EU energy politics

[cimorene]

Finland kind of uses a fuckton of nuclear power and it would totally make sense to use windpower, because it's... really windy here, and there's a lot of rugged hilly landscape. But rich assholes, including many Swedish-speaking ones (but while that might be a larger proportion among Swedish- than among Finnish-speakers it's still mostly Finnish ones because there just aren't that many Swedish-speakers to go around), who own vacation property in the archipelago don't want their view "spoiled" because windmills are apparently view-spoilingly fugly. Yeah, oh, okay. We wouldn't want your summer home experience to be spoiled by consciousness of plebeian things like conscientious energy usage! You're right, let's just build a sixth nuclear power plant!

Fact: Norway and Iceland use basically 100% renewable energy. Finland uses 21% renewable and 27% nuclear. Britain uses 2% renewable and 9% nuclear. France uses 6% renewable and 40% (!) nuclear. Germany uses 4% renewable and 12% nuclear.

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Iceland uses geothermal, right? What kind of renewable does Norway use? That really surprises me, because I think of Norway as getting energy from North Sea oil. Where does Sweden's energy come from?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Norway uses water energy. Sweden and Denmark have the same percentages as Finland.

[morningfine]

Actually, not everyone who opposes harvesting windpower as it is done today objects because of alleged ugliness of the windmills. You might also consider that they're ridiculously not cost-effective (I can dig up figures for you, or I can hook you up with someone who has those figures) and as windy as it may seem here, it's just not enough. Yes, I'm pro windpower, but I'm also pro researching the possibility to improve the technology before going out and filling half of Finland with semi-useless windmills that might end up being replaced by better ones in five to ten years.

Also, if the alternative to having a sixth nuclear power plant is doing what we do now, that is, buying nuclear power from Russia, where the plants are old and unsafe and who knows how the radioactive waste is handled? Not that I'm happy to have it in Finnish bedrock, either; I just prefer that, because should anything disastrous happen, Russia is still so close as not to make a difference.

And, I do worry about the message building more nuclear power plants would send. "Oh, they're high-tech and score well in education level surveys in Finland, and they do it, so why shouldn't we?"

[morningfine]

Now my comment's starting to sound almost militantly anti-windpower to me. It's not supposed to be. Just, you know. The benefits of it are so obvious and it's so easy to say we should be using more, just by looking at how well Denmark is doing with it (but their wind conditions aren't exactly ours), and how cheap it is once everything's in place, and how the modern turbines aren't as much like unto sieves as the old ones. So really what I am is torn about this. Also it's easily the biggest issue on which my decision between two candicates in the election is currently hanging, so I get way too rambly about it. (Sorry?)

[isilya]

I found your comment highly informative! It's much the same here in Australia, where yes, we have tons of sunshine, but current solar panels are so incredibly ineffective as to be useless. Hydroelectic wreaks havoc on natural water systems; wind farms are extremely expensve to maintain and cause a lot of noise pollution -- we're planning on going nuclear with a time frame within the next fifty years.

Personally I think planning to reduce CO2 emissions slowly over fifty years is a joke since I think we'll be seeing the catastrophic climate changes within the next decade.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Well, certainly more efficient and well-researched windpower is better, but I'm not sure if that position actually counts as anti-windpower.

[wild-boys.livejournal.com]

My electricity bill tells me that my own home electricity is 90% from nuclear power. So my CO2 emissions are ultra-low! Yay, and a big radioactive yay from all my little cancerous, deformed great-great-great grandchildren. Good times.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Wax says France is weirdly pro-nuclear and she isn't sure what's up with that.

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

There are windmills across Southern Spain - a stunning but blasted, desert-like, landscape - and they look amazing. Beautiful, yes, but also sci-fi, like the perfect Dr Who set.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Heee. I've seen some elsewhere, though I can't remember where now. Spain uses only 6% renewable energy, though, so they're not getting much use out of those windmills.