What's Going on with The Ukraine?

[Toaster]

The technology is moving forward quickly, according to my professour at the course in university, we already have the technology to provide the entire world by solar power ( Could be he was overly optimistic though, but he is famous in this field! ), however the costs and the thin film problem does not currently make it a viable option.
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As far as the lighting go I am curious what the impact will be of banning none environmental friendly lamps. Some people said it will not have a big effect since these lamps produce heat, but this heat is not always necesarry all year around, especially not in summer, and as we already concluded we have great ways to produce heat in a very low energy consuming way!

Who is this professor / where do you study? Would be interesting to know, we have pretty much of this stuff at my education and there always seems to be conflicting info regarding alternative energy specifically.

About lighting: It does make up a significant proportion of our electricity consumption but much of it is from fluorescent lamps in industrial buildings etc so they already don't use lightbulbs.

Also, as some of progress in the move away from fossil fuels is a move towards using electricity instead we have to produce that extra electricity somewhere.

 

[Prime Junta]

Interesting topic. To begin with I sure also am glad we don't depend on Russia for energy, and I agree completely with what Zaleukos said, Hopefully we'll expand our nuclear power capacity in the future (2-3 elections away I'd guess).

The biggest problem is really what we're seeing with the new Finnish reactor: Massive delays and budget overshoots with a design made out to be much quicker to construct than the generation of reactors active in Sweden today. I worked at the Swedish nuclear education company (KSU) this summer and got some insiders' looks at it all. Also some American designs (ESBWR, AP1000) look more promising than the European EPR, but I really didn't get enough info about any of them to form more than a quite uninformed opinion.

Our radiation security agency are real bastards for complying with process, as well. They're a big reason for holding up the work there. Good thing too; I feel a lot better knowing that they will halt construction if *anything* is even a little bit unlike it should be.

 

[Zaleukos]

This is the technology optimist in me speaking

The technology is moving forward quickly, according to my professour at the course in university, we already have the technology to provide the entire world by solar power ( Could be he was overly optimistic though, but he is famous in this field! ), however the costs and the thin film problem does not currently make it a viable option. There is much more technology than the simple warming water one, and things keeping moving forward in the field. I just hope more countries would invest much more in it!

He is probably right in theory, but the plants would have to be in remote regions and you have power losses in transporting the electricity here so this is a bit of a Science fiction scenario at the moment. You simply need a lot more sunshine than we have for consistent electricity production.

I like the warming water stuff as it is a simple small scale solution that is near commercial feasibility. Warm water is used for house heating as well as hygiene purposes and we use a lot of energy to heat the stuff, energy that isnt totally free of emissions and production costs (even if your local central heating provider uses biogas or whatnot) compared to coating the roof in solar panels For areas outside the urban centers the alternatives are much worse.

As far as the lighting go I am curious what the impact will be of banning none environmental friendly lamps. Some people said it will not have a big effect since these lamps produce heat, but this heat is not always necesarry all year around, especially not in summer, and as we already concluded we have great ways to produce heat in a very low energy consuming way!

It will be a positive provided they can get rid of the toxi crap in the low-energy lights. Lightbulbs heat up the air around them, and hot air move upwards. How much good will a warm semi-sphere near the ceiling do you in winter? The production cost PJ talks about will go down as production lines are streamlined.

All in a all, if we could reduce the power consumption by more effective technology we might not need all that nuclear power.

I am all for saving energy (as energy production has an impact both in my wallet and elsewhere), but we wont save 50% of our energy needs. You are overlooking the industrial uses (and ours is a heavy industry nation) and increased computerisation. Total energy consumption will go up as living standards increase. But I am not particularly worried about the part of the energy that is consumed as electricity, as we can produce that in fairly harmless and low-emission ways. The big challenge is transports where we need portable energy and petroleum still is king (not to mention that the eco alternatives arent all that eco-). Try driving a hybrid car on ethanol and enjoy the frustration of having to refuel at least twice as often as if driving on petrol.

And coal is the big problem in electricity production on the global scale, oil is mainly a factor for transport. The worlds coal plants probably cause a few times more cancer cases than Chernobyl too...

Who is this professor / where do you study? Would be interesting to know, we have pretty much of this stuff at my education and there always seems to be conflicting info regarding alternative energy specifically.

