Tag Archives: Blue Jay

That is what I see, at a distance my old country (the Netherlands) is setting a new premise of pressure. In the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn40y9yxkgvo) we are given ‘Netherlands’ renewables drive putting pressure on its power grid’ and that is fine. For me (my intake) is that the setting is that when there is no renewable energy, they will have to resort to the old setting (like gas or oil) and there is ample reason for this. Yet we are given “In a Dutch government TV campaign called “Flip the Switch” an actress warns viewers about their electricity usage. “When we all use electricity at the same time, our power grid gets overloaded,” she says. “This can cause malfunctions. So, use as little electricity as possible between four and nine.”” A setting we comprehend, the other option is that we are ‘handed’ the setting of “Renewable energy prices in the Netherlands are not a separate category but are included in the overall electricity price, which currently averages around €0.33 per kWh” so we could end the setting that renewable energy above a certain usage is delivered at €0.99 per kWh, the rest can either adhere to the additional prices or accept that oil is the other party in the mix (at €0.33 per kWh), a simple solution for the Dutch to increase what they have going in renewable settings. And there is no blame on the Dutch admittedly we are given “it leads the way in Europe for the number of solar panels per person. In fact, more than one third of Dutch homes have solar panels fitted.

The country is also aiming for offshore wind farms to be its biggest source of energy by 2030.” And that is a time pressured setting and the Dutch political systems know this. There is no averting your eyes from the needs and the Dutch know this too well. The other nations face a similar setting, the Dutch were however a lot more hands on into finding these options and they have 18 million people in that nation, it is almost as much as the Australian population (27 million) but the area differences is that the Netherlands is only 0.54% of Australia, setting the premise that the Netherlands has the population pressure of Sydney on a national foundation, they needed a renewable energy policy in place. No one denies that. But the needs are not matching the availability. As such my solution at a premium (which might achieve the same setting) or accept that oil isn’t a thing of the past yet and perhaps in 2030 when there are the actual additional kWh available it will be possible and at that point the Dutch are still the first by a mile over all other European nations to be the first to get to a positive carbon setting, even above zero carbon (meaning that no carbon emissions are being produced from a product or service) and that is quite the achievement to have. Oh, and I reckon that these kids squandering energy as they mine for bitcoins will foot that bill as they are eager to get wealthy and those who do not, get to explain to their mummies and daddies why they need a RTX 5090 32gb AMD Ryzen 9 9900x3d to play Frogger (or Minecraft). I wonder how many excuses they will employ and in the meantime it will reduce the pressures as well, I just wonder how much as there is no real number on the number of bitcoin miners, but they do have a top100 in the Netherlands, so anything is possible.

The other part of the explanation is given to us by Kees-Jan Rameau, chief executive of Dutch energy producer and supplier Eneco. ““Nowadays we’re switching to renewables, and that means there’s a lot of power being injected into the grid in the outskirts of the network where there are only relatively small power lines.” And these small power lines are struggling to cope with all the electricity coming in from wind turbines and solar panels scattered around the country.” OK, that is a fair assessment, but those cases could be renewed or reviewed and separate cables could be set to whatever the renewable setting is to a clear hub (my lack of technical knowledge is optionally at fault here) and that could have been seen in advance to the renewable farms being designed (as I personally see it). 

We get all the excuses and not the simple setting that even as the Netherlands is already at 70% renewable, there was no way that they would be ready before 2035 and that is likely a decade ahead of several other EU nations, the only exception might be Sweden as it constructed Vattenfall some time ago, so they get to have a head start, and they only have 11 hungry mouths to supply and that is as it is 1 times larger, but the bulk of that nation is in the southern third of that country. So they are in a comfortable league to stay even with Dutch ingenuity as I personally see it. 

So whilst the BBC is correct in its article, I fail to see the applaud that the Dutch are due as they are one of the few EU nations that achieved what was needed to achieve (with Sweden in second place) I am missing that part in the article, no matter the laurels that are due Kees-Jan Rameau of Eneco. It is a side we should have been given in this all. So where do Germany, France and the United Kingdom stand in this, how far are they? Just simple questions that come to mind. 

Have a great Sunday (I am having mine with chocolate sprinkles) and enjoy the pre Monday bash you will enjoy, except Canada, they started the weekend a day early due to the Toronto Blue Jays giving the Dodgers (LA) a thrashing with their 11-4 victory. Lucky bastards, a long weekend where none was given.