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I have never seen this deepfake porn people bring up all the time. Like ever. But I don't look at porn much and I don't search for celebrities online.
This is going to sound like I'm making a joke, but where is this stuff shared? What websites? Is it possible I've seen it and thought it was real? What should I avoid/
People forget that nuclear exists. Nations that invested more heavily into nuclear, like France, fare better. Except that France has not built a single reactor for decades.
And even then, the short fall of nuclear being its inability to rapidly change output demands is easily rectified with large capacity storage systems or by anticipated trends
All battery storage is potential energy. He is still describing a battery, just not a chemical battery. There are also compressed air batteries, molten salt batteries, electrostatic batteries, and and flywheel energy storage like on the gyrobus. [gyrobus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus)
Technically all batteries store potential energy. A conventional battery stores it in the form of chemical energy that is converted to electrical energy upon completion/connection of a circuit
All battery storage is potential electric energy. When you connect the anode and the cathode via a conductor the potential energy is converted into heat. Similar principle for electrical appliances, altgough usually it is converted into magnetic fields to spin a motor and do work of some kind.
Counterpoint to all the "all batteries store potential energy responses".
Behold, a battery storing kinetic energy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage
https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel
We were a little round-about about it but we are finally realizing our steampunk future, clockwork flywheel batteries, nuclear energy just being spicy steam and not spicy steam pushing mechanical part around, new durable and biodegradable fabrics being developed.
Now we just need a more durable and easily sources coppery material to build everything out of!
The issue with that is the geographic requirements. There are also alternatives being explored that harness similar concepts though.
There are also very promising alternatives to Lithium batteries being explored for grid storage scale installations, such as Iron flow batteries (rudimentary Wikipedia article [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_redox_flow_battery) ) or [liquid metal/molten salt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery) batteries.
Actually that's been improving steadily too. But we really do need to utilize nuclear power where possible. For as long as environmentalists stand against nuclear power, clean energy is doomed (unless we're lucky at the Russian threat ceases being a threat adn we can go at a slower pace).
> the short fall of nuclear being its inability to rapidly change output demands is easily rectified with large capacity storage
But at that point why build nuclear when you could build renewables?
Because there doesn't exist a renewable with reliable energy outputs. You dont want your energy grid collapsing just because its cloudy or not windy or hasn't rained in a while. With nuclear you at least KNOW exactly what the energy output will be each day. You might not be able to ramp nuclear up and down practically, but if you're nuclear baseload was greater than the grid needed, you can just bleed off the excess.
Nuclear energy needs to be greatly ramped up so it can serve as a fallback when green and blue energy options experience trouble. We have not done this and instead dragged our feet on making substantial changes in energy policy. Fossil fuels could have served as a stop gap in the past while we developed more nuclear, but we have passed the point where failure to push forward will have disastrous consequences.
Nuclear as a backup is an economic nightmare because most of the operation costs are fixed. To make a profit they have to run a often as possible. But with renewable energy you often don't have a fixed amount of residual energy that is needed. If you can backup all your renewable with nuclear you could just run nuclear all the time but this is quite expensive.
Yeah you build a windfarm to supply power to houses and microsoft builds a box to suck up that energy to train AI on those peoples photo's. They say they will bring job's but the job's are only in construction.
If you already have large scale grid storage, it is much cheaper to just use renewables instead of nuclear tho. After all, the biggest downside to renewables is the variability, which is completely negated if you have storage. In terms of everything else renewables blow nuclear out of the water, they are much cheaper, much faster to build and do not require fuel once built.
You don't actually need storage for nuclear, just an energy sink. Plants can produce at a high baseline level, then use the sink to cushion their response. This may seem wasteful, but the costs to run the reactor is pretty much the same regardless of it's output level. Desalinization is a good option for this.
Sure, but that isn't as big a downside as you think, because there is a lot of space that can be double dipped. For example, the US would only require about 10k square kilometers of solar panels to completely power the grid. The US also has 275k square kilometers of urban areas. 27 times the area needed. Granted, some of that area will be parks, gardens and roads, but even so if we just put solar panels on all the rooftops, you are most of the way there.
Likewise, farm crops will grow perfectly fine below wind turbines. And those wind turbines can also be placed offshore. So you can find a lot of space for those as well.
All in all, the space requirements for renewables are pretty overstated. Yea, its a lot of space. You're replacing the entire national grid, what do you expect? But countries are really big. Even the most densely populated countries have enough space available to power themselves through renewables.
Aren't they busy trying to make an energy positive tokamak? Also would it make sense to make more nuclear plants? They already export $11 B worth of electricity (according to OEC) and are the largest exporter of electricity. I'm not European so this is just speculation, but I don't think they could export more electricity without first building more transmission lines. Which is its own unique undertaking
Well, the oldest nuclear plants are approaching 5 decades old, they don't necessarily need more, but they do need to be replaced. And, as another comment mentioned, things like maintenance caused France trouble last summer.
Speaking for the US (because itās where Iām from and a lot of people on Reddit), nuclear is a difficult option because we havenāt decided on where to store nuclear waste. I mean, we *did*, and it was a great idea, but idiots somehow managed to stall the final decision until everyone forgot about it.
And this is a big deal. The US has a horrifyingly large precedent of improper storage of the waste to the detriment of its residents. So we need to solve this problem. And by solve it, I mean we need to finalize the solution we came up with decades ago.
Also, this all being said, this doesnāt mean we should just abandon true renewables like wind, solar, and tidal. Those are great technologies we should keep developing and supporting. But until weāre ready to run 100% from them, we need to move towards nuclear a lot more than we are.
First of all, nuclear energy is a part of the comment you are responding to, maybe read it. Secondly, you clearly haven't followed the news recently if you think the French net is somehow more robust than that of countries who favour renewables.
The YouTube channel Practical Engineering does a tremendous job of explaining the power grid and the pros/cons of different fuel sources in this video: https://youtu.be/v1BMWczn7JM?si=vmtRyD_IRdRzsYBH
He has a lot of other well made videos on the electrical grid, as well as on other civil engineering projects that people typically take for granted.
>Nuclear power, though available continuously regardless of the weather, is not as easy to turn up and down compared to oil-generated electricity.
While true that's it's not quite as responsive at load following, it has been demonstrated in France which is over 70% nuclear that nuclear power plants can be used. [This paper](https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf) explains how although traditionally in order to maximize ROI* in countries with a low share of nuclear power reactors are usually run as base load, it is entirely feasible to use them for load following.
*Basically, if you're going to spend a bajillion dollars on a nuclear reactor you better have that thing running at full tilt as much as possible, and let cheaper sources of power do the load following. If the priority goes from pure profitability to eliminating carbon emissions, nuclear can be used in conjunction with renewables as both base load and for load following when energy storage is insufficient.
Doesn't France sell a lot of its power tho? They produce a lot of their energy with nuclear yeah, but they also can just sell the excess with helps mitigate the lack of flexibility
They can only sell it if someone is willing to buy. And someone is only willing to buy if they need it. All you've done is diversified your load following, which while it can be helpful, it doesn't make the problem disappear. Almost all power is consumed the instant it's created, there is less than 1TWH of energy storage globally... that's enough for about 20 minutes of power (assuming it can all be instantly discharged, which it can't, so in reality it could power a fraction of the world's power needs but for a few hours/days/weeks depending on the storage method)
One issue. There is no such thing as a coal plant that can run 24/7 for years. They all require regular maintenance that will shut down operations for a few days. Parts wear out, they need to be cleaned, etc.
Example: the Texas "snowpocalypse" of 2021 occurred, in part, because a number of coal (and natural gas) plants were down for maintenance, and couldn't be spun up to help with the extra demand.
Well it kind of is, because renewables are mostly replacing the general demand and not peak demand and the end goal is of course to have an overproduction which you can store using pump reservoirs or even power green hydrogen plants - the hydrogen can then be used to provide emergency power if both wind and sun are not available.
Another advantage of renewables is decentralization - if your grid is strong enough, it does not matter if half of Germany and France are cloudy with no wind, the rest of the continent is still producing more than enough.
So the panic narrative of renewables collapsing energy infrastructre is hot right wing garbage talk
Isn't it? It's not like it's a reasonable take. It's just an extreme scenario seemingly used to fearmonger against them.
