Sweden's Biggest Cities Face Power Shortage Due To Tax Hike on Fossil Fuels

[shadowkin + 584]

Sweden introduced on Thursday a threefold tax on fossil fuels at local power plants with aim of spurring a shift to renewable energy.

While Sweden doesn’t have a shortage of power, there’s not enough cables to ship it to the biggest cities.

“We don’t have a problem with generating enough power in Sweden, we have a problem with getting it to where its needed,” Magnus Hall, chief executive officer of state-owned utility Vattenfall AB, said in an interview. “This law was added with short notice and I am not sure a proper analysis of it was made.”

Because of the urbanization, demand for electricity in many Swedish cities is starting to outgrow capacity and some have already been forced to refuse new connections to avoid black outs.

“Combined heat and power plants must carry their own cost to the environment, even if they have an important role to play for the supply of energy,” Anders Ygeman, minister for energy and digitalization, said in an emailed statement. “The tax will contribute to the ongoing away shift from fossil fuels.”

Ygeman said it is still too early to say what impact the new tax will have, but there are already examples of its impact. Some new daycare centers have to wait for months to be connected to the grid in Stockholm. A bread factory in Malmo was denied a license to expand because it would consume too much power.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

So there's two problems really... the first being that they want more power from unreliable sources, and the second being that even if they did expand renewable capacity, existing infrastructure won't cut it. Great!

Nuclear or geothermal, take your pick. This wind and solar nonsense needs to stop, but God knows it won't. Drilling wells to depths of high thermal energy isn't the challenge at this point, it's installing the necessary equipment at those depths. I personally think that funding should be poured into this source, since the "nuclear is scary" narrative is too strong. Besides, those against nuclear magically forget about Gen IV technology overnight, so it's not like advertising new nuclear capability ever does anything. 

Edited August 2, 2019 by KeyboardWarrior

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

< eye roll >

Enjoy your rolling power blackouts.

It is insanity to force out hydrocarbons just for some stupid "Green" political virtue signaling.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

This "Green" virtue signaling insanity will edge toward Darwin Award territory when rolling power blackouts cause deaths in hospitals and such due to lack of power.  

Darwin Awards tend to cure stupidity by cleaning up the defective gene pool.

Run Green Lemmings, Run!

[markslawson + 1,057]

2 hours ago, shadowkin said:

Sweden introduced on Thursday a threefold tax on fossil fuels at local power plants with aim of spurring a shift to renewable energy.

The very strange part about this is that the vast bulk of Sweden's power comes from hydro, which counts as a renewable, and nuclear. Conventional power - coal, gas etc - has a quite small share of the power supply. Putting wind - about 10 per cent without delving too deeply into the figures - on a network with a lot of hydro is also much less of a problem as hydro is so responsive. But instead of a planned changeover where they build more connections and phase out existing conventional plants - quite easy to do I would have thought - the Swedes have decided to thump the last few conventional plants over the head with a tax. I glanced at a couple of other stories on this. The tax is part of an electoral deal with the greens who apparently wanted to be seen to be doing something, and be just like green parties elsewhere.. "hey, look guys, we have a carbon tax too".. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, markslawson said:

The tax is part of an electoral deal with the greens who apparently wanted to be seen to be doing something, and be just like green parties elsewhere.. "hey, look guys, we have a carbon tax too".. 

Run Green Lemmings, Run!  Cliffs ahoy!

[shadowkin + 584]

2 hours ago, markslawson said:

The very strange part about this is that the vast bulk of Sweden's power comes from hydro, which counts as a renewable, and nuclear. Conventional power - coal, gas etc - has a quite small share of the power supply. Putting wind - about 10 per cent without delving too deeply into the figures - on a network with a lot of hydro is also much less of a problem as hydro is so responsive. But instead of a planned changeover where they build more connections and phase out existing conventional plants - quite easy to do I would have thought - the Swedes have decided to thump the last few conventional plants over the head with a tax. I glanced at a couple of other stories on this. The tax is part of an electoral deal with the greens who apparently wanted to be seen to be doing something, and be just like green parties elsewhere.. "hey, look guys, we have a carbon tax too".. 

