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Comment by fyfy18 | Hacker News Reader

This is about electricity, not energy, demand though, so it's more like your neighbour runs a coal fired power plant that you import 50% of your electricity from.

If you look at energy consumption as a whole it's not that great though, in 2017 Scotland consumed 149 GWH, of which 24 GWH was electricity.

I don't think any other European countries are really doing any better though, Germany which is often touted as the leader in renewables, generates most of its electricity from fossil fuels (and most of that from coal and peat). This is why we need countries (and people) to take these climate goals seriously - even if you don't accept climate change, it's easy to see that generating 100% of your own energy from renewables will be more economically stable and sustainable in the long term.

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Germany [...] generates most of its electricity from fossil fuels (and most of that from coal and peat)

Germany doesn't use peat for energy production. We did run two plants in the past, but they closed in 1965 and 1974

>it's easy to see that generating 100% of your own energy from renewables will be more economically stable and sustainable in the long term.

Is it though? Europe doesn't seem like a particularly good spot spot for renewable energy. We've already put hydro pretty much everywhere we can, but the rest needs to be covered by pretty subpar options. Europe is further north than the US, which makes solar much less appropriate of a choice. Europe is also a lot smaller with more population density and that makes wind more difficult to do.

This is based on what?

Europe has some of the best spots on the planet for wind generation. Winds are in many places, a near constant companion, and usually within the range that turbines prefer. Any one of Britain, Ireland and the Nordics could supply a huge proportion of Europe's power needs with fully developed offshore wind. With a slim chance of ever being becalmed. Together I wouldn't be at all surprised to find generation capacity above European needs. There's plenty of suitable onshore sites too, and plenty of other European countries not yet mentioned.

Solar is never going to generate as much per panel in Scotland and UK as in California or Saudi, but it's good enough to pay well economically and in terms of emissions and overall impact too. Why wouldn't we use it in the mix? There's plenty of roof space doing nothing else.

New hydro has less scope, but there are suitable sites, and a large selection of locations suitable for pumped storage -- some of them part prepared by already having a lake in a disused quarry!

> Solar is never going to generate as much per panel in Scotland and UK as in California or Saudi, but it's good enough to pay well economically and in terms of emissions and overall impact too. Why wouldn't we use it in the mix? There's plenty of roof space doing nothing else.

Regarding this I live at 54N, and here installing roof top solar will pay for itself in less than 10 years. That's excluding government grants, and any electricity you are paid for exporting, so in reality it could be as little as 5. After that you have free energy for the life of the system - the inverter will last 15-25 years, solar panels will last the life of the building, but will produce less power over time.

>Europe has some of the best spots on the planet for wind generation. Winds are in many places, a near constant companion, and usually within the range that turbines prefer.

And how much area does that require? Sure, the countries with a long coast might be able to do it, but others might not be able to as easily. Even if they can do it, electricity and land prices would be more expensive there than elsewhere. I'm not sure how this would work politically, because business would probably just move to the other parts of the EU.

>the Nordics could supply a huge proportion of Europe's power needs with fully developed offshore wind.

The further you have to transport electricity the less efficient it becomes. And when you say "Nordics" here are you talking about just Denmark or do you include Sweden too? Because remember, Norway is not in the EU.

This kind of an energy solution is likely unthinkable politically as well. It would render some nation states vulnerable to others.

Because remember, Norway is not in the EU.

So? The grids of the Nordic countries are already interconnected. There's also a 700 MW cable connecting Norway to the Netherlands, and plans for connections to Germany and the UK.

Well the regions with the most wind tend to concentrate in Western Europe, conveniently with lots of Atlantic, North Sea, and to a somewhat lesser extent Baltic coasts. Summer winds down in N Africa.

I include Norway as we're talking about Europe, and there are two interconnects coming with the UK -- one in progress, one planned, and other EU-Norway links coming. UK has about 5 others in progress to Netherlands, Ireland and elsewhere. There's loads of new interconnects in the pipeline within the EU and to surrounding. I've even seen Iceland in one interconnect proposal, which was somewhat surprising. Proposed interconnects to N Africa less so. There's lots of suitable onshore sites too, mainly in spots where other uses of the land are limited.

Politically not at all unthinkable though -- think of most nation's reliance on imported coal, oil, and gas, much of it for generation. That's more risky. Two way interconnect agreements are much less risk by comparison to import only, often from volatile oil and gas states. Reduced reliance on imported fossil energy is one of the big reasons it's heading that way and started in the first place.

My comment was meant as opposed to relying on fossil fuels imported from other nations; Europe as a whole imports 87% of it's oil [0], most of which comes from Russia [1]. If the same capital would be spent on renewable domestic energy generation, it would lead to a more stable economy in the long term, as well the benefits of local jobs and not funding countries with questionable regimes (where a lot of oil comes from).

It's a completely different story for the US. As I understand, domestic reserves are expected to last until the mid 2030s, but that assumes no new reserves will be discovered. Unfortunately as a lot of our technology comes from the US, it means the world as a whole is pretty dependent on the US energy economy and their political decisions regarding sustainability.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

>My comment was meant as opposed to relying on fossil fuels imported from other nations; Europe as a whole imports 87% of it's oil [0], most of which comes from Russia [1].

I misunderstood you then, because I wholeheartedly agree with this. This is also workable politically because of the energy independence plans of the EU. The discussions around Nord Stream 2 are an example of this.

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