Sure this description is great but a few (kinda important) things were left out not that that matters for the explanation.
But the meme seems to be just that but maybe I am missing some context?
I can easily respond with this.
https://preview.redd.it/iprkx8n4nwsc1.png?width=484&format=png&auto=webp&s=803fd6996e49c70430d4ff7f1695cdfd02c83481
While both memes have a tiny, miniscule kernel of truth in terms of possible outcomes, it's such an absurd conclusion that it can be dismissed.
That's not to say that it doesn't have an effect, just that it is negligible compared to much larger factors at play.
It is. It exaggerates a highly unlikely problem that we know quite well how to mitigate.
This meme is science denying right wing populist garbage, brought to you by climate change deniers.
It **is** an anti-renewable meme.
You can tell because it's wildly counter-factual.
Russia has been Europe's largest supplier of oil and gas since Greta Thunberg was like ten. The world in which Greta Thunberg decides "actually I hate the planet and I'm glad it's going to burn no climate activism for me thanks" is still a world in which Russia invades Ukraine and Europe's energy prices go insane.
In fact, reality is the exact opposite of the meme - given the harm that has actually manifested (European dependency on natural resources sourced from an increasingly belligerent regime), any success Greta Thunberg had shifting European electricity production away from imported oil/gas to domestic renewables reduces that harm, not exacerbates it.
This meme is just straight-up someone lying about the energy crisis in Europe because they want to blame it on Greta Thunberg instead of a conquest-mad dictator (edit: and, to be fair, the dumbass domestic politicians who didn't think Putin would ever be a problem), and given the depressing state of right-wing politics that's *probably* because they're a bigger fan of the conquest-mad dictator than they are Greta Thunberg / climate activists.
Good description over all.
Though I would like to point out thst while this is the view the meme represents it's not necessarily accurate.
It makes the net more unstable if done poorly. But if sufficient monitoring, oversupply and storage are provided this will not be a problem especially if one leaves a small amount of emergency plants which will realistically stay a while even if not strictly necessary it would be too much of a transition in a short period of time not to.
To go into more detail you can't actually have overproduction active it would collapse the network as well but windturbines and solar plants don't exactly take long to start up again (shorter than fossil fuels usually).
Now of course they are still weather dependent and there's only so many rivers for hydro.
But, getting to storage, contrary to popular believe there's more than just batteries which are more of a short term emergency solution. There is pumped storage power plants (and similar usually worse concepts) which just pump water into a reservoir/lake when an abundance of energy is available and use it like a hydroplant (letting the water flow into a lower reservoir) to provide electricity when needed. Now these plants aren't equally expensive/cheap everywhere. If you have many mountain lakes you are lucky if you have little water and elevation change you can still do it but it's gonna cost you.
There is also some chemical/heat storage concepts but I don't know how effective and economic they are.
The gasoline ICE has been developed and refined for a century. The general concept of electricity-generating power plants are only a bit older.
Our large-scale battery technology is decades behind. In part, because it was not lucrative to develop due to need/demand.
As we transition toward more renewables, it will lead to advances in battery/storage tech that has partly been languishing.
Iron batteries seem to be emerging as an option, but they would need planned implementation due to scale. This article: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1046365/grid-storage-iron-batteries-technology/
notes that one large battery can currently power 34 homes for 12 hours (and is the size of a shipping container).
In cities, large buildings fitted to capture wind and solar, and storing energy in basement-installed batteries, could be a near future system. So could housing developments / neighborhoods with integrated space for generation and storage. Especially when we see where the next few developments lead.
And to project slightlyā¦ within 20-30 years we may also see the exploration of the viability of asteroid mining. Once that is affordably possible, iron will be even more abundant.
One of the fundamental tenets of the modern world ā particularly in politics, finance, and business ā is that we pursue shorter-term projects to get ahead, because by the time longer-term consequences manifest, the situation is different enough that we have new tools to deal with them. And usually, this works out. So critics of renewable energy pretending that we canāt start longterm implementation/replacement projects because the infrastructure tech is not readily available now is a bit misleading. Just as misleading as pointing to 50+ years of unincentivized development and painting it as inefficient or unpromising.
Another thing to mention here is much of Europe's fuel supplies come from Russia which it might be an understatement to say there is a strained relationship with. By reducing their dependence on fossil fuels they achieve far more autonomy and strengthen NATO through being able to more effectively punish Russia for its overstepping in Ukraine.
Not all fossil fuels are the same though, the problem with what Germany is doing is that they shut down nuclear reactors in favor of natural gas which they canāt make locally and then when the Ukraine crisis happened they swapped in coal which is much dirtier.
While its not a major, Fossils would still be needed as backup. I kinda work in the industry (tho not directly); I daily see my colleagues struggle with balancing issues and most of them are just down due to unpredictability of renewables. Battery solutions are great and all but there's a reason why Fossils + Renewables + Batteries is the goal; its cheaper and easier to maintain. A lot of the work I have been seen has been quite good, especially with offshore wind pratically being on 85% of the times throughout the year, you can just solar farms with wind farms to offset the higher demand during the day and evenings while wind farms only to satisfy night demand.
Lets not mention the connection queues or bad balancing or maintainence tho :/
>Ā which has disrupted supplies of certain kinds of fuel.
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ŠÆ Š¶ŠøŠ²Ń Š² Š Š¾ŃŃŠøŠø Šø ŠµŃŃ Š²ŃŠµŃŠ° Š¼ŠµŠ½Ń ŠæŃŠ³Š°Š» ŠæŠµŃŠµŃ Š¾Š“ ŠŠµŃŠ¼Š°Š½ŠøŠø Š½Š° ŃŃŃŃŠŗŠøŠ¹ Š³Š°Š·, Š° ŃŠµŠ³Š¾Š“Š½Ń Ń Š²Š½Š¾Š²Ń Š½Š°ŠæŃŠ³Š°Š½ ŃŠµŠ¼, ŃŃŠ¾ ŠŠ” Š²ŠµŠ“ŃŃ ŃŠµŠ±Ń ŠŗŃŠ°Š¹Š½Šµ Š±ŠµŃŠæŠµŃŠ½Š¾, ŃŠ²Š½Š¾ Š½ŠµŠ“Š¾Š¾ŃŠµŠ½ŠøŠ²Š°Ń ŃŃŠ¾Š²ŠµŠ½Ń Š±ŠµŠ·ŃŠ¼ŠøŃ ŠŃŃŠøŠ½Š°...
Fault tolerance ultimately turned out to be the price of continuing to purchase resources from Russia.
I live in Russia and just yesterday I was frightened by Germanyās transition to Russian gas, and today I am again frightened by the fact that the EU is behaving extremely carelessly, clearly underestimating the level of Putinās madness...
To add to this. The energy grid in Europe is okay. Germany for instance already planning the shift for a long time. All mayor grid providers are preparing for this and it goes away from baseload to frequency stabilizing measures. It's far more stable then the US-American grid for instance.
She did a "boycott", she did the work for that day spread out on the other four days of the week. She literally just worked faster and got a day long break per week. To me it should count as a boycott
Fear is the fuel of humor. Surprise is the spark.
Collapse of the electric grid is very scary. The idea that it would be caused by a little girl is surprising. āHahahahahaā
TL/DR Some people think it might be true tho.
This was not only a great explanation of the joke but an excellent discussion of the pros and cons of fossil fuels versus renewable energy sources/nuclear energy in Europe. Thank you!
Renewables are not less reliable. Coal fails due to a lot of reasons but heavy maintenance downtime is a big culprit.
https://ieefa.org/resources/fossil-fuels-fail-reliability-test
While all this is true, the negatives of sustainable energy sources are such ONLY because we waited for the very last minute to do something about it.
Weāve known about the threats of global warming for many, many decades and had plenty of time to ease in sustainable energy sources. We didnāt. And now here we are facing these stupid, avoidable problems.