Yup it makes absolutely no sense. I wonder also if the Swedes see the irony in flooding their country with migrants which only accelerates urbanization, thus contributing to the strain on their energy resources. Liberalism truly is a suicide cult.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

Who knew: Adding 10% to you population overnight requires more power.  Go figure

PS: Governments always LOVE any tax or fee they can squeeze the people out of in the name of "emergency" or "safety" even if THEY, the government are the cause to begin with.....

[Richard D + 86]

Instead of Green taxes,how about a Green subsidy? Finance ministers everywhere would soon start screaming if silly electoral games meant that they had to hand out money.

The intermittency problem of wind could be dealt with by using wind turbines as air compessors and storing the compressed air for when power is needed. Compressed air expanders could also supply cooling to buildings,while generating part of the power supply. The small size of generators driven by wind turbines means that they will always be expensive. Back to the future;my one-time home town of St Albans (UK) had a power station with 4 X 1MW steam-driven generators in 1900.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

5 hours ago, Richard D said:

Instead of Green taxes,how about a Green subsidy? Finance ministers everywhere would soon start screaming if silly electoral games meant that they had to hand out money.

The intermittency problem of wind could be dealt with by using wind turbines as air compessors and storing the compressed air for when power is needed. Compressed air expanders could also supply cooling to buildings,while generating part of the power supply. The small size of generators driven by wind turbines means that they will always be expensive. Back to the future;my one-time home town of St Albans (UK) had a power station with 4 X 1MW steam-driven generators in 1900.

Compressed air is the WORST way to store power possible.  At best 40% efficient.  Even if the compressor/turbine are 100% of theoretical efficient it is at best 63% one way. 63% x 63% = Pathetic.  And you have to worry about frozen water which means you need heaters continuously and screens etc.  Pumped Hydro Storage is upwards of 70% efficient and some have tried to claim 80%..., simple to build, can store near infinite amount of power assuming you have the correct geography(Sweden does), and has the side benefit of irrigation, drinking water, and flood management. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

34 minutes ago, Wastral said:

Compressed air is the WORST way to store power possible.  At best 40% efficient.  Even if the compressor/turbine are 100% of theoretical efficient it is at best 63% one way. 63% x 63% = Pathetic.  And you have to worry about frozen water which means you need heaters continuously and screens etc.  Pumped Hydro Storage is upwards of 70% efficient and some have tried to claim 80%..., simple to build, can store near infinite amount of power assuming you have the correct geography(Sweden does), and has the side benefit of irrigation, drinking water, and flood management. 

If we need to store the power, methyl alcohol seems like the best way to go. Then again, I don't advocate for wind and solar because the very problem of storage wouldn't exist with geothermal or nuclear. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

Just now, KeyboardWarrior said:

If we need to store the power, methyl alcohol seems like the best way to go. Then again, I don't advocate for wind and solar because the very problem of storage wouldn't exist with geothermal or nuclear. 

Geothermal is the biggest JOKE over any other form of energy for grid scale.  To start with, almost no where on earth is geothermal VIABLE unless your country is a giant super volcano with thin lava(Iceland/Hawaii).  Some East African countries could also do Geothermal and ARE, or should I say... trying.  Indonesia for instance has (the most?)volcanoes but are the wrong type. 

Lets take where I live currently as an example: Washington State, on the ring of fire.  Technically has excellent geothermal compared to the rest of the world who is NOT on the ring of fire.  A couple active volcanoes and a small plate subducting under where my butt is sitting creating lots and lots of heat, but the HOT reservoirs of magma are so far down, accessing the surrounding rock of said reservoirs to extract heat would require deeper wells than anywhere else on earth.  Eastern Washington has residual heat from the Columbia lava outpouring event, but once that residual heat is sucked out of the ground, at below boiling temperatures by the way, you are S-O-L.    Below water boiling temperatures means you have to have a secondary heat exchanger dropping efficiency even lower than the low temps, increasing cost even higher.

One can reasonably argue that MOST geothermal plants require an intermediary heat exchanger due to mineral precipitation which brings on the next problem: Maintenance.  Here is the rub:  Even if you DO have sufficient warmth because your ass is parked on a super volcano you hope never blows up, the volcano in question is often, if not always, VERY high in barium, arsenic, cadmium, etc before one even talks about the common pests, calcium, zinc, etc.  In short, you turn into a mining operation of worthless and highly COSTLY POISONous minerals. 