Alternative energy professors (I had a wind guy) seem to be heavily biased towards their own research or stock portfolio. The problem with these optimists is usually that they gloss over technical difficulties like transportation, stability etc and make a wishful projection five years into the future, so they make optimistic extrapolations based on theoretical capacity.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I studied at chalmers but it was sometime ago now,

We had a lot of different teachers in that course, and a lot of different texts.

For example if we were talking about coal, and oil the exeprt in this field would come to talk, and if we were talking about Local Area environmnetal effects, the politican in charge came to have a run down. For solar power we would have a guy who was an expert in this area etc.

An excellent course which I enjoyed much.

do you guys now christian azar?? he is probably the most famous environmental scientist in Sweden. He also got a part of a nobel prize. Quite a lot of the material and research and articles used in this course came from him, since he is the pride of our UNI hehe.

Our radiation security agency are real bastards for complying with process, as well. They're a big reason for holding up the work there. Good thing too; I feel a lot better knowing that they will halt construction if *anything* is even a little bit unlike it should be.

Indeed, the security got better, I have to say my knowledge of the new reactors is quite limited, so I do not know what fault % they have, but for countries like sweden and finland who are very careful and would not use it for warfare I agree it remains a viable option. However a nuclear disaster in one of our countries would be a very big disaster since we are not used to disasters. A tjernobyl here would be the biggest disaster in 100's of years for sweden. I think it builds on and increase our fears. The global warming is not so evident in a disasterous way for us swedes, at most the winters got warmer but no natural disaster with deaths caused by this yet as far as we know. However I still think massive amounts should be invested in solar power instead of nuclear.

 

[Zaleukos]

do you guys now christian azar?? he is probably the most famous environmental scientist in Sweden. He also got a part of a nobel prize. Quite a lot of the material and research and articles used in this course came from him, since he is the pride of our UNI hehe.

Know of, but I dont know him directly. He has a pretty solid reputation. The peace prize is not a scientific award though, even if it goes to the IPCC

Indeed, the security got better, I have to say my knowledge of the new reactors is quite limited, so I do not know what fault % they have, but for countries like sweden and finland who are very careful and would not use it for warfare I agree it remains a viable option. However a nuclear disaster in one of our countries would be a very big disaster since we are not used to disasters. A tjernobyl here would be the biggest disaster in 100's of years for sweden. I think it builds on and increase our fears.

Regarding the scale of disasters: The Estonia disaster and Tsunami disasters caused 10 times as many direct deaths to Sweden alone as Chernobyl did globally. The number of extra cancer deaths attributable to Chernobyl is comparable to that produced by Swedish city traffic in one year (and this happens every year, making it a somewhat more urgent issue to tackle).

The Swedish nuclear debate is coloured by a time period dominated by nuclear arms race and the nuclear accidents in Three Mile Island and Chernoby . Like much of the foundation for the green party agenda this is emotional rather than rational.

The global warming is not so evident in a disasterous way for us swedes, at most the winters got warmer but no natural disaster with deaths caused by this yet as far as we know.

We do get a significant increase in floodings and the lovely introduction of new pests (such as the Black Widow and malaria mosquitoes) which are linked to rising temperatures (whether that particular temperature rise is due to global warming or not is of course uncertain). In the short term that is the kind of effects one sees from climate changes anywhere, the reason it is worse in some places is that they had smaller margins....

However I still think massive amounts should be invested in solar power instead of nuclear.

Solar is for other countries. Our electricity consumption spikes in winter when the amount of daylight (yet alone sunlight!) is pretty miniscule. Even if it was an option the difference in maturity of the technologies means that they arent competitors. Simply put we know how to build nuclear plants now.

Btw, PJ once said you are politically active. Given the discrepancy between our world views I assume it is within one of the three major parties I havent yet voted for?

 

[Pladio]

From toothpase to solar energy

You guys who like solar energy might like this.

 

[Zaleukos]

That is cool stuff. Material science is probably the main hurdle to practical solar power.

 

[Prime Junta]

Walp, looks like this particular farce is drawing to a close: Russia resumed supplies to Ukraine, they have a deal about the cost, and pressure is confirmed to be back in the pipelines: [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7839053.stm ].

Incidentally, the bit about Ukraine paying about $250 per 1000 cubic meters now, and European prices starting next year, and European prices currently being ca $450/1000 cubic meters: the Euro price for gas is indexed to the oil prices, and is reset at intervals. If the oil price stays where it is, the Euro price will be about $250 this time next summer.

