There's no such thing as a completely reliable energy source. Any plant can go offline. Credit: Getty
Those Belgians – not enough energy, that’s their problem. No, really, it quite literally is.
In fact, they’re in a bit of pickle. Belgium is heavily reliant on seven nuclear reactors, split between two sites, which together supply a big chunk of the country’s electricity. But, as Daniel Boffey reports in the Guardian, things have gone awry:
“A forced shutdown of one nuclear reactor in the lead up to winter may be regarded as unfortunate. But the closure of six of the seven reactors responsible for the supply of 40% of electricity is raising eyebrows, even in a country as prone to chaotic administration as Belgium.”
Oh dear.
While the British fret about the disruption that would result from a no deal Brexit, they should spare a thought for what their Belgian neighbours are facing this winter:
“An emergency ‘load shedding’ plan has been updated, under which motorway lights will be switched off, industrial production suspended and rolling three-hour blackouts launched in homes nationwide should temperatures drop in the coming months and demand outstrip the now limited electricity supply.
“Residents have also been warned bills could increase, despite the suggestion that they might need to iron less and use just one pot at dinner time.”
Will waffle irons be exempt?
Boffey adds the Belgians will be relying on surplus electricity from their neighbours – but that if it’s a cold winter, there might not be much to spare.
Of course, the conventional wisdom was that the main technological threat to the security of our electricity supplies was renewable power – because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Nuclear was held up as the ‘reliable’ source of low carbon energy.
In fact, there’s no such thing as an energy source that can be relied upon completely and which doesn’t need backing up. Wind and solar are intermittent, coal and gas can be interrupted, and just about any power plant can go offline.
In fact, in some ways, nuclear plants are especially vulnerable. Because of the obvious safety concerns, one doesn’t cut corners on maintenance. Nor, as in Belgium, does one ignore possible faults:
“The impending crisis stems from the discovery at the end of last month of ‘concrete degradation’ at the Tihange nuclear power plant, west of Liege. The finding forced the closure of its three reactors.”
A nuclear plant is enormously complex and thus repairs and investigations take time. It is also produces much bigger ‘lumps’ of generating capacity than most other forms of low carbon power. For instance, one wind turbine might have a capacity of 5 megawatts, while one nuclear reactor might comes in at over a gigawatt (a thousand megawatts). Taking the wind turbine offline is therefore no big deal, but shutting down a nuclear reactor most certainly is.
And it might not just be one. When several reactors are built to the same design (as tends to be the case, because it’s typically less expensive than having to pay the ‘first-of-a-kind’ costs of building reactors of different designs) a fault in one may be a fault in them all. That way an entire nuclear ‘fleet’ might have to be taken offline for inspection and repair. Environmental factors can also lead to the shutdown of multiple reactors. The Fukushima disaster is an obvious example, but, less catastrophically, there’s also the impact of heatwaves on power stations that use river water or shallow sea water for cooling purposes.
The ultimate solution to all of this is abundant and affordable energy storage – not just the short-term battery storage capacity (that we’re due to get from the electrification of transport), but also systems for storing weeks or even months of power. Progress is being made on various options from compressed air storage to hydrogen-based technologies, but we’re not there yet.
Once we are, the reliability-of-supply issue will no longer apply and different forms of low-carbon energy generation will be able to compete on economics alone – which, barring a technological breakthrough, will kill off nukes for good.
In the much nearer future, there may be some relief for the poor Belgians. A new interconnector (basically a power cable that joins up different grids) between Britain and Belgium is due to come online early next year. Just in the nick of time, it would seem.
British anti-Brexiteers can console themselves with the thought that the UK will be sharing power with Brussels for years to come.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeMichael Saylor, the world’s greatest pusher of Bit Coin, is the one who really needs a look. He is the ultimate ‘Whale’, tells people to put every penny into it, borrow and invest in it.
