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Comment by ncmncm | Hacker News Reader

That is, surely, fixable by constructing transmission lines massively cheaper than nukes.

Transmission capacity from the northern hydro to the southern nuclear regions has decreased due to the closing of reactors in the south. Power transmission is more complex than just building a fatter pipe to pour more water through. Having stable power in the south is a prerequisite to transfer hydro power from the north.

I don't understand, surely the southern grid is stabilized by interconnections to europe? I thought closing reactors would be independent of transmission. What am I missing?

They are separate grids: not synchronous, not stabilising each other. Most of the interconnections are HVDC links. Wikipedia has an article on synchronous grids of Northern Europe.

The decommissioning of several large generating stations in southern Sweden has indeed affected the effective transmission capacity from the north.

Can you explain this in more detail.

Tell that to Germans https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suedlink (started planning in 2011, the construction should have taken place 2016-2022, now they are hoping it will be done by 2028, lots on NIMBY court challenges along the route of the cabling).

Tell that to the French. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... reactor three (construction started in 2007, now they are hoping it will begin operation in mid-2023).

Maybe, but more power generation is a better investment. $1 spent on nuclear generates $10 in energy. $1 spent on transmission lines is just $1 gone.

Which would result in prices going up in the North. Ready to see why people would work against it.

Could theoretically send wind power north when available, and send hydro south when it's not. Glad we are doing nukes though.

As more nuclear power plants are built, we will be building up expertise to make them safer. This AP1000 design already is much more inherently safe than Gen 1 or 2 reactors

But they get better price for their electricity, more profit for the plant, more taxes and thus the people benefit.

Yes, local electricity bill would go up but if the price is often extremely low, selling some for higher price is a net win. Ie this is why we have trade as concept in the first place.

Yes, the overall economy does better, but the local people might get higher electric bills but little other benefits, as the profit goes to the power plants. Usually increased tax revenue is less than the increased cost for the consumer.

Ironically, this is why the interconnects to mainland Europe that let (southern) Sweden sell its electricity at high prices when there is demand elsewhere are a good thing for everyone involved.

Not a good sign when right-wing governments are complaining about market based price signals and trade.

No, not everyone involved, everyone that can’t afford the bill in Southern Sweden, it is not good for them.

Just because Germany destroyed their electrical system it should not mean that companies in Sweden should go bankrupt. Germany tampered with the EU market, they ought to pay fines.

How is it good for the small local businesses who don't have a choice but shutting down?

It doesn't in any way solve the increasing electricity need in the future though, even assuming it would be fast and cheap to fix (it's not).

That said, the coalition also wants to improve the transmission lines.

Fix increasing electricity need

About as easy as fixing world peace.

Also, a lot of the new energy needs comes from "green steel", which would give massive reduction in the green house gas production required to produce steel.

But for that to make sense we need lots of clean energy.

Transmission lines increase the end customer costs (a lot). They are necessary but you want as little of them as you can get away with. Obviously not having enough can also increase costs as you have to use very expensive forms of production to compensate.

Here in Finland the transmission costs before this current price hike were usually 50%+ (for me with my current fixed price contract they are around 60%) of the total electricity bill. We got a really good network but it does come with a cost.

In the globalisation/market liberalism mindset it's traditionally considered good if places with high supply and low demand export to areas where products fetch higher prices.

True but not when the upkeep of that infrastructure costs more than the profits you get from selling your high supply product in the far away high demand market.

Obviously with the current market prices the cost of the transmission capabilities is a rounding error but if we get back to the electricity prices of a year or two ago the costs of transmission could start to dominate the price again so you have to be careful about investments like this (just like you have to be with nuclear plants for the case that the price on the markets is goes permanently under your production costs)

And transmission capability upgrades are really long term investments. Sweden started lately to try and fix this issue. If that project finishes on time it will take 14 years to finish. These are the kind of timescales where building a new nuclear power plant can be a faster fix.

Do you know if redispatch costs are included as part of your transmission costs and how much they are? Because if they are, then investing into the transmission lines can decrease transmission costs since the providers need to pay less for redispatch.

Ideally you’d do both.

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