Europe is at serious risk of power blackouts and may lose control of energy security without a radical overhaul of its shambolic policies, the world’s top energy watchdog has warned.
“In Europe we are facing the risk of the lights going off. This is not a joke,” said Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist.
Mr Birol said the EU will lose a quarter of its electricity over the next decade as old power stations are shut down, cutting 150 gigawatts of supply. Yet the deformed structure of EU energy pricing has left utilities in such deep crisis that they cannot finance new projects. “Wholesale power prices are 20pc below recovery costs so there is no appetite to invest. Europe needs to look at the design of its energy market very closely,” he said.
The IEA said the world needs $48 trillion of investment to head off a crunch by 2035, warning that cheap energy is gone forever as oil and gas companies deplete easy reserves. Capital costs have doubled in 10 years. More than 80pc of investment by oil companies goes to replace exhausted fields.
It is far from clear whether Mid-East petro-states have enough capital to invest in extra capacity as oil revenues are siphoned off to cover welfare spending and subsidies. The “fiscal break-even cost” for budgets across the region is near $100 a barrel for oil.
Here he talks of climate change and stranded assets.
The investment path that we trace in this report falls well short of reaching climate stabilisation goals, as today’s policies and market signals are not strong enough to switch investment to low-carbon sources and energy efficiency at the necessary scale and speed͗ a breakthrough at the Paris UN climate conference in 2015 is vital to open up a different
investment landscape͘
(Er, I'd have quoted more but the pdf turns into some weird format that won't copy properly - go read the exec summary on the link above.)
I think that it would be more accurate to state that that the UK rather than the rest of Europe faces power cuts.
We import significant electricity, and gas used to make electricity, from mainland Europe. I very much doubt that they would carry on exporting to us if this would result in power cuts in continental europe.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
To the extent that a country has to import significantly more energy than it can generate for itself, tells a great deal with regards to the extent to which the population of that country significantly exceeds it's natural carrying capacity.
Given that we are only capable of producing 60% of our food right now, in an environment of high energy availability, how much would that percentage fall further in an environment of energy shortages?
40%?
Less?
And, of course, in such an energy scarce environment, many of our international food suppliers would be in a similar boat and so would have less to export as they struggled to feed their own populations.
Hard one to call, Steve - but there is scope for energy usage reduction, particularly in low-middle to high income groups.
Eating more seasonally and focusing on food that hasn't had to travel more than a hundred miles or so, for a start; cutting meat and dairy consumption is an easy one too. Supporting workers in food production, if not doing it yourself, is simple too. One of the big problems is that class of usually poorer ones who spend most on shite, empty food, which can be the most energy intensive.
More difficult is re-targeting CAP but this is essential. Giving money only for primary food production would be a great start.
All in all, TEQs is your only man.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
stevecook172001 wrote:To the extent that a country has to import significantly more energy than it can generate for itself, tells a great deal with regards to the extent to which the population of that country significantly exceeds it's natural carrying capacity.
I think it tells us rather more about the electricity generation capacity and how it has been planned and invested in over the last few decades. There is clearly far more potential wind, solar, wave and tidal power around the British Isles than we could ever use, even if the whole world's population moved here. Do the maths.
It would not be viable to power the UK entirely from wind for the simple reason that wind power is inherently variable.
Various means of storing electricity for later use have been proposed but none* have been proven to work affordably on a large scale.
Wind however is not however the only renewable ! solar could and should be used more.
Hydroelectric could be slightly expanded but most of the best sites are already in use.
Tidal power could be used more, but has been out nimbyied for the forseeable future.
Biomass probably cant be expanded much due lack of land to grow the fuel, but it does have the merit that wood chips or biodiesel may be stored and used exactly when needed to meet peak demand.
And there are allways imports from countries that have plentiful renewables, including Norwegian hydro power and Dutch windpower.
If we are to continue regularly importing significant electricity, then it would be preferable to substantialy increase our renewable capacity in order that we would be a net exporter.
*with the possible exception of the pumped storage plant at Dinorwic in Wales. That however makes use of a uniquely favourable natural formation.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
There is not a street in the land where you cannot find houses without solar panels. Most hills do not have wind turbines. We are so, so far from capacity.
biffvernon wrote:There is not a street in the land where you cannot find houses without solar panels. Most hills do not have wind turbines. We are so, so far from capacity.
The only UK gov subsidised solar systems I have seen installed are not free running. If there are blackouts in the street, they will all turn off contributing zero to UK energy supply.
You could make your own independent solar power install. This would recieve no grants, no feed in tarriffs and would probably be illegal and void any insurance you have. As the man who wrote the section on solar installations for the US national electrical code famously pointed out he was not allowed to install his own PV solar system.
The world is indeed run by rsoles. Having said that, I do undestand that a high power PV system is a high fire risk under faulty conditions.
Grid tied PV is indeed totaly reliant on a grid connection and will shut down without this. Still a good idea, but NOT as a power cut prep !
A stand alone battery charging PV system is unlikely to make economic sense, but IMHO is still a good idea as a doomer prep. Such a system is described elswhere on these forums.
A small basic system is within most peoples DIY capabilities. A large or complex system will usually need an expert.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
adam2 wrote:Grid tied PV is indeed totally reliant on a grid connection and will shut down without this. Still a good idea, but NOT as a power cut prep !
Of course, but the object of the exercise is to provide a zero-carbon Britain, rather than prevent power-cuts. The more grid-tied distributed renewable electricity generating capacity we have, the less likely power-cuts become. A convenient bonus.
My point was that there remains the potential for a colossal increase in that generating capacity (and also a great potential for using energy more efficiently in terms of useful work per Joule).
Renewables, because of their variablity, are actually a poor source of power for a grid system which requires a stable output voltage. In the good old days when we wasted huge amounts of electricity in resistive loads, a dip in voltage meant a dip in consumption which damps the instability. In the age of gadgets with switching supplies, a dip in supply = an increase in supply load, making things worse. If the main supply was variable, then bottlenecks and safe tripping could be bouncing around the grid as it becomes impossible to match supply and load.
It's going to be fun whatever happens. If anyone finds a really cheap source of unscented candle wax, pass it on.