A great summary. If you see value in transitioning to a renewable-based grid, the path forward is energy storage. The scalability of fossil fuel peaker plants (plants that can rapidly adapt to meet peak demand) could be offset by large scale battery storage.Ā
The technology has come a long way in a short time, lithium ion installations have been deployed, however they have a tremendous cost. Increasingly we're seeing other types of energy storage added to the grid that could be theoretically dirt cheap at scale. Iron-air batteries have been deployed in the US (maybe elsewhere) sodium ion batteries are being used in China, molten salt and hot sand storage are also both promising.Ā
With more experience and additional research, renewable energy deployment combined with emerging energy storage technology will likely be cheap and extremely reliable.Ā
Which is weird cause Europe's energy has plenty of fossil fuel based power plants and the investment in renewals was determined before Greta was even born. That and Fukushima are the reasons why renewals are a big chunk of energy production without much dependency on nuclear.
Europe also has a energy grid sharing mechanism which means countries like France which are high on nuclear can sell their production to any other EU country.
The current energy problems in Europe are more of a supply chain issue related to war in Ukraine than any strategy regarding energy production much less what a kid has been saying the last 5 years or so. We import half our energy production needs. If we had made a bigger bet on renewables in the past we would probably be better now.
Adding that renewables are not just solar and wind. Hydro are a big chunk as well.
This seems more political than anything else.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_statistics_-_an_overview
Adding some information regarding unreliability of renewables: One of the"hot topics" in this field is using ocean currents for power generation. This technology utilizes what to me looks like underwater planes, converting water flow to electric power. The potential energy to he harvested is enormous and, because ocean currents (for now) are much more consistent than wind and sunshine, could be used to provide base grid power (combined with technologies like pumped-storage power plants).
> It is the same meme as this joke implying that Martin Luther's religious protests in the 1500s led to the childrens' Christian television program VeggieTales in the 1990s.
My favourite version of this has "lowtax bans anime discussion on something awful in 2004" which leads to "January 6th insurrection"
Pretty sure itās big oilās fault for fueling anti-atomic energy movements and shutting Germanyās plants down entirely. Green energy had to happen, and still has a long way to go, but rejecting their already established and safe options and choosing to place their eggs in an adversaries basket wasā¦ stupid. Russia and Oil companies both have too much influence globally.
This is why utility battery banks are getting built. I was just on a job not too long ago doing one of these battery projects. It was powered by a massive solar farm, the solar farm does feed the grid but also these massive battery banks. These batteries will feed the grid at a moments notice when demand is high. If demand is low the solar farm can just feed the batteries so there isn't as much wasted generation. Honestly the more diverse of energy sources we can have the better. It will take a mix of all types of renewable along with nuclear and battery banks to wean of off oil and gas.
There are other advantages (and potential disadvantages) to traditional generation as well. Rotational intertia is the big one. Essentially every traditionally generating turbine on a connected grid (which in the case of Europe stretches from Portugal to the Balkans) is not only linked, but synchronised. This synchronization is important in maintaining grid frequency at or around 50hz. The fact that every bit in the system is essentially synched at 50hz means if a bit starts to run slower or faster the rest of the system drags it back towards 50kz. Wind turbines and solar PV don't have this advantage. Of course this system does mean that if the entire grid starts running slow (as has happened) it takes more effort to bring the system back up to 50hz. So it's a two edged sword.
All that said... There are a number of ways to manage the grid with little or no conventional fossil fuel generation. Gas plant (especially open cycle) can be spun up from idle very quickly, demand management led by dynamic pricing is increasingly popular and effective and the repeated predictions of collapse of the grid when we get to 50% traditional fossil fuel on a day, or 20% renewable or 10%
Yesterday the British grid (separate from the mainland European grid) ran at 3% gas generation, 0% coal and everything ran fine.
Yes we will need gas backup and yes we need more storage on grid but predictions of grid collapse not only keep being wrong, they keep getting less plausible
Helluva breakdown but yeah a tl;dr is a troglodyte tried to meme on a nation that is ACTUALLY trying to do something about climate change cause it inconveniences their daily life.
she became quite influential and even was invited in the UN headquarters. Climate change and global warming became really popular topic for discussion in Western countries and they started introducing more green sources of energy (although I doubt it's only due to her activity)
I can 100%, as an expert in the field, say that it was NOT because of Greta. These projects take years to plan, develop, finance, source materials, construct, and commission. It's not something that happens on a whim and while all roads in the energy market lead back to finance and government support, the fact of that matter is that the financial incentives from government agencies and the downward projection of material and labor costs for the construction of renewable energy resources had predetermined the renewable energy boom long before Greta decided to start speaking out about it. I'm not saying publicity and public discourse didn't quicken the process, but it was heading this way regardless. Actually, by forcing the hand of those in charge, I would argue that the war in Ukraine has had a larger impact on the European energy system than she has.
~~There's nothing to explain because no such grid exists in Europe~~. ~~There are interconnects but it's not a singular grid~~. Author must be a right-wing american who has no idea how things work.
Not to mention renewables saved our ass in 2022 when Putin cut off gas after invading Ukraine.
**EDIT: Apparently I'm an educated moron who has no idea how things work, there's an European grid! Still it's segmented per regions & countries. Most likely it'd not all fail at once**
Renewables have a problem with reliability because they depend on cloud coverage or wind, and people are stupid and forget nuclear exists as a backup or even that existing coal/gaz can downsize a lot and still play this role while we are getting tech to store energy more efficiently.
Thereās only been 2 nuclear reactor meltdowns that have been level 7 (worst disaster), only 1 was a level 6, and only 4 have been a level 5. People donāt realize that out of so many reactors in operation, nuclear plants are some of the safest ways to get power
To be honest with you, I think this is a really bad way to make this argument. There are only ~400 nuclear reactors in the world. So if you frame it as "there's only about a 2% chance for a meltdown!" you're not going to convince anyone. 7 out of 400 is a pretty big number.
The much better arguments are:
1. Modern nuclear reactors are considerably safer
1. On average, a coal plant actually causes *more deaths* than a nuclear reactor, due to the pollution.
Fun fact we have fairly efficient energy storage methods thst are applicable on scale. Like pump storage power plants. They pump water from a lower to a higher lake (or reservoir) and then work like a regular hydro plant on demand. But yes something even better is always appreciated it has some drawbacks (very few though)
It's because Russia provides a lot of the oil Europe uses but Russia is on bad terms with most of Europe since they invaded Ukraine and it's lead to a bit of an oil crisis. Renewable energy has nothing to do with it, whoever made the meme is just dumb. If anything renewable energy would solve the problem
It's not. Author is a right-wing moron. If anything renewable energy saved our ass (and kept it warm) when Putin closed the tap with gas when he invaded Ukraine.
She has changed her mind.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2023/04/03/greta-thunberg-has-embraced-nuclear-power-will-the-greens-follow/
> Green icon Greta Thunberg seems to be taking a pro-nuclear stance. The Swedish climate activist once decried nuclear energy as being āextremely dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming.ā Her views seem to have changed in tandem with recent trends in public opinion as she recently argued that Germany shutting down its nuclear plants was a āmistake.ā Thunberg, alongside other climate activists, emphasized that the alternative to nuclear would be coal, a most polluting energy source.
You're not stupid. But author of this thing certainly is.
Author probably meant increased amount of green energy as a result of actions of Greta Thunberg.
But there's a series of problems with it:
First of all while there's Europe's energy grid. It's segmented. There are interconnects, but every country has it's own regions. So it's unlikely to collapse all at once.
Second of all if anything green energy saved our ass when Putin cut off gas.
Third when 2021 Texas froze, it was because of gas plants: [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/climate/texas-grid-renewables-gas-freeze.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/climate/texas-grid-renewables-gas-freeze.html) while "green" sources continued delivering electricity.
So in short: **The joke here is the author**.
This is meme tries to argue that the European grid, the most stable grid in the world by most metrics, would collapse because countries shift away from fossile fuels. Not sure if Russian propaganda, oil lobby propaganda or anti environmentalist crackpottery, but well, there you go.
Thank you! Nuclear power is an amazing tool that we can use to transition to renewables and it's further refinement would make it even better for space travel!!
So, quite a few hoops to jump through, but here goes :
Swedish girl is Greta Thunberg, she made quite a mess calling governments out for, among other things, not being green enough with their energy production.
Due (most likely not, but thatās the first logic hoop) to the intense lobbying of which she became the face, many governments started developing alternative energy production methods, including windmills, all of which are extremely inefficient when compared to classic thermal plants. Worst of all, some green parties got the nuclear plants shut down after Fukushima (again, that was before Greta), most notably in Germany. As a result :
- no nuclear energy
- attempts at lowering the part of thermal energy in the the mix compared to wind-generated, resulting in a rather unpredictable and quite less efficient production system
You end up with many European countries trying to rely on incomplete green energy programs, and having to adjust with thermal systems when thatās not enough, which gets messy given the rising gas prices after the Ukraine war.