This is what makes ICELAND so unique.  While their volcano, like all others, has tons of poisonous minerals etc, there is so much FRESH water in the ground due to all that ICE, the steam coming OUT of the ground has VERY LOW mineral content and they can pump the poisonous garbage back DOWN.  If Iceland ever attains investors and gets its act together, their electricity generating capacity should MASSIVELY increase FAR FAR FAR above their requirements which means high energy industries such as aluminum, magnesium, fertilizers, etc will 100% relocate to Iceland.  And as far as I know, this can happen NOWHERE else in the world.  So, unless Iceland can provide for the entire worlds energy needs..... Good Luck on Geothermal!

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

43 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

If we need to store the power, methyl alcohol seems like the best way to go. Then again, I don't advocate for wind and solar because the very problem of storage wouldn't exist with geothermal or nuclear. 

You mean creating methyl aclcohol with spare power? A "chemistry" battery...🤣  Have you looked into its efficiency?  Ye godz it is bad and made even worse when you can only run plants intermittently which creates freezes, charge reservoir blockages etc. This is like trying to run a steel plant intermittently... Or an oil refinery... intermittently.   This would make the Bimetallic batteries operating at 400C look cheap.  Actually those bimetallic high temperature batteries are FAR more viable at grid scale than anyone is giving them credit for.  Far superior to any other battery solution as they use common minerals and they have infinite life cycles.  Naturally the guys can't get funding because any company making them would make the whole world a battery and then be OUT OF BUSINESS.  Miners would not like them either as most of the mineral components are thrown away(salts etc)

EDIT: You would be better off using intermittent power, pumped hydro storage for the creation of Methyl alcohol in a continuous process. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Wastral

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

23 minutes ago, Wastral said:

You mean creating methyl aclcohol with spare power? A "chemistry" battery...🤣  Have you looked into its efficiency?  Ye godz it is bad and made even worse when you can only run plants intermittently which creates freezes, charge reservoir blockages etc. This is like trying to run a steel plant intermittently... Or an oil refinery... intermittently.   This would make the Bimetallic batteries operating at 400C look cheap.  Actually those bimetallic high temperature batteries are FAR more viable at grid scale than anyone is giving them credit for.  Far superior to any other battery solution as they use common minerals and they have infinite life cycles.  Naturally the guys can't get funding because any company making them would make the whole world a battery and then be OUT OF BUSINESS.  Miners would not like them either as most of the mineral components are thrown away(salts etc)

EDIT: You would be better off using intermittent power, pumped hydro storage for the creation of Methyl alcohol in a continuous process. 

Yep, the efficiency is terrible. The pumped hydro might be alright, I should look into that project in (can't remember where, Australia maybe?) to see if they'll see success. Besides, they'd be trying to do the water-gas shift from carbon dioxide and water, which further complicates the problem because no electrochemical route exists to methanol save for the removal of hydrogen from water. So basically your electric system would have to be converted to a thermal system to handle the reactions, which leads to even more energy loss. 

[specinho + 467]

19 hours ago, shadowkin said:

Sweden introduced on Thursday a threefold tax on fossil fuels at local power plants with aim of spurring a shift to renewable energy.

While Sweden doesn’t have a shortage of power, there’s not enough cables to ship it to the biggest cities.

“We don’t have a problem with generating enough power in Sweden, we have a problem with getting it to where its needed,” Magnus Hall, chief executive officer of state-owned utility Vattenfall AB, said in an interview. “This law was added with short notice and I am not sure a proper analysis of it was made.”

Because of the urbanization, demand for electricity in many Swedish cities is starting to outgrow capacity and some have already been forced to refuse new connections to avoid black outs.

“Combined heat and power plants must carry their own cost to the environment, even if they have an important role to play for the supply of energy,” Anders Ygeman, minister for energy and digitalization, said in an emailed statement. “The tax will contribute to the ongoing away shift from fossil fuels.”

Ygeman said it is still too early to say what impact the new tax will have, but there are already examples of its impact. Some new daycare centers have to wait for months to be connected to the grid in Stockholm. A bread factory in Malmo was denied a license to expand because it would consume too much power.

