[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', '
')Don't be such a negative nancy, it will all be great fun!

A mad dash for new power plants, transformer stations, power lines and everything! Just like in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's! Massive capital spending on new massive projects, this is the upside of peak oil!

Things will be interesting.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Twilight', '.')...
Secondly, there is no surplus of electricity as such because the coal and gas plants are ramped down, dispatch is matched to predicted load. With night-time load predictably flat, it is largely left to the nuclear baseload. If the coal and gas plants were ramped up with no load to feed, you would have one hell of a system frequency (then network stability) problem. Thus there is not a vast amount of energy being wasted.

What you do have, is surplus of available generating capacity. This distinction is very important to make. If you want to fill in that dip with electric car charging, you are going to run coal and gas plants at a higher output and burn more fossil fuel. Obviously you are already burning some just by idling, but when the car battery chargers kick in, the power plant people are going to hit the gas pedal. This means reliance on imported oil for transport ultimately shifts to imported coal and gas. All this would do is move the problem to a different sector without solving it.
....

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', '
')Don't be such a negative nancy, it will all be great fun!

A mad dash for new power plants, transformer stations, power lines and everything! Just like in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's! Massive capital spending on new massive projects, this is the upside of peak oil!

Things will be interesting.

[What_Went_Wrong]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', '
')Don't be such a negative nancy, it will all be great fun!

A mad dash for new power plants, transformer stations, power lines and everything! Just like in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's! Massive capital spending on new massive projects, this is the upside of peak oil!

Things will be interesting.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', '
')You are a negative nancy.

[Starvid]

Well, I commend you for doing all those things! And wasn't it all fun? Now think how fun it will be when everyone, inlcuding big corporations and the State, do the same as you have!

But then what have I done?

Heat, for starters. I have district heating. Biomass, trash, and some peat at times. No need to adapt there as it is already good. Power then. Half hydro, half nuclear, all nice. Transportation. I usually walk or bike, and if I have to travel further I ride my electric scooter or take the train. Obviously, I have no car.

Actually, I don't use any oil at all, except that which I cannot avoid, such as the fuel used by goods transports of various kinds.

So I guess I walk, and not only talk. A bit due to my own efforts, but mostly due to wise government (or really gov+corporate+labor union) policy.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'I') usually walk or bike, and if I have to travel further I ride my electric scooter or take the train. Obviously, I have no car.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', ' ')A bit due to my own efforts, but mostly due to wise government (or really gov+corporate+labor union) policy.

[Starvid]

On this side of the pond it is generally considered not only corporations should have influence over policy making, but so should laborers. And as 80+ % of the Swedish labor force is unionized...

It's called neo-corporatism, and it doesn't mean what you think it means.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ome contemporary political scientists and sociologists use the term neo-corporatism to describe a process of bargaining between labor, capital, and government identified as occurring in some small, open economies (particularly in Europe) as a means of distinguishing their observations from popular pejorative usage and to highlight ties to classical theories.

In the recent literature of social science, corporatism (or neo-corporatism) lacks negative connotation. In the writings of Philippe Schmitter, Gerhard Lehmbruch, and their followers, "neo-corporatism" refers to social arrangements dominated by tri-partite bargaining between unions, the private sector (capital), and government. Such bargaining is oriented toward (a) dividing the productivity gains created in the economy "fairly" among the social partners and (b) gaining wage restraint in recessionary or inflationary periods.

Most political economists believe that such neo-corporatist arrangements are only possible in societies in which labor is highly organized and various labor unions are hierarchically organized in a single labor federation. Such "encompassing" unions bargain on behalf of all workers, and they have a strong incentive to balance the employment cost of high wages against the real income consequences of small wage gains. Many of the small, open European economies, such as Finland, Sweden, Austria, Norway, Ireland, and the Netherlands fit this classification. In the work of some scholars, such as Peter J. Katzenstein, neo-corporatist arrangements enable small open economies to effectively manage their relationship with the global economy. The adjustment to trade shocks occurs through a bargaining process in which the costs of adjustment are distributed evenly ("fairly") among the social partners.