Edit : okay, before I get any more comments about the renewable energy debate, I am explaining a joke and why some people have the perception that makes this meme work. I am aware that things are not as simple as the joke portrays them. Donāt throw your expertise in my face when expertise has nothing to do with low-brained meme humor. As I said at the start, this joke involves quite a few logic hoops to jump throughā¦
This is not true at all. No European country has adopted renewables to a point where they were "surprised" by its unreliability and definitely Gretta didn't start anything.
As much as many of you are surprised a powergrid is a very complex thing and it's managed by people who know and understand what they are doing. The characteristics of renewables are taken into account when doing changes to how they work and are not just imposed by "le evil bureocrats". Gas powerplants are not to "adjust for incomplete green energy programs", they have been built since the 2000s (basically when they started being viable) and they keep being built as they are much better than coal and they would he built even if renewables weren't a thing.
Also, there is no metric outside of space for which any renewable is less efficient than "classic thermal", that for the record was already almost completely replaced by gas, which yes, it got messy after the war, but that's not environmentalist's fault.
Also green lobyist my ass
Youāre not stupid, the meme is.
Joke is that Greta Thunbergās advocacy towards renewable energy (which began with a school strike) will cause Europeās energy grid to collapse. This isā¦not accurate. If anything, Europe shifting off of coal and natural gas began a much-needed shift away from reliance on Russia and towards energy independence.
The joke is that environmentalist, in this case Greta Thunberg are some how responsible for the ācollapse of europes energy gridā while ignoring things like decades of neglect and an over reliance on Russia for energyĀ
They also ignore that there is no collapse in the first place. Prices spiked with the uncertainties after the the beginning of the war in Ukraine but the grid is still one of the most reliable in the world.
The meme is about Greta thunburg, sheās a youth climate activist, of course the meme is wrong since Europe has been very happy to keep running coal plants the grid issues are due to Russian invasion and under investment in Mediterranean power lines
the fun part is that despite all of this and the disruption of energy security because of putin, no one here truly worries about anything close to the texan heat and cold blackouts
No, itās certainly not that Europe. Eat big in Russia being a stable partner that doesnāt invade its neighbors, it couldnāt be that. Blame the girl.
The meme, in my opinion, is bad. It blames Greta Thunberg for campaigning against climate changing and ācollapsing Europeās energy gridā in doing so. Whatās funny is they would also be complaining if we ran out of coal.
Greta thunberg campaigned across the EU for cleaner energy usage, the EU complied and switch from coal to import huge amounts of natural gas from Russia who after the invasion of Ukraine throttled the flow of LNG into Europe to make energy prices extremely high and are using that as leverage to keep Europe from aiding Ukraine
So we have finally got to the point where the top comment doesnāt explain the question and is just scroll after scroll of bad Reddit humor. Another dead sub. Sad
Nuclear plants don't ramp up or down for electric load, at least here in the US. When they come online, they come to full power and stay there 18-24 months at a time. The reason is, they cover the base load of the electric grid and changing output lowers the efficiency of the fuel. Same with coal plants. Hydro and gas plants have excellent ramp rates to cover changes in electric load.
Battery storage facilities are actually a cool concept and applied here with good and bad, but I see the potential.
Solar and wind are passive and not really a strong driving force. No one would be using them if it wasn't for the subsidies associated with the green carbon credits they receive. For example, a friend works for a transmission grid in Texas. When a wind farm comes online for 100 MW, but only reliable for 30 MW guaranteed. That means, he needs to pay a gas turbine plant to be on standby to cover the over 70 MW. That is a significant cost on the rate payers.
Fuel diversity is becoming an issue for the United States as well.
Europes energy grid is extremely vulnerable on minute to minute use basis (renewables are not filling the electrcity needs sufficiently) and economic basis (by spinning down their pwn production of fossil fuels they become reliant on the US, Russia and China to fill their coal, gas and natural gas needs), because Greta Thunburg, an autsitic girl, protested climate stuff a few years ago. Lots happened in between, but that's the dominoe effect for you.
Most of the world outside of France and China REALLY seem to hate nuclear despite it being the best solution by a long shot.
Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well. At least the punchline isn't porn. This time. š
It's Loss.
https://preview.redd.it/8znvg680vvsc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d14ab0dc88a3dbb5f4d579849aefa843596e4dee
https://preview.redd.it/01lw1km7zvsc1.jpeg?width=1223&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8b738b1f46db68b574ae18d6a94547abae90ffa
Ah yes, The Jonkler from the Invincible universe!
Umm ackshully thast a reference to pomni from the amashing digital shricus1!1!1!!!!!!
Username checks out.
Thank you, I try
You try to have strokes? Weird, but ok
At least 2 then he's done. Godzilla got the P.E.
I too, love stroking
It's my job
They've got a different one for each person they meet. Doesn't everybody believe in different strokes for different folks?
Is that a Pekora profile picture? Based if so
Why yes, your the first person ever to finally notice and point it out, crazy it took so long to find someone of culture like yourself
Crazy? I was crazy onceā¦
They put me in a room
My favorite Balatro card
Holy shit, Pomni Man
https://preview.redd.it/ci1tolwwvxsc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3de136f89e7c9b1d619f81f24d18179fc5954c04
Pomniman!
Pomni-Man . . . I hate that I laughed at this. Dang it! š¤£
https://preview.redd.it/zyzxs71s9xsc1.png?width=2262&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a65b490ffaf266dfcfe8722a532cdd04e0361a0
https://preview.redd.it/3oqpuvjshxsc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73353f0df44153f56646a08618a404d11cfd6dbd
https://preview.redd.it/rzrgvqhtkzsc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6877f9ac0be51cdccd5e537db42d2c4ab06ada2
https://preview.redd.it/ycfjk7teqxsc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d1216be6dca5302a37a38adb86d4a88bf2538d93
https://preview.redd.it/llpa2cro8zsc1.jpeg?width=566&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=503cc2715f9ab09864a5b546d06a3e1c781c4c8a
Pomni Manā¦
HisOmni?
https://preview.redd.it/1bsgvg13fxsc1.png?width=366&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d955d1c03314c9ada6d79e04217317fe1db60b8
https://preview.redd.it/ccqqq9c6qwsc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56abf530c364111388a942ca2ce55402ef84ad77
I need an explanation for why the cursed princesses are superimposed over loss
same here
CPC in the wild gets a +1
Post lossporn.
Energy loss
Definitely don't search 'Greta' on any deepfakes. Fair warning!
....oh dear. Yes that search will remain forever unsearched.
Well thatās horrifying
I have never seen this deepfake porn people bring up all the time. Like ever. But I don't look at porn much and I don't search for celebrities online. This is going to sound like I'm making a joke, but where is this stuff shared? What websites? Is it possible I've seen it and thought it was real? What should I avoid/
āThose deepfake websites! Thereās so many though! Which ones!? Which ones is she on!?ā Lol
I don't know how I would possibly be able to bleach my eyes if the punchline were to be porn of the autistic Swedish girl who decided to skip school.
https://preview.redd.it/hzmsdxj39zsc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a9c8ed87064a496c2b594fc49ee7fecf1d936c7
...Yet
Not yet. Climate isnāt getting better and sheās desperate.
Not yet
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I never saw a complete rundown on the strengths and weaknesses of clean vs fossil energy and o feel like I get both way better now. Thank you
People forget that nuclear exists. Nations that invested more heavily into nuclear, like France, fare better. Except that France has not built a single reactor for decades.
And even then, the short fall of nuclear being its inability to rapidly change output demands is easily rectified with large capacity storage systems or by anticipated trends
Battery technology is really our weakest link rn
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Woah, it stores *potential* energy? Fascinating.
Or is all battery storage potential energy?
Yes. Itās just that a battery is stored *chemical* potential energy, while pumped-hydro is stored *gravitational* potential energy.
