MS Access can use DBF files almost as if they were standard Access tables. This was particularly useful when working with ESRI Shapefiles, as it allowed the DBF files to be edited in Access and the changes to be viewed directly in ArcGIS. When editing maps, Access was often more convenient than the ESRI Editor.
Powerprice in Germany today minus 500€/MWh. Nuclear power is economic madness in an environment where we see negative electricity prices practically every day.
Wind and solar power are remarkably stable in Europe. Last year, the average weekly electricity output was 14.0TWh; not a single week fell below 10.5 TWh.
Weather fronts move across the continent on a very regular basis; when the wind dies down, the sun shines more.
Mind that nuclear power relies on favorable weather as well. It's not uncommon in Europe that nuclear power plants have to shut down, because the rivers they use for cooling become too hot.
Not really. Storage is most used for short term stabilization and alleviating congestion in certain transmission nodes. In most markets its used to provide capacity under contract with utilities to meet resource adequacy requirements which don’t consider long term regional complete loss of renewables. Longer term storage that can provide power to, say, a whole region during a multi-day storm is basically an uneconomic fantasy that rational developers have no real incentive to build, because it would be a huge overbuild most of the time, and accordingly undercompensated for said overbuild. Developers are building batteries that are just the right size for a capacity contract & providing ancillary services (voltage support, frequency regulation, etc) plus price arbitrage, which are deployed for only minutes to a few hours. There are some 8 hour duration batteries out there, but they are not common.
Multiday renewable droughts ( solar and wind ) are a significant challenge.
( A further problem would be if a renewables drought occurred at a (multiday) peak demand period )
Appropriate (often new) wide area, power transmission networks can help to reduce this risk.
Renewables also need to be over provisioned to reduce the risks, which could be blackouts or some kind of power rationing (via "smart meters" )
If Germany power prices are so low, why are Germans power bills so high ? Maybe you are cherry picking spot/marginal price and not netting the subsides ?
Germany has highest avg household prices in EU per eurostat. How convenient of you to focus on this day. Btw, this minus 500eur translates in about 18bn/y in subsidies for EEG. DE already spent on it alone double the price of entire french fleet
Nuclear energy is pure economic madness in a context where wind and solar power are generating a surplus of electricity. Today, May 1, electricity prices in Europe are in some cases at the technical minimum of minus €500/MWh.
Thermal power generation, which is difficult to control, is completely unnecessary in an environment where we have negative electricity prices practically every day from March to October. In Europe, we need rapidly controllable energy sources—obviously more storage capacity.
Due to the many hours during which electricity prices are close to zero, the economically viable full-load hours of a nuclear power plant are reduced to barely 3,000 hours per year, effectively tripling the real levelized cost of electricity (LOCE). In addition to the high costs of nuclear power plants, there is also the enormous expense incurred by the government for military and police security at the facilities.
Since the government prioritizes nuclear power, this leads to heavily manipulated electricity prices, with homeowners with solar panels being among the biggest losers, as they are required to feed electricity into the grid but are effectively paid the full negative prices (usually via weighted average pricing methods)
"electricity prices in Europe are in some cases at the technical minimum of minus €500/MWh." - it means all citizens will pay for it through cfd's. In germany its about 18bn/y
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984 (2026?)
Just wait until the AI "layer" gets fast enough to rewrite the web in real time. Text, Photos, Videos, even real time phone calls will soon be in the grasp of the corporations. Forever locking us into our own personal prisons, controlled silos of information perfectly crafted and tailored to extract the maximum value where truth is not just hard to know but is imposable to know.
My original comment was just a counterpoint to the doom in parent: not all is lost, and in fact, quite a lot is not.
The situation of “things we care about are far away and require intermediaries to connect with” and “our ability to trust intermediaries is gone” are both human creations, and totally addressable.
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