Unfortunately it also took around 17 years to build the thing, so this playbook is not going to be particularly useful to anybody else who needs to wean themselves off Russian energy now.
At some point, stubborn commitment to terrible policy can't be recovered from.
But it is nevertheless always a good time to admit wrong and start working to correct mistakes. It would be very wise to admit that the Western powers haven't been seriously focusing on energy security for decades now and that really needs to change. If we want to be in a good spot 17 years from now we need to start ASAP.
And people could probably also get some nuclear plants built in less than 17 years if they demanded that they be an order of magnitude safer than coal plants/gas rather than the absurdist standards that are presently applied.
Would it be fair to summarise that policy as “bilateral trade will stop countries killing each other”?
>> Western powers haven't been seriously focusing on energy security
By security you mean self sufficiency? The opposite of stopping further world wars by opening global trade?
The idea a world historically proven to relish excuses for killing each other, would have been better served by following the ideals of self sufficiency rather than trade, it just doesn’t really hold up to any inspection. Are there any exceptions to the rule globally that conflict deaths decrease as trade intensity increases?
Almost all dead civilisations share a common marker before their death: greater self sufficiency (and consequently a loss of skills - which was counter intuitive to me but easily researched since it doesn’t appear to be a disputed finding as far as i can see).
Trade between like-minded nations is awesome; the EU itself largely has its origins in a wish to avoid yet another disastrous world war between Germany and neighbors. And by all accounts it has succeeded in that.
However, becoming critically dependent on a hostile neighbor with imperial ambitions is dumb beyond belief. As we can see in Europe today.
> Almost all dead civilisations share a common marker before their death: greater self sufficiency
If you read e.g. Tainters Collapse (which AFAIK is nowadays the largely accepted explanation of why ancient civilizations collapsed), it's a bit more subtle than that.
(Obviously post-collapse the survivors will go back to a much more self-sufficient way of life.)
I’m struggling to reconcile that take on events with a desire for thawing hostilities and mutual prosperity. How could you seek to develop and grow mutual prosperity while deliberately holding back local industry so as not to become interdependent?
There’s 2 ways to avoid cognitive dissonance here that i can see:
1. “Nice doggy but i won’t put down my stick” - you think they’re morons. You say publicaly that Bi-lateral trade will bring us all closer together but privately you tell your industries to reject growth beyond the point where it incurs dependence on Russia and you expect Russia to accept this asymmetry unquestioningly [EDIT: clarity]
2. Mutual prosperity was never an option, better we had arrived at conflict sooner and never entertained welcoming Russia in to the global economy
>> it's a bit more subtle than that
Subtle seems like the wrong choice of word. Complex perhaps? It’s certainly more complex but nothing i said contradicts Tainter’s view.
My point is that I think the argument that trade by itself brings about mutual understanding and prosperity is fatally flawed. The West collectively made that mistake with Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We looked through the fingers at all the warning bells that were ringing, well, pretty much since Putin became the leader. Hopefully our leaders have learned the lesson. There must be much more focus on democracy, human rights, and respect for the sovereignty of other countries. Once those basic pieces are in order, we can talk trade. Until that happens I'm perfectly happy with Russia isolated like North Korea.
Peace in Europe can happen when Russia GTFO of Ukraine, not by appeasement and restarting trade as if nothing happened. Currently dropping sanctions would only help Putin rebuild his war machine, leading to more death and suffering of innocents rather than bring about some kind of trade-induced Kumbaya.
> It’s certainly more complex but nothing i said contradicts Tainter’s view.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you but from what you wrote the implication was that civilizations chose to focus on self sufficiency leading to collapse, which really mixes cause and effect and not what Tainter is arguing.
Finland has the highest energy consumption per capita in EU. (over 2x Germany for example)
Winters are cold and we use electricity for heating a lot (gas furnaces at homes are very rare). Also bunch of energy hungry industry (paper, metal)
That's a kind of a blessing actually. As opposed to central Europe, Finland is not that dependent on gas from Russia. Electricity can be produced without a pipeline dependence on Russia.
That being said, Finland used to import quite a lot of electricity from Russia, and that is now gone, so there is an urgent need to invest in domestic production capacity. In the short term that certainly means much more wind, longer term hopefully more nuclear reactors (in addition to the soon upcoming OL3) coming online would be useful too.
According to Wikipedia:
DE: 232/km2
FI: 16.4/km2
EU: 106/km2
They should probably be OK as far as GP's argument is concerned (space for wind turbines not bothering anyone), especially since I expect most of the people are living in the south. Not sure whether there's enough wind in the sparsely populated areas, though.
But still we got our own NIMBYs who like to complain a lot.
edit: And the best places to build wind is at the coast so west and south parts of the country. It just is more windy at the coast and/or open sea pretty much always.
The absolute amount of capacity that has to come online for self-sufficiency would be a sliver of the demand of a more populous nation.
That is not to say you aren't right - indeed there's plenty of uninhibited land to place turbines into
I would argue that most larger Western nations have the ability to be self-sufficient in electricity. And those that don't can often partner with other neighbors or allies for smaller, more secure access to energy.
I would also argue that all nations current have motive as well as ability. The reliance on potential adversaries for energy makes entire nations or blocs fully dependent on these adversaries, which has been clear since at least the 1973 OPEC sanctions.
If I recall correctly granite by virtue of its uranium content has more energy than coal does by combustion. And everywhere has granite if they dig deep enough. If you’re willing to import uranium you have even fewer non-political problems if you have the requisite engineering skills. Among European countries that probably excludes places like Malta and Luxembourg but if Finland can do it there’s no reason to believe e.g. Ireland couldn’t.
This will be more and more of a challenge even in uranium mines: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332
That doesn’t smell right to me. Finland’s pretty chilly. Surely their energy usage has to be high?
According to world data bank, Finland has one of the highest kwh per head of population demands in the world. About 3-4x more than the US for example.
>> where wind turbines
The energy supply breakdown for Finland appears to be predominantly about a successful Nuclear deployment for electricity and social / district heating.
Sadly nuclear isn't used for district heating at all. There is a LOT of waste heat (in the GW range) that is just pumped into outside to "heat" the sea (very locally). There has been some plans about building pipelines from the nuclear plants to big cities to transport the heat to them (Loviisa to Helsinki would only require ~90km pipe) but isn't currently possible without a change in nuclear safety laws/codes.
Even the town of Loviisa is not using the waste heat of the 2 nuclear reactors there to heat the town itself.
edit: Obviously the electricity produced by the nuclear plants is used in district heating to power heat pumps but that is very inefficient (already ~60% loss just from heat -> electricity at the nuclear plant).
Well, heat pumps are pretty efficient, with a COP of ~3(?), the overall efficiency is better with heat pumps. Even better, however, is by combining both with cogeneration producing both electricity and heat for district heating. District heating in cities use the waste heat from the plant, and electricity can be used to run heat pumps outside the cities where the district heating grids don't reach. Of course the problem with cogeneration is that we have to get away from burning stuff, and siting nuclear plants in cities has its own challenges as well.
We should all be striving to do the same.