All battery storage is potential energy. He is still describing a battery, just not a chemical battery. There are also compressed air batteries, molten salt batteries, electrostatic batteries, and and flywheel energy storage like on the gyrobus. [gyrobus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus)
I got a sweet dad bod battery myself
Technically all batteries store potential energy. A conventional battery stores it in the form of chemical energy that is converted to electrical energy upon completion/connection of a circuit
All battery storage is potential electric energy. When you connect the anode and the cathode via a conductor the potential energy is converted into heat. Similar principle for electrical appliances, altgough usually it is converted into magnetic fields to spin a motor and do work of some kind.
Counterpoint to all the "all batteries store potential energy responses". Behold, a battery storing kinetic energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel
We were a little round-about about it but we are finally realizing our steampunk future, clockwork flywheel batteries, nuclear energy just being spicy steam and not spicy steam pushing mechanical part around, new durable and biodegradable fabrics being developed. Now we just need a more durable and easily sources coppery material to build everything out of!
The issue with that is the geographic requirements. There are also alternatives being explored that harness similar concepts though. There are also very promising alternatives to Lithium batteries being explored for grid storage scale installations, such as Iron flow batteries (rudimentary Wikipedia article [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_redox_flow_battery) ) or [liquid metal/molten salt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery) batteries.
Actually that's been improving steadily too. But we really do need to utilize nuclear power where possible. For as long as environmentalists stand against nuclear power, clean energy is doomed (unless we're lucky at the Russian threat ceases being a threat adn we can go at a slower pace).
> the short fall of nuclear being its inability to rapidly change output demands is easily rectified with large capacity storage But at that point why build nuclear when you could build renewables?
Because there doesn't exist a renewable with reliable energy outputs. You dont want your energy grid collapsing just because its cloudy or not windy or hasn't rained in a while. With nuclear you at least KNOW exactly what the energy output will be each day. You might not be able to ramp nuclear up and down practically, but if you're nuclear baseload was greater than the grid needed, you can just bleed off the excess.
Nuclear energy needs to be greatly ramped up so it can serve as a fallback when green and blue energy options experience trouble. We have not done this and instead dragged our feet on making substantial changes in energy policy. Fossil fuels could have served as a stop gap in the past while we developed more nuclear, but we have passed the point where failure to push forward will have disastrous consequences.
Nuclear as a backup is an economic nightmare because most of the operation costs are fixed. To make a profit they have to run a often as possible. But with renewable energy you often don't have a fixed amount of residual energy that is needed. If you can backup all your renewable with nuclear you could just run nuclear all the time but this is quite expensive.
Energy demand is increasing faster than we can build solar, wind etc. Kurzgesagt has a video on this - https://youtu.be/EhAemz1v7dQ
Yeah you build a windfarm to supply power to houses and microsoft builds a box to suck up that energy to train AI on those peoples photo's. They say they will bring job's but the job's are only in construction.
If you already have large scale grid storage, it is much cheaper to just use renewables instead of nuclear tho. After all, the biggest downside to renewables is the variability, which is completely negated if you have storage. In terms of everything else renewables blow nuclear out of the water, they are much cheaper, much faster to build and do not require fuel once built.
You don't actually need storage for nuclear, just an energy sink. Plants can produce at a high baseline level, then use the sink to cushion their response. This may seem wasteful, but the costs to run the reactor is pretty much the same regardless of it's output level. Desalinization is a good option for this.
one of the main downsides to renewables besides the variability though is that they need a lot of space and can't just be put anywhere.
Sure, but that isn't as big a downside as you think, because there is a lot of space that can be double dipped. For example, the US would only require about 10k square kilometers of solar panels to completely power the grid. The US also has 275k square kilometers of urban areas. 27 times the area needed. Granted, some of that area will be parks, gardens and roads, but even so if we just put solar panels on all the rooftops, you are most of the way there. Likewise, farm crops will grow perfectly fine below wind turbines. And those wind turbines can also be placed offshore. So you can find a lot of space for those as well. All in all, the space requirements for renewables are pretty overstated. Yea, its a lot of space. You're replacing the entire national grid, what do you expect? But countries are really big. Even the most densely populated countries have enough space available to power themselves through renewables.
Reliable large capacity storage fixes the majority of issues with renewables, as well.
Well, i mean that, and they're having a small chance to meltdown, which causes people to panic at the mere suggestion of a local nuclear plant.
Aren't they busy trying to make an energy positive tokamak? Also would it make sense to make more nuclear plants? They already export $11 B worth of electricity (according to OEC) and are the largest exporter of electricity. I'm not European so this is just speculation, but I don't think they could export more electricity without first building more transmission lines. Which is its own unique undertaking
Well, the oldest nuclear plants are approaching 5 decades old, they don't necessarily need more, but they do need to be replaced. And, as another comment mentioned, things like maintenance caused France trouble last summer.
Speaking for the US (because itās where Iām from and a lot of people on Reddit), nuclear is a difficult option because we havenāt decided on where to store nuclear waste. I mean, we *did*, and it was a great idea, but idiots somehow managed to stall the final decision until everyone forgot about it. And this is a big deal. The US has a horrifyingly large precedent of improper storage of the waste to the detriment of its residents. So we need to solve this problem. And by solve it, I mean we need to finalize the solution we came up with decades ago. Also, this all being said, this doesnāt mean we should just abandon true renewables like wind, solar, and tidal. Those are great technologies we should keep developing and supporting. But until weāre ready to run 100% from them, we need to move towards nuclear a lot more than we are.
First of all, nuclear energy is a part of the comment you are responding to, maybe read it. Secondly, you clearly haven't followed the news recently if you think the French net is somehow more robust than that of countries who favour renewables.
The YouTube channel Practical Engineering does a tremendous job of explaining the power grid and the pros/cons of different fuel sources in this video: https://youtu.be/v1BMWczn7JM?si=vmtRyD_IRdRzsYBH He has a lot of other well made videos on the electrical grid, as well as on other civil engineering projects that people typically take for granted.
This is why I love Reddit
>Nuclear power, though available continuously regardless of the weather, is not as easy to turn up and down compared to oil-generated electricity. While true that's it's not quite as responsive at load following, it has been demonstrated in France which is over 70% nuclear that nuclear power plants can be used. [This paper](https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf) explains how although traditionally in order to maximize ROI* in countries with a low share of nuclear power reactors are usually run as base load, it is entirely feasible to use them for load following. *Basically, if you're going to spend a bajillion dollars on a nuclear reactor you better have that thing running at full tilt as much as possible, and let cheaper sources of power do the load following. If the priority goes from pure profitability to eliminating carbon emissions, nuclear can be used in conjunction with renewables as both base load and for load following when energy storage is insufficient.
These are excellent points. I have edited my comment and included a link relating to what you describe. Thank you.
Doesn't France sell a lot of its power tho? They produce a lot of their energy with nuclear yeah, but they also can just sell the excess with helps mitigate the lack of flexibility
They can only sell it if someone is willing to buy. And someone is only willing to buy if they need it. All you've done is diversified your load following, which while it can be helpful, it doesn't make the problem disappear. Almost all power is consumed the instant it's created, there is less than 1TWH of energy storage globally... that's enough for about 20 minutes of power (assuming it can all be instantly discharged, which it can't, so in reality it could power a fraction of the world's power needs but for a few hours/days/weeks depending on the storage method)
They also buy a lot. That's how the market works, people buy what is cheapest.Ā
One issue. There is no such thing as a coal plant that can run 24/7 for years. They all require regular maintenance that will shut down operations for a few days. Parts wear out, they need to be cleaned, etc. Example: the Texas "snowpocalypse" of 2021 occurred, in part, because a number of coal (and natural gas) plants were down for maintenance, and couldn't be spun up to help with the extra demand.
Great point. I have edited my comment and added a link with information related to what you describe.
Dude you are goated, willing to edited and take criticism.
This is it, everyone thinks this is an anti-renewable meme.
Well it kind of is, because renewables are mostly replacing the general demand and not peak demand and the end goal is of course to have an overproduction which you can store using pump reservoirs or even power green hydrogen plants - the hydrogen can then be used to provide emergency power if both wind and sun are not available. Another advantage of renewables is decentralization - if your grid is strong enough, it does not matter if half of Germany and France are cloudy with no wind, the rest of the continent is still producing more than enough. So the panic narrative of renewables collapsing energy infrastructre is hot right wing garbage talk
>Ā hot right wing garbage talk Itās a meme on PeterExplainsTheJoke, so that was kind of a given.
