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"Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)
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BravoV:

--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 31, 2022, 02:35:45 am ---
--- Quote from: BravoV on August 31, 2022, 02:30:06 am ---Source -> https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-aggressively-reselling-russian-gas-europe

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No kidding! :-DD

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You will laugh even more if you do "smart" reading further at pro-Western news sites regarding India with sudden gigantic spike on buying oil from Russia, which was never happened since last year, which they distilled it into diesel or gasoline and sell it to Europe.  :-DD

I'm just too lazy to post it here.
NiHaoMike:

--- Quote from: james_s on August 31, 2022, 01:19:34 am ---What about individuals that have things like campers, horse trailers and toy haulers? As far as I know there are currently no hybrid fullsized diesel pickup trucks. Of course it's possible that the definition of "plug in hybrid" is loose enough for a workaround but in that case the legislation is a bit of a joke.

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Why would it need to be a diesel? Electric motors are great at providing torque. It would also make sense to develop a "powered trailer" with its own set of batteries and motor especially for a RV that's going to have the batteries anyways, such that any normal car would be able to tow it.

--- Quote from: Someone on August 31, 2022, 02:33:08 am ---Things like trains ran more often and more reliably too! Its a change in what the public "demand" as their basic minimum living standard. Travelling to the other side of the city to see a friend for a social activity was once a significant decision/choice, now its a "basic right" and is seen as cheap and convenient. As above in this thread, once people heated a single room and survived ok, but now people are demanding they should be able to heat their entire house and someone else should subsidise/pay for that.

We had a period of (unsustainably) cheap energy, it was never going to last. Trying to subsidise people to continue their unproductive activities is sure disaster.

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There needs to be incentives to vastly reduce energy use. Making energy pricing nonlinear/"progressive" would be one way to do that.
tom66:

--- Quote from: nctnico on August 30, 2022, 11:52:42 pm ---Now calculate the price per kWh you'd need to receive from the power company to cover the wear on your precious battery... EVs as grid storage is the most stupidest idea ever. It simply isn't cost effective.  For starters: EV batteries aren't made for grid storage purposes.

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They don't need to be grid storage, just dispatchable demand.

We already have charge points that give you the option: "I need 80% charge in my car by tomorrow.  Charge whenever you can, as long as it's ready by 7 am" (and the power company sends a signal to the charger telling it to modulate current and turn on and off as there is excess renewable on the grid, or high proportion of nuclear/biomass.)

JohanH:

--- Quote from: madires on August 30, 2022, 09:49:03 pm ---
For running heat pumps and charging EVs most countries have to triple their generation of electric power. I don't think any country is able to do this in just a few years.

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While I've seen numbers like 250% increase in electrical consumption (assuming 100% electric vehicles and 100% heat pumps for heating) for UK that has poorly insulated houses, this will probably vary a lot between countries.

E.g. in Finland, where we don't use gas and not much coal, and have properly insulated houses, we have already over 20% heat pumps in residential homes and a bit more electrical heating, which will of course lessen the demand when switched to heat pumps (ongoing as we speak). There is also a large part with biomass and biofuels, e.g. wood, pellets and to some extent biogas. These types would probably not switch to heat pumps. We already use electricity for cooking (never used gas here), so that won't change. The bigger impact here might be electric cars.

Finland has for many years had to import electricity, e.g. typically about 10% from Russia (which has now naturally stopped) and more from the other Nordic countries. It is expected that next year we will break even for the first time, due to a new nuclear reactor and increasing wind and solar installations (told recently by national grid CEO).


tom66:
It's going to be much more important to properly insulate homes rather than increase generation.

Avg. gas consumption of 12000kWh per year for a house could be dropped to 3000kWh with good insulation.  That then looks like 750kWh per year of consumption in a heat pump, and bonus, the heatpump can be much smaller and cheaper to install.

Part of the problem is a serious lack of tradespeople to do the work - we need to have apprentices and training courses for these rather than more people with degrees in art history.
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