As long as it's insignificant, you'll have a hard time convincing people that it's significant, and should stand in the way of saving the planet.
This is akin to complaining that your cancer treatment causes your hair to fall out. Yes it's unfortunate, but it's also a crucial part of the only realistic solution we have to far more urgent problems.
Both fair points, but your link states that cats' killing statistics are perhaps exaggerated, not completely false, and we don't know by how much.
My (seemingly incorrect) assumption would imply that even if we remove all wind turbines we would only make a dent of about 1/10k. It is still a reasonable observation unless we find out the cat kill stats are off by four orders of magnitude.
This is a very pretty map! It shows that location is important but time is also an interesting domain. You can do your bit by running appliances at the best time. This is a post I made on https://energyuse.eu (part of an EU trial I'm involved with - https://www.decarbonet.eu).
Saving energy in general is a positive step. For example, we've just bought a new freezer and dishwasher with better energy ratings and these will save money over their lifetimes. However, when is the best time to run a wash to save the most CO2e?
Unless you are on an Economy 7 style tariff or have solar panels then when you use power has no effect on how much it costs you. If you are, then at night or in the middle of the day is better, respectively. Dynamic demand to grid signals isn't ready for consumer adoption yet but you can look at the information manually if you want to use power at less demanding times.
The grid frequency[0] is a reasonable indicator but is pretty technical. There are other, easier to understand, data sources available:
There seems to be lots of wind potential around the scottish isles and iceland. I wonder how feasible it would be to plaster turbines over iceland and then sell that energy to europe.
Iceland already produces much more energy than it needs through geothermal and hydro. Connecting the Icelandic power grid to the rest of the world seems to be currently infeasible [1], so instead they "export" the surplus energy through their aluminium industry: raw ore is shipped in from around the world, and high-energy refined aluminium is shipped out.
Similarly-isolated New Zealand does a similar thing, refining aluminium ore from Australia using abundant hydro power [2].
Germany, which has a considerably cleaner grid, has still higher CO2 emissions per capita and has a greater population (80mln vs 38mln in Poland).
That being said the polish grid is long due for a massive overhaul, but - especially now - there's no political will to do it even though over 77% of the population would welcome switching to cleaner sources of electricity.
I personally count on renewables becoming cost-efficient soon - which could be a major driver for change.
I'm Polish (currently living in Spain). And yes, a lot of people in rural and small cities areas are using coal to heat houses, as well as wood and sometimes garbage which is the worst. What's more, our main electricity source is coal power plants - because of traditionally strong miners' lobby from Silesia area. Actually, no government had enough courage to make a shift into more cleaner power sources.
Been there many times. Old condos, homes have coal burning furnaces. People have no money to replace them despite aid from EU to convert to gas. Some people throw everything into the furnace to burn for heat. It's not pleasant to walk outside and breath air fowled by burning plastic bottles.
We have coal, so we use it, like other countries did before. Wind/solar farms don't work well here because of the weather and are expensive. Nuclear plants would require foreign technology which is very costly, and so far nuclear plants here are just a dream, a way to drain the public funds into the pockets of "nuclear plant construction" committee, which doesn't do anything useful (it doesn't help that the public opinion is against nuclear energy because of the Chernobyl, even though all of our neighbours have nuclear plants anyway).
Don't be mad at me, but basically what are you saying is: "Screw you all, screw the planet, flood after us...". You should really not use argument: "you did it, so we will also do it", because when "we" did it, there was probably no other way. And now is. It's 2016, you can't burn coal in rate like it was 15th century. It won't help us transition to clean energy anyhow.
You have a point, but you have to also consider the fact that it is hypocritical to say that we are "Screwing the planet".
If others were screwing it to build their economy, other countries also should have that ability.
Countries that have more money can afford other forms of energy, but coal is abundant in Poland and it would be foolish not to use it.
For solar power, Poland doesn't have good geographical position, similar with wind (it is only in the northern part, while the majority of population is in the south).
And hydro is not that environment friendly, but we have those in the south, but it is hard to make more because there is a limit on the amount of water and Poland has less of it than e.g. Egypt.
The only other option is nuclear, but as others have written it is not popular in the public.
"Because of course building one's economy matters more than screwing the planet we all live on ?"