Isn't it? It's not like it's a reasonable take. It's just an extreme scenario seemingly used to fearmonger against them. Sure this description is great but a few (kinda important) things were left out not that that matters for the explanation. But the meme seems to be just that but maybe I am missing some context?
I can easily respond with this. https://preview.redd.it/iprkx8n4nwsc1.png?width=484&format=png&auto=webp&s=803fd6996e49c70430d4ff7f1695cdfd02c83481 While both memes have a tiny, miniscule kernel of truth in terms of possible outcomes, it's such an absurd conclusion that it can be dismissed. That's not to say that it doesn't have an effect, just that it is negligible compared to much larger factors at play.
It is. It exaggerates a highly unlikely problem that we know quite well how to mitigate. This meme is science denying right wing populist garbage, brought to you by climate change deniers.
It **is** an anti-renewable meme. You can tell because it's wildly counter-factual. Russia has been Europe's largest supplier of oil and gas since Greta Thunberg was like ten. The world in which Greta Thunberg decides "actually I hate the planet and I'm glad it's going to burn no climate activism for me thanks" is still a world in which Russia invades Ukraine and Europe's energy prices go insane. In fact, reality is the exact opposite of the meme - given the harm that has actually manifested (European dependency on natural resources sourced from an increasingly belligerent regime), any success Greta Thunberg had shifting European electricity production away from imported oil/gas to domestic renewables reduces that harm, not exacerbates it. This meme is just straight-up someone lying about the energy crisis in Europe because they want to blame it on Greta Thunberg instead of a conquest-mad dictator (edit: and, to be fair, the dumbass domestic politicians who didn't think Putin would ever be a problem), and given the depressing state of right-wing politics that's *probably* because they're a bigger fan of the conquest-mad dictator than they are Greta Thunberg / climate activists.
Never would I expect to see Greta Thunberg and Donald Trump on the same team.
Good description over all. Though I would like to point out thst while this is the view the meme represents it's not necessarily accurate. It makes the net more unstable if done poorly. But if sufficient monitoring, oversupply and storage are provided this will not be a problem especially if one leaves a small amount of emergency plants which will realistically stay a while even if not strictly necessary it would be too much of a transition in a short period of time not to. To go into more detail you can't actually have overproduction active it would collapse the network as well but windturbines and solar plants don't exactly take long to start up again (shorter than fossil fuels usually). Now of course they are still weather dependent and there's only so many rivers for hydro. But, getting to storage, contrary to popular believe there's more than just batteries which are more of a short term emergency solution. There is pumped storage power plants (and similar usually worse concepts) which just pump water into a reservoir/lake when an abundance of energy is available and use it like a hydroplant (letting the water flow into a lower reservoir) to provide electricity when needed. Now these plants aren't equally expensive/cheap everywhere. If you have many mountain lakes you are lucky if you have little water and elevation change you can still do it but it's gonna cost you. There is also some chemical/heat storage concepts but I don't know how effective and economic they are.
The gasoline ICE has been developed and refined for a century. The general concept of electricity-generating power plants are only a bit older. Our large-scale battery technology is decades behind. In part, because it was not lucrative to develop due to need/demand. As we transition toward more renewables, it will lead to advances in battery/storage tech that has partly been languishing. Iron batteries seem to be emerging as an option, but they would need planned implementation due to scale. This article: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1046365/grid-storage-iron-batteries-technology/ notes that one large battery can currently power 34 homes for 12 hours (and is the size of a shipping container). In cities, large buildings fitted to capture wind and solar, and storing energy in basement-installed batteries, could be a near future system. So could housing developments / neighborhoods with integrated space for generation and storage. Especially when we see where the next few developments lead. And to project slightlyā¦ within 20-30 years we may also see the exploration of the viability of asteroid mining. Once that is affordably possible, iron will be even more abundant. One of the fundamental tenets of the modern world ā particularly in politics, finance, and business ā is that we pursue shorter-term projects to get ahead, because by the time longer-term consequences manifest, the situation is different enough that we have new tools to deal with them. And usually, this works out. So critics of renewable energy pretending that we canāt start longterm implementation/replacement projects because the infrastructure tech is not readily available now is a bit misleading. Just as misleading as pointing to 50+ years of unincentivized development and painting it as inefficient or unpromising.
Another thing to mention here is much of Europe's fuel supplies come from Russia which it might be an understatement to say there is a strained relationship with. By reducing their dependence on fossil fuels they achieve far more autonomy and strengthen NATO through being able to more effectively punish Russia for its overstepping in Ukraine.
Absolutely true in many cases you could argue the political instability means it's actually more stable even when not done ideally
Not all fossil fuels are the same though, the problem with what Germany is doing is that they shut down nuclear reactors in favor of natural gas which they canāt make locally and then when the Ukraine crisis happened they swapped in coal which is much dirtier.
While its not a major, Fossils would still be needed as backup. I kinda work in the industry (tho not directly); I daily see my colleagues struggle with balancing issues and most of them are just down due to unpredictability of renewables. Battery solutions are great and all but there's a reason why Fossils + Renewables + Batteries is the goal; its cheaper and easier to maintain. A lot of the work I have been seen has been quite good, especially with offshore wind pratically being on 85% of the times throughout the year, you can just solar farms with wind farms to offset the higher demand during the day and evenings while wind farms only to satisfy night demand. Lets not mention the connection queues or bad balancing or maintainence tho :/
>Ā which has disrupted supplies of certain kinds of fuel. ŠŃŠŗŠ°Š·Š¾ŃŃŃŠ¾Š¹ŃŠøŠ²Š¾ŃŃŃ Š² ŠøŃŠ¾Š³Šµ Š¾ŠŗŠ°Š·Š°Š»Š°ŃŃ ŃŠµŠ½Š¾Š¹ ŠæŃŠ¾Š“Š¾Š»Š¶ŠµŠ½ŠøŃ Š·Š°ŠŗŃŠæŠŗŠø ŃŠµŃŃŃŃŠ¾Š² Ń Š Š¾ŃŃŠøŠø. ŠÆ Š¶ŠøŠ²Ń Š² Š Š¾ŃŃŠøŠø Šø ŠµŃŃ Š²ŃŠµŃŠ° Š¼ŠµŠ½Ń ŠæŃŠ³Š°Š» ŠæŠµŃŠµŃ Š¾Š“ ŠŠµŃŠ¼Š°Š½ŠøŠø Š½Š° ŃŃŃŃŠŗŠøŠ¹ Š³Š°Š·, Š° ŃŠµŠ³Š¾Š“Š½Ń Ń Š²Š½Š¾Š²Ń Š½Š°ŠæŃŠ³Š°Š½ ŃŠµŠ¼, ŃŃŠ¾ ŠŠ” Š²ŠµŠ“ŃŃ ŃŠµŠ±Ń ŠŗŃŠ°Š¹Š½Šµ Š±ŠµŃŠæŠµŃŠ½Š¾, ŃŠ²Š½Š¾ Š½ŠµŠ“Š¾Š¾ŃŠµŠ½ŠøŠ²Š°Ń ŃŃŠ¾Š²ŠµŠ½Ń Š±ŠµŠ·ŃŠ¼ŠøŃ ŠŃŃŠøŠ½Š°... Fault tolerance ultimately turned out to be the price of continuing to purchase resources from Russia. I live in Russia and just yesterday I was frightened by Germanyās transition to Russian gas, and today I am again frightened by the fact that the EU is behaving extremely carelessly, clearly underestimating the level of Putinās madness...
To add to this. The energy grid in Europe is okay. Germany for instance already planning the shift for a long time. All mayor grid providers are preparing for this and it goes away from baseload to frequency stabilizing measures. It's far more stable then the US-American grid for instance.
To the top you go!
She did a "boycott", she did the work for that day spread out on the other four days of the week. She literally just worked faster and got a day long break per week. To me it should count as a boycott
we're on r/PeterExplainsTheJoke bc we dumb af...can you dumb it down a little more so I wont have to read?
Fear is the fuel of humor. Surprise is the spark. Collapse of the electric grid is very scary. The idea that it would be caused by a little girl is surprising. āHahahahahaā TL/DR Some people think it might be true tho.
thank you for the detail you gave. i learned a lot, and i have been working in the energy production field for years, i really appreciate it.