Bit Coin is the ultimate sign of the economic times are surpassing ‘Irrational Exuberance’ to become Irrational Psychosis.
Think about money – basically someone produces more than they consume, and the result is wealth. You cut hair, make bicycles, do law or be a doctor… You produce valuable goods and services, and the excess profits you make are ‘Growth’ and wealth. But this is not how the economy works now – it is all finance, smoke and mirrors and insider knowledge and manipulation.
An administrator makes $50,000 p/a, as does his wife. In California (or London, Melbourne) In 2008 they bought a house for $250,000 – now it is worth $2.25 Million. They created nothing – they have 19 times their annual wage, and made no goods and services – this is not prosperity, this is not healthy economy, it is bad money, economically speaking. This is the entire premise of Bit Coin and crypto.
That no goods and services are made, nothing created, improved, Just speculation has driven the price of this thing higher and higher. This is not an economy, this in fact devalues all the money in the system. Crypto is now $$ 3 Trillion! That three Trillion made no goods, instead it enabled 3 $ Trillion to be created in valuation, out of air. These whales bought bit coin at $10. each , fourteen years ago, and it has risen to $56,000 a coin. And still it is NOTHING, it is a Fagazi, smoke…. but the 3 $ Trillion additional devalues the rest of money as it increased money supply wile not increasing goods.
this is Ponzie, ” South Sea Bubble”, the speculation mania that ruined many British investors in 1720″., Tulip Mania…. but has not popped yet…. it is bad money, and that is not good….
Musk, Saylor, Martin Lewis et al will inevitably become prey, mainly because they’ve been such successful predators. They will hunt him with thinbles, they will hunt him with care, they’ll threaten his life with a Tesla share. As far as blockchain and crypto goes i think it has a future – but only as fiat money. It’ll be interesting to see how the e-Krona fares, also Ozzy Osborne’s NFT bat coin is a classic naked Emporer moment which i think Ozzy himself realises, the Bat Coin could well be the source of crypto- covid which brings the whole thing down.
I think you’ll find the Martin Lewis reference is unfair. His name is being used by Bitcoin scammers because he has a justifiably trusted brand.
Bitcoin bad. blockchain good ?
IMHO
Blockchain math has many good uses and will survive. Coin trust relies on that math, would not be possible without the math. Fortunes embedded in a tangible crypto-key? Lose that and the fortune with it.
Add to that the sum of borrowing against the $3T in “assets” and bubble grows even larger.
The bad man made me do it….
Now I’m a Mum and the patriarchy is coming for me, solely because I’m a woman and a mum.
EH had no new technology–it was ALL fraud from the beginning. The formula for Coke is a trade secret, but if Pepsi buys Coke by the lorryload and puts it in Pepsi cans and bottles, that is not a competitive product, that is fraud!
The press found the media darling, the GirlBoss too good to check. Epic failure! Come on Liz, let’s hear your real voice–and I mean that literally!
She SAYS she has produced a miniaturised version of herself .Any proof ?
Noticeably, it is women who are being taken in to a greater extent than men. Why is that? It often seems like every middle class home contains its gullible matron, taken in by the most transparent rubbish, and trying to enforce it on the rest of the family.
And leaving aside some muscle building pundits, the whole influencer business seems to be largely inhabited by females, in some sort of circular conspiracy to dupe each other.
What is going on?
I do think women have more of a natural instinct to be sociable and fit in with the crowd. So when something seems to be the “it” thing/person/activity/whatever, there will be more women who flock to it simply because it’s popular. Not that men are totally immune or anything, I just think the instinct is stronger in women.
I think music is one of the best examples. How many women listen to a pop star simply because the industry and media are pushing them as a star? How many of these pop stars have songs that are memorable or, for that matter, distinguishable from what a dozen others are putting out? (seriously, my gym for some reason plays them most days. If they didn’t put the names on the TV screen I wouldn’t realize they were changing artists nor songs) And once the star is no longer an “it” star, a lot of women will no longer listen to their stuff, not even the songs they used to claim to love.
