Which electricity in Helsinki for young people?

[onkko]

Wind energy has almost ZERO production cost. It has an initial investment cost which might translate to financing expenses later on (paying up loans).

And still wind power has to be heavily subsided to be profitable and lack of reliability has to be helped with other sources.

That "no production cost" goes on nuclear plants too, cost of fuel is almost irrelevant. Building and upkeeping are what costs like in wind energy.

[PredatoR]

Hi guys,

Last year approximate market price for electricity in Finland was 5.17€ so if I select KOTISPOT from Helsingin Energia 5.17€ c/kwh + perusmaksu 3.30€.

If I select K-plussa it will be 5.26€ c/kwh + perusmaksu 2.80€ and bonuses to Kplussa kortti

https://www4.helen.fi/Sahkokauppa/MakeContract.aspx

What I want to ask you, in 40 m2 flat, how many c/kwh would we spend? I have a full time job contract so 5 days I am not at home and my girlfriend has a flexiable 4 to 6 days work days. So which one should we choose?

[onkko]

Hi guys,

Last year approximate market price for electricity in Finland was 5.17€ so if I select KOTISPOT from Helsingin Energia 5.17€ c/kwh + perusmaksu 3.30€.

If I select K-plussa it will be 5.26€ c/kwh + perusmaksu 2.80€ and bonuses to Kplussa kortti

https://www4.helen.fi/Sahkokauppa/MakeContract.aspx

What I want to ask you, in 40 m2 flat, how many c/kwh would we spend? I have a full time job contract so 5 days I am not at home and my girlfriend has a flexiable 4 to 6 days work days. So which one should we choose?

You probably dont have electric heating so m2 is irrelevant, how much you cook/make coffee/computers/tv/whatever is.
Its impossible to us to predict how much electricity you use. Count with 7kwh/day. I use 6-7kwh/day alone but i have 24/7 on computer etc.


17.6.2014 3 876,2 6,3
18.6.2014 3 882,5 7,3
19.6.2014 3 889,7 6,9
20.6.2014 3 896,6 6,1
21.6.2014 3 902,7 8,0
22.6.2014 3 910,7 6,5
23.6.2014 3 917,2 6,1
24.6.2014 3 923,3 5,0
25.6.2014 3 928,2 5,9

[onkko]

In nuclear energy there is an additional cost: waste management. The best method imho is burial in very deep caves but of course the choice of location is not so simple: water flow, rock type, seismic activity and overall stability of structure are only some of the factors which must be considered.

Plus, of course, nuclear plants require much more staff than wind energy. Well trained, experienced staff, not low-salary temps.

So you are saying that other like wind and sun power dont need waste management? I included, as nuclear power plants do when they count if its feasible, in price. Im talking total price what includes all.

If wind/solar power can really compete in price then welcome.

Nuclear power is most green energy there is.

[Upphew]

Plus, of course, nuclear plants require much more staff than wind energy. Well trained, experienced staff, not low-salary temps.

Do I hear tax office's applauds? Couple more nuclear plants and we can sell electricity and tax workers to bail out another Greece.

[Rip]

Plus, of course, nuclear plants require much more staff than wind energy. Well trained, experienced staff, not low-salary temps.

Do I hear tax office's applauds? Couple more nuclear plants and we can sell electricity and tax workers to bail out another Greece.

I wonder if the quoted sentences are even true. Loviisa nuclear power station has apparently a staff of about 500 persons. It produces electricity about ten times as much as all the wind turbines in Finland (based on last years figures for wind power). Is it certain those windmills employ less than 50 people in the whole country?

[Upphew]

Plus, of course, nuclear plants require much more staff than wind energy. Well trained, experienced staff, not low-salary temps.

Do I hear tax office's applauds? Couple more nuclear plants and we can sell electricity and tax workers to bail out another Greece.

I wonder if the quoted sentences are even true. Loviisa nuclear power station has apparently a staff of about 500 persons. It produces electricity about ten times as much as all the wind turbines in Finland (based on last years figures for wind power). Is it certain those windmills employ less than 50 people in the whole country?

50-100 people per 500MW: http://www.tuulivoimatieto.fi/tyollisyys
Well... Polish contractors hardly pay taxes here?

[macora]

As an engineer with waste management studies, I have to agree with you: a well managed nuclear plant is the greenest solution.

Well, then this shouldn't, either. The findings, that many different kinds of cancer are a lot more prevalent around the best kept nuclear plants, than in average population, is consistent in way too many studies to ignore. The believe that something that stays highly poisonous (word used in a broad sense) over thousands of years can be stored anywhere safe enough, is just that, a believe. A rather naive one, in my opinion. If those engineer guys and gals are so good at predicting how the earth will develop in the next thousands of years, how come they can't reliably predict what will happen tomorrow? Just asking. Disappointed in Japanese gov? I can assure that the one trait that is totally consistent cross-culturally: human being is not perfect, human being does make mistakes. Adjust. The results of nuclear contamination on the world and all things living have been shown many times, and are rather horrid, on a rather large scale. I personally wish those results to have a zero probability to happen again. But that is naturally just me, and there is naturally just one country where I have a say in that.