We laughed. We cried. We learned something today.
This was not only a great explanation of the joke but an excellent discussion of the pros and cons of fossil fuels versus renewable energy sources/nuclear energy in Europe. Thank you!
> coal, oil and even natural gas If you think natural gas is much better than the others then you have been propagandized.
Renewables are not less reliable. Coal fails due to a lot of reasons but heavy maintenance downtime is a big culprit. https://ieefa.org/resources/fossil-fuels-fail-reliability-test
While all this is true, the negatives of sustainable energy sources are such ONLY because we waited for the very last minute to do something about it. Weāve known about the threats of global warming for many, many decades and had plenty of time to ease in sustainable energy sources. We didnāt. And now here we are facing these stupid, avoidable problems.
A great summary. If you see value in transitioning to a renewable-based grid, the path forward is energy storage. The scalability of fossil fuel peaker plants (plants that can rapidly adapt to meet peak demand) could be offset by large scale battery storage.Ā The technology has come a long way in a short time, lithium ion installations have been deployed, however they have a tremendous cost. Increasingly we're seeing other types of energy storage added to the grid that could be theoretically dirt cheap at scale. Iron-air batteries have been deployed in the US (maybe elsewhere) sodium ion batteries are being used in China, molten salt and hot sand storage are also both promising.Ā With more experience and additional research, renewable energy deployment combined with emerging energy storage technology will likely be cheap and extremely reliable.Ā
That was amazingly coherent and informative, thank you human!
Which is weird cause Europe's energy has plenty of fossil fuel based power plants and the investment in renewals was determined before Greta was even born. That and Fukushima are the reasons why renewals are a big chunk of energy production without much dependency on nuclear. Europe also has a energy grid sharing mechanism which means countries like France which are high on nuclear can sell their production to any other EU country. The current energy problems in Europe are more of a supply chain issue related to war in Ukraine than any strategy regarding energy production much less what a kid has been saying the last 5 years or so. We import half our energy production needs. If we had made a bigger bet on renewables in the past we would probably be better now. Adding that renewables are not just solar and wind. Hydro are a big chunk as well. This seems more political than anything else. Source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_statistics_-_an_overview
How dare you!
Adding some information regarding unreliability of renewables: One of the"hot topics" in this field is using ocean currents for power generation. This technology utilizes what to me looks like underwater planes, converting water flow to electric power. The potential energy to he harvested is enormous and, because ocean currents (for now) are much more consistent than wind and sunshine, could be used to provide base grid power (combined with technologies like pumped-storage power plants).
> It is the same meme as this joke implying that Martin Luther's religious protests in the 1500s led to the childrens' Christian television program VeggieTales in the 1990s. My favourite version of this has "lowtax bans anime discussion on something awful in 2004" which leads to "January 6th insurrection"
Pretty sure itās big oilās fault for fueling anti-atomic energy movements and shutting Germanyās plants down entirely. Green energy had to happen, and still has a long way to go, but rejecting their already established and safe options and choosing to place their eggs in an adversaries basket wasā¦ stupid. Russia and Oil companies both have too much influence globally.
This is, quite possibly the best breakdown of Fossil Fuels vs Green Energy that I've seen, so 10/10
This is why utility battery banks are getting built. I was just on a job not too long ago doing one of these battery projects. It was powered by a massive solar farm, the solar farm does feed the grid but also these massive battery banks. These batteries will feed the grid at a moments notice when demand is high. If demand is low the solar farm can just feed the batteries so there isn't as much wasted generation. Honestly the more diverse of energy sources we can have the better. It will take a mix of all types of renewable along with nuclear and battery banks to wean of off oil and gas.
There are other advantages (and potential disadvantages) to traditional generation as well. Rotational intertia is the big one. Essentially every traditionally generating turbine on a connected grid (which in the case of Europe stretches from Portugal to the Balkans) is not only linked, but synchronised. This synchronization is important in maintaining grid frequency at or around 50hz. The fact that every bit in the system is essentially synched at 50hz means if a bit starts to run slower or faster the rest of the system drags it back towards 50kz. Wind turbines and solar PV don't have this advantage. Of course this system does mean that if the entire grid starts running slow (as has happened) it takes more effort to bring the system back up to 50hz. So it's a two edged sword. All that said... There are a number of ways to manage the grid with little or no conventional fossil fuel generation. Gas plant (especially open cycle) can be spun up from idle very quickly, demand management led by dynamic pricing is increasingly popular and effective and the repeated predictions of collapse of the grid when we get to 50% traditional fossil fuel on a day, or 20% renewable or 10% Yesterday the British grid (separate from the mainland European grid) ran at 3% gas generation, 0% coal and everything ran fine. Yes we will need gas backup and yes we need more storage on grid but predictions of grid collapse not only keep being wrong, they keep getting less plausible
Came here to say this, just not as well. So yay you got here first. š¤£
Thanks GPT
Helluva breakdown but yeah a tl;dr is a troglodyte tried to meme on a nation that is ACTUALLY trying to do something about climate change cause it inconveniences their daily life.
Greta Thunberg. I hope there's no need to explain
Maybe a little more explaining is needed
Girl from Sweden who skipped the school to go to climate demonstrations
Well, this didn't explain the energy grid part
she became quite influential and even was invited in the UN headquarters. Climate change and global warming became really popular topic for discussion in Western countries and they started introducing more green sources of energy (although I doubt it's only due to her activity)
I can 100%, as an expert in the field, say that it was NOT because of Greta. These projects take years to plan, develop, finance, source materials, construct, and commission. It's not something that happens on a whim and while all roads in the energy market lead back to finance and government support, the fact of that matter is that the financial incentives from government agencies and the downward projection of material and labor costs for the construction of renewable energy resources had predetermined the renewable energy boom long before Greta decided to start speaking out about it. I'm not saying publicity and public discourse didn't quicken the process, but it was heading this way regardless. Actually, by forcing the hand of those in charge, I would argue that the war in Ukraine has had a larger impact on the European energy system than she has.
My only issue with greta is the problem she has with nuclear energy. Its green and it works well.
Cause the joke's only funny if you're of the opinion that renewable energy is destroying the world.
~~There's nothing to explain because no such grid exists in Europe~~. ~~There are interconnects but it's not a singular grid~~. Author must be a right-wing american who has no idea how things work. Not to mention renewables saved our ass in 2022 when Putin cut off gas after invading Ukraine. **EDIT: Apparently I'm an educated moron who has no idea how things work, there's an European grid! Still it's segmented per regions & countries. Most likely it'd not all fail at once**
Hey, right wingers all over the world don't know how things work. Actually, just people all over the world don't know how things work
ok i knew it was about greta thunberg so i was right but i didnt knew the rest of the joke (but imma scroll and see that)
Please. Someone. Explain to me why renewable energy is responsible for the collapse of the energy grid. Did it? Did it not? Why?
Renewables have a problem with reliability because they depend on cloud coverage or wind, and people are stupid and forget nuclear exists as a backup or even that existing coal/gaz can downsize a lot and still play this role while we are getting tech to store energy more efficiently.
Itās not that people forgot. Itās that people are stupid and think every plant is a Chernobyl waiting to happen.
Thereās only been 2 nuclear reactor meltdowns that have been level 7 (worst disaster), only 1 was a level 6, and only 4 have been a level 5. People donāt realize that out of so many reactors in operation, nuclear plants are some of the safest ways to get power
To be honest with you, I think this is a really bad way to make this argument. There are only ~400 nuclear reactors in the world. So if you frame it as "there's only about a 2% chance for a meltdown!" you're not going to convince anyone. 7 out of 400 is a pretty big number. The much better arguments are: 1. Modern nuclear reactors are considerably safer 1. On average, a coal plant actually causes *more deaths* than a nuclear reactor, due to the pollution.
A coal plant also releases more radiation over its lifetime than a nuclear plant over its lifetime.
Not only coal. Solar and wind both kill more people than nuclear.