It was never the music, it was the identity and sense of belonging.
It’s interesting. Unless we have an axe to grind, I think most of us would say that there is a distinct female psychology (or at least tendency) with its own risks and pitfalls. And yet, at the same time we are in denial about the negative aspects of this – while asserting positive aspects and emphasising negative aspects of male psychology.
Anecdotal, but I would say that conformity, gullibility and some particularly vicious forms of intrasexual competition are aspects. Women are more sociable – but that sociability seems to be cut through with a fair bit of selective meanness.
I tend to agree, but surely music is an exception to your thesis, not the best example. It seems to me it’s mainly young men who both perpetrate and fall for the tribal music obsession. I offer High Fidelity in evidence.
The same thing as in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
Now do Elon Musk, who’s scammed the world into believing Tesla cars are his invention, that it’s been a viable business without taxpayer money and that it’s a green solution (the real green solution to ICE cars is no cars). Let’s not forget his solar roof tile, car tunnel and vacuum tunnel snake oil either.
X.com and those reusable rockets were pure fiction too.
X.com wasn’t a fiction, though it didn’t amount to much.
Elon Musk being responsible for Paypal’s success is of course Tolkeinesque level of mythopoeia.
Reusable rockets… nice trick paid for by government contracts. Although McDonnell Douglas had already done that in the 90s so… the least he could have done is used the last 10 years to make it a feasible commercial technology, unless of course, the physics and economics don’t stack up and he’s bilking investors.
Elon Musk will certainly hope he’ll be on Mars when he becomes the face of the economic crash.
I’m sorry things haven’t worked out for you.
Amen, Elon Musk is the next Elizabeth Holmes. I’ve got my popcorn out for when that plane goes down from engine failure, pilot error and fire on board.
“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” — Ayn Rand
I feels to me these days Western society is in a state of mass hysteria in denying reality because it’d be a more equitable world that way.
If an individual denies reality, say, goes mad, then others around them can help such a person, sustain them if needed.
If an entire population goes mad, what happens then?
Great article – and reflects exactly the thoughts I had about Holmes when I watched a documentary about her a while back: people will believe what they want to believe and fling the doors wide open to the con artists who will ride the wave of whatever narrative is on the wish list.
With regard to Gwyneth Paltrow, I have to repost Julie Burchill’s brilliant article “Put it away, love” – just so funny: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/02/put-it-away-love/
Thanks for the link to the Julie Burchill article| just priceless!
There are so many gems in that article, but I thought the black and white minstrels one stood out
Thanks
I enjoyed this irreverent link immensely. Interestingly I followed the link to the ‘Vagina Museum’ only to be notified that the vagina museum is temporarily closed while they move to a new location. Maybe the liquor licence hasn’t worked out for them.
I think I remember a male US talk show host ordering one of Gwynnie’s ‘This Smells Like My Vagina’ candles last year. I don’t think he was convinced, but then again, he is gay.
Yes, I am seeing this on multipe fronts. People hyping and scaremongering with little understanding. Whether virtual reality, blockchain, AI, EVs, hyperloop, few people are asking basical questions about feasibility. I think in certain business areas has become socially unacceptable to be pessimistic.
A fine piece. I would add only that Theranos reacted with fury and rottweiler lawyers to anyone who dared to ask an awkward question. That’s a flapping red flag.
As did Robert Maxwell, infamously.
Those who put Kamala Harris into office were also buying a dream.
As an engineer, I’m surprised how gulllible people are when presented with supposed ‘Gee Wizz’ technology. Asking the critical questions perhaps gets ignored when someone else is paying.
A good example is the couple here who sold their fake bomb detectors around the world: Married couple guilty of making fake bomb detectors in garden shed they claimed ‘could find Madeline McCann’
They made £80m from that scam, selling plastic boxes with telescopic ariels.