A nuclear plant is the •cheapest• solution, for the currently living generations, and a hugely profitable one for the respective industries. It is rather far from being green in my book though. And I am aware that the Finnish Vihreät gave up a nuclear free future recently. With good reasons for sure, definitely not green ones though.

[onkko]

Well, then this shouldn't, either. The findings, that many different kinds of cancer are a lot more prevalent around the best kept nuclear plants, than in average population, is consistent in way too many studies to ignore. The believe that something that stays highly poisonous (word used in a broad sense) over thousands of years can be stored anywhere safe enough, is just that, a believe. A rather naive one, in my opinion. If those engineer guys and gals are so good at predicting how the earth will develop in the next thousands of years, how come they can't reliably predict what will happen tomorrow? Just asking. Disappointed in Japanese gov? I can assure that the one trait that is totally consistent cross-culturally: human being is not perfect, human being does make mistakes. Adjust. The results of nuclear contamination on the world and all things living have been shown many times, and are rather horrid, on a rather large scale. I personally wish those results to have a zero probability to happen again. But that is naturally just me, and there is naturally just one country where I have a say in that.

A nuclear plant is the •cheapest• solution, for the currently living generations, and a hugely profitable one for the respective industries. It is rather far from being green in my book though. And I am aware that the Finnish Vihreät gave up a nuclear free future recently. With good reasons for sure, definitely not green ones though.

Findings are that way more die due any other source of energy. Safe lives, go nuclear.
And scientist do know how earth crust will move and where possible earthquakes are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f5SzzuEge4



English version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQt13keU74

Offtopic but there is new inventions so that waste could be used for energy.

[AldenG]

We always underestimate the risks of the worst disasters. Nowadays we're having "500-year" floods or "100-year" storms every decade or two.

Fukushima wasn't supposed to happen, and that was quite a predictable scenario. The likelihood was simply undervalued through wishful thinking. Nobody is even able to assess a true monetary, environmental, or social cost of the accident at this point. The shortest predicted timespan for control and restoration of the area stands at 40 years.

The great risk with nuclear comes simply from concentrating that much power to poison and to destroy -- from creating it in the first place -- and from the potential for disaster to cover time scales exceeding the entire stretch of recorded human cultural history. I have met engineers assigned the task of marking (I mean like signage) parts of a US state deadly to enter for the next 100,000 years. (And you thought some of the signs on Route 66 looked rundown...) It is absurd to the point of laughability and yet deadly serious.

The obvious point of great danger is the actual power plants, where the nature of the risk varies by country. In the US, the key weaknesses are institutional incompetence, institutional cheating/corruption, overcomplexity of regulation that becomes self-defeating, and of course the shocking lapses in security we've experienced. But there's an end-to-end risk for the entire industry. Reactors might withstand terror attacks, but a rogue (or not-so-rogue) military attack could breach them. The less obvious but smarter points of attack for radical groups would lie elsewhere in the supply and disposal chain. There is ALWAYS an Achilles heel.

Facilities can be made more failsafe in the truest sense of passive safety but we do not even have the capability to make them fully failsafe, and even less to create genuine 100% security elsewhere up and down down the line. And with a destructive power this awesome, 99.9% security is just not enough. This is an industry designed by geniuses (hmm, well, possibly -- but disputably) to be run by idiots. And believe me, they do hire a fair complement of idiots. For the most part, the good ones are the quickest to leave the industry.

I understand we are on the road to assuredly poisoning our world with carbon wastes. But we are also assuredly on the road to doing so with nuclear products through a combination of accident, negligence, incompetence, and malevolent actors.

Any kind of system that requires that certain events must never occur contains the sure seeds of its own destruction -- especially in times of falling empires, collisions of not only nations but of civilizations, and global fundamentalist froth. The terrorists who stage the first apocalyptic attack against the nuclear industry in the US are almost as likely to be homegrown Christian zealots as middle-eastern Islamic zealots. In Sweden or Finland, who knows what are the most likely vulnerabilities and threats. The only certainty is that they exist.

[macora]

Findings are that way more die due any other source of energy.

Good point. One has always to consider the whole picture. More research is now on my list of ToDos

And scientist do know how earth crust will move and where possible earthquakes are.

I have no doubt they know a lot these days. I have also no doubt there is a lot more they do NOT know. Just some random thoughts: When and where will meteors hit in the next say 400 years, that might destabilise earth crust? Which industries will the future generations want to use, and what kind of waste will those produce? Chemicals that attack the containers of our waste, deep digging producing vibrations in the storages of nowadays wastes, etc. etc. Gadzillion things can influence those deep-storages, as we call them in German, that the best scientists cannot predict nowadays.

Offtopic but there is new inventions so that waste could be used for energy.

Great! All power to them! I will not hold my breath though. Back in the 80ies they promised that energy production through (clean) atomic fusion is just a few years away.

