• szczuroarturo@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    1 year ago

    Dosent sweden already have a fairly high and fairly stable energy production through their hydroelectiric power plants . Wouldnt it be better to just build more of those.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m not sure the situation in Sweden, but usually the easily developed hydro sites have already been built, and any remaining sites will be quite expensive compared to power generated. Additionally, climate change can threaten the reliability of hydro as snowmelt and precipitation become more unpredictable. Also, they generally have a fairly large negative environmental impact aside from climate change.

      I’m sure there are some projects that will pencil out but probably not enough to decarbonize the whole energy grid.

      • Anemia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yeah afaik there are a couple of suitable places for more hydropower but no plans for more due to, like you said, local environmental reasons.

        That said, sweden is basically already completely “decarbonized” (if anything can really be decarbonized), we only have a reserve oil powerplant that runs for maybe a couple of days each year (~9 days last year, though last year was especially bad). Sweden also generally has a pretty big net surplus (usually about 10-20% of production) of green power that is sold to the european grid.