Once the recession is over and oil prices shoot up again, though, Ukraine won't like the new gas prices either.

 

[dteowner]

Think it will actually hold? You've got "business partners" that can't stand each other, don't trust each other, and would like nothing better but to stick it to the other one. I haven't dug into the situation enough to do more than ask the question, but in my relative ignorance I wouldn't be putting any money on success much beyond the spring thaw.

 

[Zaleukos]

Given that both prime ministers put their prestige behind it this time chances are it will hold. The gas companies in question are after all mostly political tools and will do whatever the political executive tells them.

I think Ukraine accepted the formula expecting the recession to keep prices down for another two years or so, only to resume the dispute around Jan 1 2011.

On the Ukrainian side Tymoshenko seems to really have established herself as the pragmatist that both the Russians and the west can do business with. Pro-western president Yushchenko will become even more of an irrelevant figurehead and is possibly the main loser in that country (I can see a broad coalition between Tymoshenko and Russia's old protege Yanukovich on the horizon, and such a national coalition would have little room for Yuschenko). As for the Russians I cant see anything but negative fallout from this row, even if they have instilled some fear into some of their energy dependants the most significant result is pissing everyone off so that they talk about diversified energy policies again, and that includes friendly Euro countries like Bulgaria and Serbia.... EDIT: I think the effect is exactly the opposite to the moderately successful divide and conquer strategy that Russia has employed vs the EU in the past.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yup, I think it'll hold. I'll add one more thing to Zaleukos's analysis: us waffly, soft, weak-at-the-knees Euros are starting to lose patience, and we have a pretty big box of economic tools to use against both parties should they continue this spat. We're (IMO) rather too reluctant to take them out or even crack open the box a bit, but somebody just took a look in its general direction.

Russia and Ukraine are even more dependent on European trade than Europe is on Russian energy; that means that further escalation of this thing could drive up the price tag to a point where it stops being good, clean, intra-Slav fun.

 

[Zaleukos]

I think the prospect of us opening that toolbox was a far stronger factor than some freezing Ukrainians in the resolution of the crisis, but you are right that it took too long to hint at any consequences. The next time these cards should be on the table from day one, or even a few months in advance, all to discourage this sandbox crap in the middle of winter...

 

[dteowner]

Would you Euro-weenies actually care if it wasn't the middle of winter? That's why I mentioned spring thaw. I expect the EU would show even less desire to break out the econ stick once "freezing in your home" is off the table. Eventually, the industrial disruptions would get people irritable, but that would take some time and have a far more fragmented effect.

 

[Zaleukos]

We (most importantly Germany which is Russia's most valued European partner and as one of the worlds top industrial nations harbour a strong dislike for industrial disruptions) would definitely care. The gas has many other uses than heating. There hasnt been that much patience with disruptions in the supply during other seasons in the past, but the problems have usually been resolved much faster than this last row. Grouchy complaints have come a bit faster, and been phrased more bluntly, by every incident.

There will probably still be more disruptions, but officially these wont be part of a contract dispute. Instead they will be cloaked as "technical difficulties" and usually coincide with some other crisis (over Estonian statues, Georgian tinpot presidents going to war, and anything in between).

At any rate I dont think this last row was intended to involve Europe at all (except for whatever sympathy the two sides thought they could get), it was in PJs words supposed to be "good, clean, intra-Slav fun".

EDIT: So I disagree with PJs statement that noone would care. I dont have any numbers but Germany et al get a significant share of their electricity from natural gas (more so after abolishing nuclear power, even nuclear mostly was replaced by coal). Summer disruptions would be for other reasons than contract disputes though...

 

[Prime Junta]

Would you Euro-weenies actually care if it wasn't the middle of winter? That's why I mentioned spring thaw. I expect the EU would show even less desire to break out the econ stick once "freezing in your home" is off the table. Eventually, the industrial disruptions would get people irritable, but that would take some time and have a far more fragmented effect.

'Course not, but then neither would the Ukrainians. The Russians can threaten to cut supplies all they want in the summer, nobody's gonna care. So they won't. That's why this dance always starts around December, regular as the French strikes in May.

Besides, the contract is good for at least this year, perhaps more.

I'm pretty sure we've heard the last of this, until this time next year anyway.