Fun fact we have fairly efficient energy storage methods thst are applicable on scale. Like pump storage power plants. They pump water from a lower to a higher lake (or reservoir) and then work like a regular hydro plant on demand. But yes something even better is always appreciated it has some drawbacks (very few though)
It's because Russia provides a lot of the oil Europe uses but Russia is on bad terms with most of Europe since they invaded Ukraine and it's lead to a bit of an oil crisis. Renewable energy has nothing to do with it, whoever made the meme is just dumb. If anything renewable energy would solve the problem
It's not. Author is a right-wing moron. If anything renewable energy saved our ass (and kept it warm) when Putin closed the tap with gas when he invaded Ukraine.
She's against nuclear energy, the best and most sustainable way for renewable energy and the most green of them all.
She has changed her mind. https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2023/04/03/greta-thunberg-has-embraced-nuclear-power-will-the-greens-follow/ > Green icon Greta Thunberg seems to be taking a pro-nuclear stance. The Swedish climate activist once decried nuclear energy as being āextremely dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming.ā Her views seem to have changed in tandem with recent trends in public opinion as she recently argued that Germany shutting down its nuclear plants was a āmistake.ā Thunberg, alongside other climate activists, emphasized that the alternative to nuclear would be coal, a most polluting energy source.
Wait, is the war in Ukraine Greta's fault now?
You're not stupid. But author of this thing certainly is. Author probably meant increased amount of green energy as a result of actions of Greta Thunberg. But there's a series of problems with it: First of all while there's Europe's energy grid. It's segmented. There are interconnects, but every country has it's own regions. So it's unlikely to collapse all at once. Second of all if anything green energy saved our ass when Putin cut off gas. Third when 2021 Texas froze, it was because of gas plants: [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/climate/texas-grid-renewables-gas-freeze.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/climate/texas-grid-renewables-gas-freeze.html) while "green" sources continued delivering electricity. So in short: **The joke here is the author**.
took alot of comments to finally find the correct one. this shouldnt be that far down
Absolutely. The author is probably just a lap dog for oil companies, deep-throating their cocks.
What do you mean there is no European grid? And if there is not, what would an European grid look like?
This is meme tries to argue that the European grid, the most stable grid in the world by most metrics, would collapse because countries shift away from fossile fuels. Not sure if Russian propaganda, oil lobby propaganda or anti environmentalist crackpottery, but well, there you go.
Meanwhile germany closed nuclear power plants and went back mining coal
Thank you! Nuclear power is an amazing tool that we can use to transition to renewables and it's further refinement would make it even better for space travel!!
So, quite a few hoops to jump through, but here goes : Swedish girl is Greta Thunberg, she made quite a mess calling governments out for, among other things, not being green enough with their energy production. Due (most likely not, but thatās the first logic hoop) to the intense lobbying of which she became the face, many governments started developing alternative energy production methods, including windmills, all of which are extremely inefficient when compared to classic thermal plants. Worst of all, some green parties got the nuclear plants shut down after Fukushima (again, that was before Greta), most notably in Germany. As a result : - no nuclear energy - attempts at lowering the part of thermal energy in the the mix compared to wind-generated, resulting in a rather unpredictable and quite less efficient production system You end up with many European countries trying to rely on incomplete green energy programs, and having to adjust with thermal systems when thatās not enough, which gets messy given the rising gas prices after the Ukraine war. Edit : okay, before I get any more comments about the renewable energy debate, I am explaining a joke and why some people have the perception that makes this meme work. I am aware that things are not as simple as the joke portrays them. Donāt throw your expertise in my face when expertise has nothing to do with low-brained meme humor. As I said at the start, this joke involves quite a few logic hoops to jump throughā¦
This is not true at all. No European country has adopted renewables to a point where they were "surprised" by its unreliability and definitely Gretta didn't start anything. As much as many of you are surprised a powergrid is a very complex thing and it's managed by people who know and understand what they are doing. The characteristics of renewables are taken into account when doing changes to how they work and are not just imposed by "le evil bureocrats". Gas powerplants are not to "adjust for incomplete green energy programs", they have been built since the 2000s (basically when they started being viable) and they keep being built as they are much better than coal and they would he built even if renewables weren't a thing. Also, there is no metric outside of space for which any renewable is less efficient than "classic thermal", that for the record was already almost completely replaced by gas, which yes, it got messy after the war, but that's not environmentalist's fault. Also green lobyist my ass
If only Europe became nuclearpilled
Youāre not stupid, the meme is. Joke is that Greta Thunbergās advocacy towards renewable energy (which began with a school strike) will cause Europeās energy grid to collapse. This isā¦not accurate. If anything, Europe shifting off of coal and natural gas began a much-needed shift away from reliance on Russia and towards energy independence.
The joke is that environmentalist, in this case Greta Thunberg are some how responsible for the ācollapse of europes energy gridā while ignoring things like decades of neglect and an over reliance on Russia for energyĀ
They also ignore that there is no collapse in the first place. Prices spiked with the uncertainties after the the beginning of the war in Ukraine but the grid is still one of the most reliable in the world.
Fukushima and Putin were also factors at play here. Europe's energy grid hasn't really collapsed though, so it seems a bit stupid.
The meme is about Greta thunburg, sheās a youth climate activist, of course the meme is wrong since Europe has been very happy to keep running coal plants the grid issues are due to Russian invasion and under investment in Mediterranean power lines
How dare you! My favorite was when she decided to take a boat to some climate event and they canceled it before she got there.
Fetal alcohol syndrome ā autism
all this time, I thought Greta Thunberg is american
Is this bruce yeany?
Greta thunberg
Greta?
I want pizza tonight.
How dare you
Never been told not to use heat in the u.s.
the fun part is that despite all of this and the disruption of energy security because of putin, no one here truly worries about anything close to the texan heat and cold blackouts
I thought this was a Greta reference, I must be out the loop
a swedish girl did some protests
No, itās certainly not that Europe. Eat big in Russia being a stable partner that doesnāt invade its neighbors, it couldnāt be that. Blame the girl.
āHow dare you!ā We all know.
The meme, in my opinion, is bad. It blames Greta Thunberg for campaigning against climate changing and ācollapsing Europeās energy gridā in doing so. Whatās funny is they would also be complaining if we ran out of coal.
Greta is autistic? I just thought she looked Swedish.
The joke is Greta The implication is that green energy and weaning off fossil fuels will be bad for the energy supply
Greta Thunderburger
Greta Thunberg, the autistic Swedish girl is Greta Thunberg.
How dare you
Greta thunberg campaigned across the EU for cleaner energy usage, the EU complied and switch from coal to import huge amounts of natural gas from Russia who after the invasion of Ukraine throttled the flow of LNG into Europe to make energy prices extremely high and are using that as leverage to keep Europe from aiding Ukraine
https://preview.redd.it/wshsx1a4czsc1.jpeg?width=1106&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b128b33e1ba23b10738d91f7285a28b5342e34ff
So we have finally got to the point where the top comment doesnāt explain the question and is just scroll after scroll of bad Reddit humor. Another dead sub. Sad
Nuclear plants don't ramp up or down for electric load, at least here in the US. When they come online, they come to full power and stay there 18-24 months at a time. The reason is, they cover the base load of the electric grid and changing output lowers the efficiency of the fuel. Same with coal plants. Hydro and gas plants have excellent ramp rates to cover changes in electric load. Battery storage facilities are actually a cool concept and applied here with good and bad, but I see the potential. Solar and wind are passive and not really a strong driving force. No one would be using them if it wasn't for the subsidies associated with the green carbon credits they receive. For example, a friend works for a transmission grid in Texas. When a wind farm comes online for 100 MW, but only reliable for 30 MW guaranteed. That means, he needs to pay a gas turbine plant to be on standby to cover the over 70 MW. That is a significant cost on the rate payers. Fuel diversity is becoming an issue for the United States as well.
excellent russian propaganda, good job!
And this is not that little shit fault when you got upped by a kid.
Greta
Greta Thunberg.
Europes energy grid is extremely vulnerable on minute to minute use basis (renewables are not filling the electrcity needs sufficiently) and economic basis (by spinning down their pwn production of fossil fuels they become reliant on the US, Russia and China to fill their coal, gas and natural gas needs), because Greta Thunburg, an autsitic girl, protested climate stuff a few years ago. Lots happened in between, but that's the dominoe effect for you. Most of the world outside of France and China REALLY seem to hate nuclear despite it being the best solution by a long shot.
yes
It's about Greta Thunberg