Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries
electricitymap.tmrow.co
electricitymap.tmrow.co
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]
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.
Yes, you see numbers over 0-20 vs 0-100 but things look different at 0-20 vs 20-100.
Hopefully we can drive awareness and change together.
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.
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.
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 ?
Anyway. I don't buy it.
(To be fair, it looks like it's exporting a little bit. That doesn't help, since it's nearly all fossil.)
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.
Ever heard of global warming ?
But of course we are painted black on this site.
Even if..
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1...
At least it will not crash your browser.
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.
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.
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.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/Thallium208/videos [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe_zzTQFV3o
The whole complex is in the process of being decommissioned.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...
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.
0. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g274951-d18864...
It looks like this (photo I took when I was there earlier in the year) https://www.instagram.com/p/BD1Ao-1IaXi/
Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islay_LIMPET
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.
Additionally, many universities have research reactors - they often have tours or a tour can be easily arranged.
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.
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.
Sources: [1] https://www.cez.cz/en/power-plants-and-environment/nuclear-p... [2] https://www.cez.cz/en/contacts/information-centers/lipno-inf... [3] https://www.cez.cz/en/contacts/information-centers/dlouhe-st...
Web info unfortunately only in Finnish, but guides can handle English of course: http://www.tvo.fi/vierailukeskus
Also the other Finnish nuclear plant in Loviisa (with Soviet-designed PWR reactors) may take visitors but does not organize it on daily basis.
Or at least you could 10 years ago.
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 ;)
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.
[0]: https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/education/visitor-centres
[1]: http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/
[2]: http://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/
Edit:
There's a photo at the bottom of this blog post from my visit to Cruachan last summer: https://unop.uk/mobile-gb-rail-live-departure-boards
If you're in the French Alps then you could visit Grand'Maison on a bad weather day: http://www.musee-edf-hydrelec.com/
I'm kinda amazed by this!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_Production_in...
Nordic power map: http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pag...
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.
Evidently the outcome is still nothing to be proud of, especially considering the country's wealth and claim of leadership in environmental policy.
It simply was too early to phase out nuclear power when they (slightly stubbornly) decided to do so.
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)
Population: 38.53 / 80.63 ~= 47,7% More coal sourced: 15.5 / 0.477 / 23.4 ~= 38.8%
38.8% vs 65% makes a difference
> 38.8% vs 65% makes a difference
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.
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.
[0] http://www.dw.com/en/new-incident-at-belgiums-tihange-2-nucl...
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8...
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.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben#Nuclear_Waste_Reposit...
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.
Lead in the air is one of the effect of massive coal usage in Germany and showing : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11987396
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?
Electric heating? Lower temperatures? Oslo is currently freezing (below 0C), neither London nor Berlin are.
Did Norway just decide to do all-electric heating as vastly all electric power, as displayed here, comes from hydro?
Just idle curiosity.
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.
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.
One should in general switch over to clean power sources.
One way to cut down on ones own carbon emissions is to stop eating beef as cows release a lot of methane. km https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u... http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fo... https://priceofmeat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/b8850198-f13... http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fo...
In Sweden one uses 8000kwh of electricity per year. 58g/kwh = 464000grams, 464kg co2.
Average car co2 emissions around 120g/km. Average distance driven here around 15000km. 12015000=1800000grams 1800kg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...
Co2 emissions of meat 13300g/kg, average meat consumtion 80kg. 8013300=1064000grams 1060kg of co2 from meat.
adding the above. 464kg+1800kg+1060=3324kg, still missing some to add up to per capita consumption. What co2 source is missing?
Co2 emission per capita of Sweden 4.6 ton, 4600kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Sustainable co2 per capita 1.7tones. I am over consuming 2900kg of co2. Stop driving car and stop eating meat reduces emissions about 2800kg.
Incidentally, while searching for a reference to the assertion that CO2 is and methane is not included in a carbon footprint, I found the opposite:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
(Methane emmisions are expressed in terms of the equivalent CO2 effect and added with actual CO2, the unit is then written as CO2e.)
My original quibble is therefore much less important.
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 ?
I'm the author of the map. For sure it can be optimised. If you can help, feel free to do so on github - or reach out so we can chat. Thanks :)
I really like the idea though.
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.
(Latitude 63°40.8′N)
I guess they use a lot of coal to produce electricity..?
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.
[1]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_per_capita_per_c...
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.
This is, unfortunately, what nationalistic pride clouding otherwise smart people's judgment looks like.
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.
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.
Of course, it always loses in any HN conversation:
- nuclear is very expensive
- nuclear has a waste and risk problem
- wind and solar are price competitive and very environment friendly
http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-...
Add 100x the current number and we'll have a big problem.
Downvoted to hell because "We don't like what you're saying".
Wind has a negative. it's just a fact, not an opinion.
[0] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-win...
2. Cat's killing birds doesn't make it acceptable for humans to kill birds by the tens of millions.
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.
https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds....
http://world.bymap.org/ElectricityProduction.html
Is there a reason we need to kill tens of millions of additional birds every year so we can have "clean" energy?
If you disagree, and have an argument, why are you not providing it?
> nuclear has a waste and risk problem
Yes, and?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_m...
> 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.
Posiva is the company, owned by the NPP operators, trusted with the task: http://posiva.fi/en/final_disposal
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.
Of course, those dreaded winter dips in both sunshine and wind are a nightmare...
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:
- Earth Notes: GB Grid Intensity[1] gives a simple traffic light indication
- GridCarbon[2] is a real-time carbon intensity app (CO2 Modeller[3] is from the same guys)
- MyGridGB[4] shows similar data on the web (and includes Solar data[5])
By avoiding peak time you may not save money but you can save carbon.
[0]: http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/electri...
[1]: http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html
[2]: http://gridcarbon.uk
[3]: http://www.co2modeller.info
Similarly-isolated New Zealand does a similar thing, refining aluminium ore from Australia using abundant hydro power [2].
[1] http://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/research/sub...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwai_Point_Aluminium_Smelter
The problem is the huge surplus generated by cheap coal that is being exported.
If you look at the emmisions per capita: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?name_desc...
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.
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 Poland is doing (as others did before) is very understandable, but it doesn't mean it's acceptable.
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.
- What does it mean that the page has live data visualization. How often is the data updated ?
- How many sources of data are there. Does it cover all of them in every country ? Are they all online all the time ?
- Why is Estonia dark brown the whole time but when i click on it is see
wind ++
solar ?
hydro
biomass ?
nuclear
gas ?
coal
oil ?
unknown ++++++++++
- What does "?" stands for in the results? Are some sources unavailable or is the data corrupted or what ?
- Why there is nothing under coal ?
- What does unknown here mean ? Does it contribute to gCO2eq/kWh ? I mean, so much of unknown energy. Are you serious ?
- What is the metric used after all ?
Is this software even alpha ? What is the version ? That is all very important when you create "facts" like this in Internet
33 out of 50 worst polluted cities are in Poland (due coal) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyIT4l4WIAEpzuF.jpg:large
Poland could be fined up to 900 mil Eur for crossing the pollution limits.
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.
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).
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
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.