Would like to share this link before we begin:

electricity sector in sweden and it says :"Majority of electricity production in Sweden relies on hydro power and nuclear power. "

Therefore..... it might be safe to deduce that because the number of fossil fuel driven plants are low the tax is highly imposed.......  .......... What are we saying?? Are we asking to have more plants like those?? 

 

 

[specinho + 467]

1 hour ago, Wastral said:

Geothermal is the biggest JOKE over any other form of energy for grid scale.  To start with, almost no where on earth is geothermal VIABLE unless your country is a giant super volcano with thin lava(Iceland/Hawaii).  Some East African countries could also do Geothermal and ARE, or should I say... trying.  Indonesia for instance has (the most?)volcanoes but are the wrong type. 

Guess there might be misintepretation somewhere. Geothermal does not equate to lava power. No one would be waiting at the mouth of volcano and hoping the next flush of eruption would shoot that someone off to  the outer space............Alright......... a free ride to space.......... before the free fall back to earth............ Neither is energy generation. We would not wait for the eruption which might take 100 years once to generate our electricity. But we are expecting the ground water around it would be constantly heated up and be used........ Some amazing things to share here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

1 hour ago, specinho said:

Guess there might be misintepretation somewhere. Geothermal does not equate to lava power. No one would be waiting at the mouth of volcano and hoping the next flush of eruption would shoot that someone off to  the outer space............Alright......... a free ride to space.......... before the free fall back to earth............ Neither is energy generation. We would not wait for the eruption which might take 100 years once to generate our electricity. But we are expecting the ground water around it would be constantly heated up and be used........ Some amazing things to share here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

I know I am wasting my time here ....

Engineers aren't stupid.  🤔

Delta T ...  Thot/Tcold...

Thermmodynamics 101 who knew.  Why existing geothermal above trivial power levels(say out of mines) are all on active or dormant volcanoes and it is still not cost effective for reasons given. 

Now if you wish to claim Geothermal for heating and call that "power" you and I have a vastly different definition of power. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

6 hours ago, Wastral said:

I know I am wasting my time here ....

Engineers aren't stupid.  🤔

Delta T ...  Thot/Tcold...

Thermmodynamics 101 who knew.  Why existing geothermal above trivial power levels(say out of mines) are all on active or dormant volcanoes and it is still not cost effective for reasons given. 

Now if you wish to claim Geothermal for heating and call that "power" you and I have a vastly different definition of power. 

Are you familiar with the temperature of oil fresh out of the ground? I would hope to god you would, since we're on a website dedicated to the topic of energy. The drilling tech is there to reach depths where temperatures are sufficient to generate power. Using a heat medium other than water would be smart, since the temperatures aren't at the boiling threshold for water. Your only reasonable argument as far as I can tell is the mineral precipitation, which still doesn't entirely make sense because the heat medium isn't flowing along bare rock. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by KeyboardWarrior

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

17 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Are you familiar with the temperature of oil fresh out of the ground? I would hope to god you would, since we're on a website dedicated to the topic of energy. The drilling tech is there to reach depths where temperatures are sufficient to generate power. Using a heat medium other than water would be smart, since the temperatures aren't at the boiling threshold for water. Your only reasonable argument as far as I can tell is the mineral precipitation, which still doesn't entirely make sense because the heat medium isn't flowing along bare rock.

You just said below boiling temp water produces grid scale power.... 👍🏆

PS: Oil comes out of the ground above boiling point of water often. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Wastral

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

14 minutes ago, Wastral said:

You just said below boiling temp water produces grid scale power.... 👍🏆

PS: Oil comes out of the ground above boiling point of water often. 

Not what I said or am saying at all.

The heat exchange medium (in your head, water) can be a multitude of substances with varying boiling points. Ammonia happens to be a very efficient one...

As you should know, we can take the optimal ground heat and pressurize gaseous ammonia by heating it enough to run through thermal engines. We don't need 212 F to run ammonia through turbines, we can do it at lower temperatures and thus remove the need for equipment that increases heat concentration. 

EDIT: Also, to say geothermal power is depletable is very incorrect from all of the research I've done on the matter. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by KeyboardWarrior

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

50 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Not what I said or am saying at all.

The heat exchange medium (in your head, water) can be a multitude of substances with varying boiling points. Ammonia happens to be a very efficient one...

