europe

https://archive.ph/UiY9T

Back in 2011, as the political effects of the Great Recession were just beginning to appear, Peter Mair wrote about an emerging divide in European party systems between ‘parties which claim to represent, but don’t deliver, and those which deliver, but are no longer seen to represent.’ For Mair, ‘the growing gap between responsiveness and responsibility – or between what citizens might like governments to do and what governments are obliged to do – and the declining capacity of parties to bridge or manage that gap, lies at the heart of the disaffection and malaise that now suffuses democracy.’ He discussed the state of Irish politics in the wake of the 2008 crash as a paradigmatic illustration of this trend. ..

This counterproductive aversion to risk-taking reflects Sinn Féin’s general modus operandi since the last election, which has several European precedents from the past decade or so. If we look at Syriza after 2012, the SNP after 2014–15, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership after 2017 and now Sinn Féin after 2020, we can see a recurring pattern: a radical political force makes an unexpected breakthrough and then adopts a more cautious and conventional approach, seeking to present itself as a government-in-waiting (or in the case of Scotland, a state-in-waiting). Of course, this is exactly what the standard playbook would have told them to do in this situation. But the very same playbook would also have declared their initial advances to be inconceivable.

https://www.ft.com/content/e10a0a2a-e51c-4ac5-bba9-afea037c791d (https://archive.ph/KWte8)

https://www.kbb.eu/en/hausordnung

https://archive.ph/QXX0F

At the beginning of this month, the German electricity supply reached its limits.

In the evening hours of November 6th, the price of electricity rose extremely quickly and extremely sharply — to more than 800 euros per megawatt hour. This made it around ten times more expensive than usual. There was a brief outcry, but it didn’t last long. Yet the whole situation was more than just a warning shot.

Phases in which wind and sun only produce a limited amount of electricity (a so-called Dunkelflaute, or dark doldrums) are normal. And they will always be noticeable, so we need to be prepared. To ensure stability — the stability of the system as a whole and the stability of prices in particular. After all, these high prices are an absolutely reliable indication of the state of supply security in Germany. They are the result of too little supply.

So let’s take a look at the figures from November 6th: Demand was around 66 GW. It was covered by domestic production (around 53 GW) and imports (around 13 GW). Almost the entire domestic supply was available (only around 4 GW was not available, which is not unusual). In terms of import capacity, only around 3 GW of interconnector capacity was unavailable (also not unusual).

In concrete terms, this means that the same situation would not have been manageable on another day with a higher peak load. For example, in January. The highest demand for electricity of the year was on January 15th, at more than 75 GW. Almost 10 GW more than on November 6th!

And in Germany, we have been acting (for years) as if the issue of adding secure capacity is something that can be postponed. Yet we can already clearly see today what happens when we switch off capacity and do not provide any backup for renewables.

No, we don’t have any more time, quite the opposite. Time is running out. The expansion is urgent.