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Comment by david-given | Hacker News Reader

Also, it's important to remember the electricity is a small proportion of total energy use, which is dominated by heating and transport; heating's usually gas or heavy fuel oil, transport is usually petrol or diesel. And by 'dominated', I mean about 2/3 of all energy use goes towards it.

Yes, migrating to electric heating and transport is possible. Over-unity fuel pumps are teh awesome, and electric transport is almost workable (but not quite yet for anything more than short distances); but we're still going to be talking about a massive increase in electricity consumption, and most countries' electrical grids can't handle that.

So, I agree with you --- coal is foul stuff, it needs to die, this is an all senses a good thing; but it's still just a small step on the path to getting off fossil fuels.

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Here's the government's current projection for total energy consumption in Finland between 2015 and 2030 (if the link works): http://www.hs.fi/webkuva/taysi/560/1479969511874?ts=73

It's in Finnish I'm afraid. The legend from top to bottom is as follows (sorry, some terms used are unfamiliar to me):

-Oil, incl. biocomponent (?? Biodiesel etc?)

-coal

-Coke, incl. gas

-Natural gas

-Nuclear energy

-Net electric import

-Hydroelectric

-Wind- and solar power

-Peat

-Wood fuels

-Other

Basically the changes vs. today seem to be:

-roughly 5-7% increase in total energy consumption

-Cessation of coal use and net electricity imports

-The above are mainly compensated for by increased reliance on nuclear power and wood fuels.

-In percentage terms, solar and wind are projected to increase significantly, but total contribution in 2030 is still projected to be quite small.

If Finland is anything like Sweden, most heating is either electric, increasingly with heat pumps, or municipal central heating. The latter is often from gas or oil fired plants, but can be replaced with bio-fuels, garbage incineration or industrial waste heat if available.

Indeed. Most apartment buildings and some houses in cities use municipal central heating. Otherwise it's common to have electrical heating (though older houses sometimes use oil), and people tend to heat with wood stoves in addition.

>electric transport is almost workable (but not quite yet for anything more than short distances)

You mean in use in every single country for trains since the 60s ?

Auckland NZ was using diesel trains until 2015

Wellington has been electric for decades hasn't it? I think they even used to have electric buses running on overhead wires.

In Wellington our commuter trains have always been electric. Auckland has finally caught up :) We still have electric trolley buses, but sadly their days are numbered. Apparently keeping up the overhead electric infrastructure is too expensive.

Pretty sure we still are as I recently saw some down at at the port. We love to point out that Auckland is actually ahead as we have the most x per capita. A Reddit thread on this phenomenon recently concluded that Auckland has the most per capita per capita.

As a Swede I was shocked when I moved to Scotland and found out that they have a lot of diesel trains.

Sweden has a whole bunch of not-yet-electrified lines - just not where most people are: http://www.jarnvag.net/component/customproperties/tag?cp[omr...

Yeah I probably have some confirmation bias having travelled mainly inside the Stockholm/Sörmland region and from Stockholm to Gothenburg. I was very surprised to see that Edinburgh to Glasgow is not electrified for example.

Work to electrify Edinburgh to Glasgow is already in progress. Electric trains will be running by 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_to_Glasgow_Improveme...

You have diesel trains in Sweden too. On small lines like Kristinahamn to Ludvika and in the north. Various places where there is too little traffic to make it economic to electrify. Same here in Norway in the north.

The difference in the UK is that significant, high traffic lines are still diesel as well.

The Great Western [1] line from London to the west of England and South Wales is a good example that is finally being electrified, but is still years behind schedule.

The UK is still catching up after decades of underinvestment in rail infrastructure.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Main_Line

I know. And I find it personally very dispiriting as I come from Swindon and my grandfather worked a steam hammer in the forge when the railway works was still the biggest employer in the town. The old GWR had some world leading ideas at times and the modern organizations that bear the name don't compare.

Sorry, my bad: I mean road transport.

Electric trains work really well, and there should be more of them. (I live in Zurich now. Every time I go back to Britain I look at a diesel train and think 'how quaint.')

But there's an awful lot of bulk transport that still goes by road.

We (Finns) still use diesel engines for the more remote/less used lines. Mostly for industry or seasonal routes (think lapland during the winter etc.). Just not economically feasible to electrify all the less used routes.

electric transport is almost workable

By this I guess you mean electric road transport? Because we've had electrified rail for quite some time now.

"heating is usually gas or heavy fuel ois" is actually false. In fact, over 60% of heating in Finland was produced with renewable energy. Majority of the industrial and district heating is produced with wood and other industrial wood-based excess materials.

Instead of "fuel pumps", did you mean "heat pumps"?

I did, yeah, sorry.

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