Ammonia.... 😆 pumped into the ground.... oh this is genius...  NH3, one of the most reactive oxidizers on the planet being pumped into the ground.... There will not be any reactions... oh no, not at all... 😆🤣😅🙄🤡🤡🤡

Suggest buying a thermodynamics book at the used book store and run some very simple calculations.  It is only algebra. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Wastral said:

Ammonia.... 😆 pumped into the ground.... oh this is genius...  NH3, one of the most reactive oxidizers on the planet being pumped into the ground.... There will not be any reactions... oh no, not at all... 😆🤣😅🙄🤡🤡🤡

Suggest buying a thermodynamics book at the used book store and run some very simple calculations.  It is only algebra. 

Alright you've officially lost all credibility. First: Ammonia isn't reactive. Second: This ammonia is in a pipe, and I'm certain at this point that your knowledge of thermodynamics is limited. Ammonia's specific heat and boiling point is perfect for use in refrigeration and heat transfer. 

You idiot, look at the yellow box for the NFPA. IT'S A ZERO. AS IN: NOT VERY REACTIVE. You probably don't even know what an oxidizer is. I can't believe I've wasted my time with a total incompetent. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by KeyboardWarrior

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, Wastral said:

Ammonia.... 😆 pumped into the ground.... oh this is genius...  NH3, one of the most reactive oxidizers on the planet being pumped into the ground.... There will not be any reactions... oh no, not at all... 😆🤣😅🙄🤡🤡🤡

Suggest buying a thermodynamics book at the used book store and run some very simple calculations.  It is only algebra. 

You are being a complete jackass. Your denigrating comments are not appreciated by anybody.  Furthermore, your comments are factually and technically incorrect.  Ammonia is widely used in household appliances as a heat transfer fluid.  Today I saw an ammonia freezer, and an ammonia refrigerator.  They work just fine and without electricity.   And nothing is getting oxidized.  

9 hours ago, Wastral said:

I know I am wasting my time here ....

Fin e.  Then run along.  Go. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Alright you've officially lost all credibility. First: Ammonia isn't reactive. Second: This ammonia is in a pipe, and I'm certain at this point that your knowledge of thermodynamics is limited. Ammonia's specific heat and boiling point is perfect for use in refrigeration and heat transfer. 

Wastral never had any credibility to begin with.  I remain surprised that you even tolerate those infantile comments of his.  What he does is troll the website, making aspersive and denigrating comments, mostly to feed himself.  Ignore him. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

3 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Wastral never had any credibility to begin with.  I remain surprised that you even tolerate those infantile comments of his.  What he does is troll the website, making aspersive and denigrating comments, mostly to feed himself.  Ignore him. 

LOL. The funniest part is that I doubted my knowledge on ammonia for a second, so I went to check the NFPA rating for reactivity to find that it's literally zero. And flammability is a big whopping ONE. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

LOL. The funniest part is that I doubted my knowledge on ammonia for a second, so I went to check the NFPA rating for reactivity to find that it's literally zero. And flammability is a big whopping ONE. 

Yup.  Ammonia will work just fine, as long as the user incorporates the pipe-within-a-pipe approach.  It will react readily with water and form ammonium hydroxide, but other than that, is perfect for heat transfer technologies. Some of the small outlying Caribbean Islands have attempted to use the  geothermal technology, drilling into their volcanic bases, but they got into trouble as they were injecting water directly and then that water did pick up minerals from the lava core material, which gummed up the surface machinery.  Once you use a two-pipe system, all that goes away.  Iceland apparently only uses geothermal for winter space heating; for power, they stick to hydro via conventional river dams, as there are lots of great sites for run-of-river damming.  The other massive run-of-river power dam, incidentally, is at Beauharnois, Quebec, where the St. Lawrence river (draining the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls) is diverted in major part through 38 giant generator turbines, the shipping sent via locks to get past the rapids.  I think the overall fall of water is only about 24 meters, but since the river is running through, the power production is fantastic:  1,657 MW.  Note that the US Niagara Falls is still shy of 1,000 MW.   Now these may be old figures, both could be enhanced since this source:

 

NYPA stands for New York Power Authority.   Despite the huge capital costs, hydro power is seriously cheap. Only a stupid politician can make it really expensive - and sadly they do that all the time.  Cheers.