Complexity of the world is ALWAYS underestimated, checkability ALWAYS overestimated. That is how the human brain works, and it brought us a long way, indeed. It applies to science, and technologies, as well as psychological, and social structures those sciences, and technologies are implemented, and used in, just as to any other topic. I personally do believe that all opinions are necessary to solve the rather big problems this world is facing. Not a single one school of thought has THE solutions. Maybe, just maybe by working together we can overcome the shortcomings of individual brains, schools of thought, limitations of branches of science. That does include rather harsh critics of whatever believe system, my own included. So I personally believe that strong critics are really a must, and wise leaders actually ASK them to the tables.

I am a bit too old to believe in saving the world anymore though. I do believe human being is very much like the "Zauberlehrling" in Goethe's poem. Except there probably is no master to pull us out of the mess. Oh well. Was a good ride, thanks for all the fish.

Boy, I am going OT here, sorry!

[onkko]

I think forbes should have their facts straight so http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/ ... ways-paid/

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – global average 170,000 (50% global electricity)

Coal – China 280,000 (75% China’s electricity)

Coal – U.S. 15,000 (44% U.S. electricity)

Oil 36,000 (36% of energy, 8% of electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000 (20% global electricity)

Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy)

Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity)

Wind 150 (~ 1% global electricity)

Hydro – global average 1,400 (15% global electricity)

Nuclear – global average 90 (17% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

[onkko]

And about terrorism, dams are way easier to attack. "Hydro is dominated by a few rare large dam failures like Banqiao in China in 1976 which killed about 171,000 people."

[macora]

A bit late for an answer, sorry.

I was not talking of classical energy productions, fossil or other. I was talking of what is usually considered green energy production. Wind, solar, deep earth warmth (english name escapes me), in some countries also manure (bio-gas) is used, etc. It seemed obvious to me that I am coming from the green side, and therefore mean green energies. Guess not. The dangers Onkko was talking about of *green* energies I will have to reconsider. For example, solar energy in Finland of course has a serious storage, and transportation problem. I guess energy storage has gone a long way, too, since last I studied the implications for the environment of the different means of energy storage, so I am not uptodate there.

So please, before you blame nuclear energy as carcinogenic (therefore inherently evil) do some research in the alternatives.

I am aware of the dangers of fossil energies, since the 60ies, when the first oil crisis happened. And have followed the whole debate about energy sources since then, theoretically and practically. I happen to have completed a scientific study with a rather large part of statistics as a tool, and have published in a couple journals in medical science. Therefore I flatter myself with believing that I do have a certain understanding of how to interpret statistics. I also do have a grasp of the dangers of nuclear energy due to having had a rather large portion of biology, genetics, pathology, cybernetics, etc. in my MSc. Also, my Japanese is not too good by far, but was quite enough to study some implications and long-time issues of contamination of 70 years ago, as well as the more recent disaster.

Nuclear energy is not green, in my book, is what I said. I do not think in categories of "good and evil", but in scope of disaster. There is a relation between what we risk (scope), and the risk (percentage) I am willing to tolerate. And as Alden put way better than I ever could, 99.9% is just not enough for the scope of the disasters. The actually happening ones, as well as the potential ones. My problem is not even mainly that they hire idiots, my problem is, that even genius'es make mistakes. Mistakes are inherently human, and apply to everything and anything human is producing. The idea of an ideal machine that does not make mistakes, belongs to science fiction, not reality.

Not sure where I made the impression I am less informed than most school children in my country before they reach puberty (and Finland has a way higher degree of general knowledge, and information, than Switzerland!). Even what comes out of a well functioning catalyst is a topic there. Maybe one should assume the other person has at least an average IQ, and is at least medium informed, until they prove otherwise. Even if they are somewhat tired of the e-peen game.

Thanks for the article, Onkko. I doubt very much that one can discuss "facts" on such an extremely high level of abstraction. All those multi-national studies, and articles usually compare, and mix totally different things. And short term mortality is just one very narrow indicator. When one messes uncontrollably with the genetical code of each and all living things, and messing up areas for the next 100'000 years, as Alden described, one is playing a rather different game, than with mere short term deathrates.

ps and I totally agree on the evaluation of what is happening in Greece.

[onkko]

Mistakes are taken out from nuclear plants since "lets try this, aww !"#¤%" regards Chernobyl. One, or two or anyone just cant use plant like that anymore. Of course if enough people wants that and are in position of power and can push others to override security that can happen, everything can happen.

Of course nuclear energy does have inherited possibility of major catastrophe but can we afford to not use it?
We have to consider what is current cost, including fatalities, of energy and what we are willing to "pay". Risks come in count there too, are you willing to kill 100 000 over 10 years or in one possible disaster or 10 000 000 because there was no energy. Hard decisions.

Wind and solar energy is nice but while we dont have way to store it its really irrelevant. Regards "no wind, or sun and -30c"

I do live in area what was totally reformed for water electricity, would i choose power or how this area was.... Power. If i had change to use nuclear power instead of this change, nuclear.