What a disgusting remark. Your entitlement and privilege are showing, never mind your lack of appreciation for geopolitical context and the lives of others outside of your comfortable bubble. Climate alarmism may feel good to the self-righteous, but it is unproductive and has been used to justify all kinds of despicable tactics by the powerful. There are a number of intertwined concerns that any charitable and fair-minded person would take into account before sowing baseless condemnation. I've already given some reasons why Poland is dependent on coal above. For Poland, energy independence is also a matter of national security. Coal also forms the economic base for Silesia. If climate change is so serious, then why don't you direct your pitchfork at the largest economies in the world that have been dragging their feet in these areas yet have the wealth to actual do something about it. Pull the plank out of your own eye before looking for splinters in the eyes of others.
Even some numbers might be missing, you cannot argue fact, that producing electricity from clean sources is viable. It's just matter of first accepting the fact burning coal to produce electricity is bad and second take actions to shift towards clean energy production. However most advocates here seems to be stuck on point one (acceptance). Take look at Norway again. They produce 20 GW from hydro. It must be more they consume. I don't need more examples to stress out the fact that 100% clean energy production is viable.
What an ignorant and flippant comment. Before commenting, it's important to understand the reasons for why things are. Poland is burning coal for a number of reasons. First, coal forms the economic base for Silesia. You can't move away from coal unless you can transition the regional economy to something else. Second, Poland isn't exactly in a position to transition to other energy sources all that easily. Nuclear is expensive, shale gas is blocked by environmental groups (though Poland has one of the largest deposits in Europe). Solar and wind have already been commented on. Third, there is no energy solidarity in Europe, something made evident by Germany's smarmy deals with Russia that intentionally circumvent central Europe (e.g., Nordstream) that have serious political consequences, allowing Russia to cut energy to c. Europe while maintaining uninterrupted gas flow to Germany. Meanwhile, Germany, Europe's largest economy, is still burning coal and the failure of climate agreements show the hypocrisy and arrogance of the world's wealthiest countries when it comes to climate change. Making silly and absurd remarks about 15th century coal consumption is a testament to your boorish and condescending attitude towards others.
I've feeling you're only finding excuses, why it's ok to continue to burn coal. It seems there is no single alternative they want to accept (weather is bad, atom is expensive ...) and that is what really bothers me. That is pure ignorance. Poland coal supply no matter how huge is today, one day it will all gone and they'll have to transition from it anyway.
The world decided for once that something had to be done and ... just did it. This allowed the ozone layer to gradually recover. The ozone hole will hopefully finally be closed again around 2050. (No source at hand, but read it a few days ago)
> France looking good but they're paying for that green color.
French electricity prices to households are below european average and half the German or Danish prices. They're not the lowest in the EU but they're the lowest in Western Europe — unless you include scandinavia and even then they're competitive: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
French prices are lower than Belgium's, Denmark's, Germany's, Ireland's, Italy's, Spain's, Luxemburg's (by a hair), the Netherlands's, Austria's, Portugal's and the UK's.
Higher than Finland's or Norway's but lower than Sweden's.
And of course the french nuclear program was never about prices, exportable industry or ecology (though these are nice side-effects, sadly european greens never understood the last one, even now they're pushing the french towards phasing out nuclear), it was about energy independence following the 1973 Oil Crisis, I believe France is one of the few countries (if not the only one) which ignored the 80s oil glut (possibly due to the investment it had made in the 70s) and stayed the course.
That's nonsensical, the cost of the nuclear plant is capital investment which is included in the price of the electricity.
If the country needed it due to "the cost of the nuclear plant" it would raise its prices (again electricity prices in France are lower than in every single one of its neighbours, to which the country generally exports electricity incidentally).
It's not easy to estimate the cost of decommissioning and waste storage over very long periods, so it is very possible that those cost are far from reflected in the current prices, by mistake or for political reasons.
The UK has the highest basic rate for electricity, but one of the lowest VAT levels (5%) and no further levies. Most other EU countries have additional energy taxes in addition to VAT. France is below the EU average.
Is that bad? I thought it was our moral imperative to pay the cost of low carbon energy. That's how the the high kWh rates in Germany (roughly 40% higher than France) are rationalized, in my experience.
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The CO2 numbers for the different types of power generation seem to come from Wikipedia [1], where Hydropower has a median gCO2eq/kWh of 24 and a maximum of 2200 – much worse than coal. This seems to be based on the fact that large areas may be flooded when filling the dam initially, and CO2 from rotting plants is released [2]. The numbers vary depending on the amount of vegetation.
According to a study [3] from 2012, "electricity generated in storage hydropower stations in Switzerland causes emissions of 10.8 g CO2-eq/kWh", so it's less than shown in the emissions chart and comparable to nuclear.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emis...
[2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-po...
[3] http://esu-services.ch/fileadmin/download/publicLCI/flury-20... [PDF]