| ▲ | belorn 2 hours ago | |
Gas peak plants are neither clean nor economical stable in Europe. The war in Ukraine and now the war in Iran has demonstrated how extreme the price of energy can become if we allow demand to exceed supply for any extended period, and multiple European governments in the last few years got elected explicitly to solve this. Having a single month cost as much as a full year, or even multiple years, is a costly lesson for voters and the economical effects are not slow to provide a second demonstration on how important stability is in the energy market. Coal is not an option, nor is oil nor gas. Batteries for something like central/northern Europe is also not an option as a seasonal storage of weeks/months are prohibitively expensive. Hydro power has demonstrated to cause (near) extinctions of several species and ecosystems, modern research on soil has show some terrible numbers in terms of emissions, and the places where new hydro power could be built are basically zero. Biofuels from corn and oil is prohibitive expensive and also bad for the environment, and the amount of fraud currently being done in green washing corn ethanol as being "recycled" food waste is on a massive scale and not something Europe can build a seasonal storage on. Green hydrogen is not even economical yet for being used in manufacturing, not to mention being burned for electricity and heating. Carbon capture for synthetic fuel is even further away from being a realistic storage solution. That leaves very few options, and if current world events continue as they have we will see more governments being elected on the promise of delivering a stable energy market. Wind+solar+Gas peaker plants are not that. It was already an bad idea when it got voted as "green" in EU, as it cemented a dependency on natural gas from Russia and middle east. In 2026 it should not be considered an option. Gas need to be phased out, as should the last few oil and coal plants. | ||
| ▲ | Moldoteck an hour ago | parent [-] | |
yes. The whole hopium strategy in countries like Germany is expand gas to replace it sometime with dirt cheap H2 | ||