Recall that Holmes erected huge legal barriers to anyone discovering the scam, including her workers. The promising beginning failing as research stalled. Her crime was never being truthful as the scheme collapsed. She was a victim (maybe) of her own hubris and press.
There is a general collapse of accounting visibility that is a part of the new ‘startup’ economy. I suspect it is going to come back after a disaster.
I am a software engineer and at least part of this stems from the fact people don’t understand the basic technology around them. It isn’t that hard to understand how a car works, how the electricty is wired in one’s house, how basic electronic works or with some more effort even the basics of how a computer works. It doesn’t require that much effort or education – probably only a good secondary eduction and/or appreticeship – would provide in order to understand how these things work.
Instead I have had to endure managers and other people throughout my career babbling on about buzzwords and technologies they have no idea about and seem to believe are the solutions to their problems, when it reality they are nothing of the sort. Some basic level of technical and scientfiic knowhow would make these scams less likely.
Note how in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centiry investment scams in the UK were all about houses in Flordia, mysterious South Sea Islands, recently discovered colonial territory like the Mississippi bubble or (in the London stock market) railways being constructed in South America. These scams thrive on ignorance.
The latest snake oil is the ‘NoCode’ fad peddled to the clueless managerial class i.e. mostly arts graduates with no managerial qualifications. What they don’t realise is that the coding bit is simple, deciding what you want to do with the code is the tricky bit!
Great article thanks
Maybe a little mercy and sympathy for a great inspiring lady is warranted. I mean that. Elizabeth Holmes, I pray you get no time in jail. As for the people who may have lost money, they were buying a dream and they go it. I am sure their attorneys and accountants will help all of them even Henry so they come out all right.
This is truly a despicable comment! A “great inspiring lady?” Did you think Bernie Madoff a great inspiring investor?
You claim to be an attorney, yet show profound ignorance of the law. It’s OK to be a complete fraudster and lie to investors over and over and over because people were “buying a dream?” How will these investors come out all right? Hundreds of millions of investors $ were fleeced–is there a magic wand that you can wave and make them “come out all right?” Pathetic, especially for an attorney.
EH is not a great lady, a horrible person, and I hope she rots in prison for a very long time. Let’s hope the prosecutors are “lawyers for life” and EH gets life!
As the article so truly says, con artists have been with us forever. If only Elizabeth had stuck to hawking something like Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir she wouldn’t be facing years in the slammer.
https://youtu.be/4jAvUNwaXyE
Or candles that smell like her punani!
“If Elizabeth Holmes hadn’t existed, we would have had to invent her — and in some ways, we did.” Unlike Spanx, Holmes high tech wonder failed despite an awful lot of other people’s money (not hers). Her stellar ability to act makes her one of the best conwomen in history. As a sociopath she ranks well with the train of money death behind her, at least not people except for bruised egos.
Vanity Fair for the Digital Age.
Do not pass go, go directly to jail.
Several years ago I was asked by investors for the opinion about her technology. My answer was: this technology is badly needed but we don’t know if it exists. Without independent side by side comparison etc this is just writing on the paper and paper is very patient.
Entertaining, but the same kind pf hustle that Elizabeth Holmes represents. Nearly all grifters have beauty, charm and lying skills. Hilary lacked beauty and charm, but was a consummate liar. Her husband could lie with the best but only had the looks and charm to attract women and men who were attracted to men. Nixon was like Hilary, all liar and no looks or charm. The successful liar is one who can fool nearly everyone. That was Holmes lacked, she could only convince other liars and manipulators.
The one great weakness of grifters is their gullibility, especially towards their own lies. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Chaves, Castro, both Roosevelts, virtually all politicians and great men and women in every field, especially in acting, have that weakness in abundance. Another is deep-seated pathology particularly toward their victims.
She has invented a patent jail avoidance device , a miniaturised version of herself . Allegedly