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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

Us Europeans can still look at Texas, if we want to know how it is properly done, can't we?

Saying the equivalent of "no u" when no one else even brought up the USA is weird but I guess typically european way to deflect criticism . Not that comparing a regional blackout due to exceptional weather conditions, to a continent wide energy shortage cause by policy that has been going on for more than a year now makes any sense.

(Even quebec, which is very used to extreme winters, lost electricity for nearly a month back in 1998. On the other hand, I can't think of anything similar to this train wreck situation europe managed to get itself into, not since the 70s at least. So it is a pretty unique fuck up due to very bad policy, and one that's been happening in slow motion)

> but I guess typically european way to deflect criticism

It'd be great if you didn't lower yourself to name calling as well. (Note: I don't much like the comment you're responding to, but let's be civil here)

You are right. Sorry about that, I didn't mean it to be insulting.

That makes two...

Maybe not what you meant, but Texas based Enron’s price gouging lead to rolling blackouts in California 20 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–01_California_electricity...

Texas is the opposite of this situation because they purposely didn’t connect their grid to anyone else. The US equivalent for mismanagement would be the Colorado River.

The real problem with this situation is we are at a point at which deploying fixes to these problems take so long that even discussing it feels useless.

This is more similar to California than Texas. Europe is not facing a shortage of energy but a shortage of generation and transmission capacity in times of peak demand. Luckily, as we know from California, there are plenty of responsible people in the society. When there is a risk of shortage and blackouts, many people will voluntarily lower their power consumption for a while.

Also, because this is about peak demand, increasing base load generation is of limited help. There is a shortage of power plants that are cheap enough to keep idle most of the time but can be adjusted quickly. That means hydro and natural gas. Even coal is too expensive. Storage may be the long-term solution, but we are not there yet.

Structurally, the reason Germany has so many coal plants compared to gas is that coal was third cheapest on the marlets, right aftet wind and PV. That priced gas out of the market, simpky because gas was more expensive than coal and CO2 certificates to cheap to compensate.

> increasing base load generation is of limited help

Of course, but in a system trying to avoid fossil fuel use, it smooths out the rough edges in significant ways: during non-peak times, by preventing blackouts or brownouts when there are medium to long term wind & solar outages (which no realistic storage can cover yet in places without pumped hydro), and during peak times by reducing the amount of additional energy required.

The intention of your comment appears solely to deflect, however what happened in Texas and what is happening in the EU right now are not even remotely comparable. The cause of the Texas grid failure in February 2021 was a Winter storm and a poor decision to cut power to parts to the parts of the supply chain that powered the natural gas infrastructure. The problem was not the result of not having the energy supplies. This has actually been well-documented.[1][2].

The real irony of your comment however is that you are actually looking to Texas now. The EU is now relying in large part on the US for LNG and much of the LNG is being shipped from the Gulf Coast in Texas. The majority of the US excess natural gas supply is now being shipped to Europe. As of April that was 74%. [3]. I'm guessing it's even more now.

[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/18/texas-winter-storm-b...

[2] https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-win...

[3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52659

Texas has the same pattern as Europe; higher percentages of solar and wind, resulting in an overdependence on gas.

And the latter part is wrong: France is mostly nuckear, Germany to a huge extent coal, gas has close to no significance when it comes to electricity in Germany. Norway is hydro, as is Austria.

And the share of renewables in Texas was negligible when the frid broke down, that was due to failing gas power plants because of low temperatures.

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