Energy Question?

[Zardnaar]

With the war in Ukraine going down it's revealed how vulnerable Germany and Europe is in gas.

In New Zealand we ripped up the gaslines back in the 50''s and 60's. Very few people use gas for cooking at home it's more restaurants and BBW's. A few use 45kg gas bottles for heating.

82.1% is renewables. As a kid I just kinda assumed electricity came from hydro power or nuclear power. Hydro because NZ/dambusterd and nuclear because of the anti nuclear thing in the 80's due to French atomic testing in the Pacific.

Anyway if local politics and nimbyism wasn't a factor could Europe have done something similar? We gave abundant hydro generation small population. But we don't have large rivers like the Rhine and Danube either.

I'm guessing geothermal isn't an option either.
14:02 mark.

Hydro lake system hour or two from my hometown. Sunday drive and recreational areas.

Less CGI version.

Glacier fed explaining the colour.

 

[axx]

There's not a lot of potential for hydropower in Europe left remaining. The rivers are either fully exploited or simply cannot be due to environmental and other concerns (building a dam on Danube anywhere on the Pannonian basin would probably flood whole Hungary). Hydro won't solve the current European energy crisis, we require more nuclear but the problem is it takes decades to build them.

 

[Zardnaar]

There's not a lot of potential for hydropower in Europe left remaining. The rivers are either fully exploited or simply cannot be due to environmental and other concerns (building a dam on Danube anywhere on the Pannonian basin would probably flood whole Hungary). Hydro won't solve the current European energy crisis, we require more nuclear but the problem is it takes decades to build them.

Yeah was wondering about if they made different decisions 70 years ago.

 

[EgonSpengler]

My initial thoughts:

New Zealand = 5 million people
Germany = 83 million people

New Zealand in Winter = 10C/50F
Germany in Winter = 3C/37F

This is all from Google, I didn't really check the sources.

 

[Zardnaar]

My initial thoughts:

New Zealand = 5 million people
Germany = 83 million people

New Zealand in Winter = 10C/50F
Germany in Winter = 3C/37F

This is all from Google, I didn't really check the sources.

Germany also bigger with very big rivers.

Hence was wondering big they made different decisions years ago could they have done things differently.

I'm talking linking up lakes, canals, dams everywhere. Assuming they didn't have to care about public opinion.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Germany also bigger with very big rivers.

Hence was wondering big they made different decisions years ago could they have done things differently.

Well, sure. Incidentally, I don't think you need to go back so far. According to Reuters, 32% of German gas imports came from Russia as recently as last December. Could they have reduced their dependence on Russian gas over the last 20 years? Over the last 8? I don't know.

 

[tjs282]

Most towns and cities in Europe were founded more than a thousand years ago, mostly on (major) rivers. Europe is also very densely populated, with ~500 million people, who are mainly concentrated in those countries with the most abundant rivers (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Netherlands alone = ~230 million). So there simply aren't that many places where major hydropower dams could realistically be installed which wouldn't flood out tens to hundreds of thousands of people per project. And many of these rivers also form the borders of, or flow through, multiple states/countries, so even where dams might be built, claims on downstream water-rights would make for a potent legal quagmire.

 

[uppi]

Germany also bigger with very big rivers.

Big rivers don't help with hydropower. Usually they flow in a fairly flat riverbed with little height difference to generate electricity with. What you need are mountains. The mountainous countries in Europe like Norway, Austria and Switzerland generate a large portion of their electricity with hydropower.

So no, this is not about decisions in the past, it is just about geography. If you want a fair comparison, you should compare New Zealand to Norway. And Norway produces a larger share of their power with hydro than NZ does.

 

[Zardnaar]

Big rivers don't help with hydropower. Usually they flow in a fairly flat riverbed with little height difference to generate electricity with. What you need are mountains. The mountainous countries in Europe like Norway, Austria and Switzerland generate a large portion of their electricity with hydropower.

So no, this is not about decisions in the past, it is just about geography. If you want a fair comparison, you should compare New Zealand to Norway. And Norway produces a larger share of their power with hydro than NZ does.

I was asking to see how viable it was.

So geography and population make it non viable or at least to hard basket,?

 

[Arwon]

Hydro electricity is like the one renewable electricity generation source that isn't showing extremely rapid growth, I'm not sure what the question is here.