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Europe's Energy Crisis Brings Calls for 5-Minute Showers. Not All Are Keen on That. (wsj.com) 307

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Dutch government's short-shower campaign urges a splash and dash to burn less natural gas to heat water. From a report: Carla Generaal used to spend 15 minutes in the shower, slowly raising the temperature as the minutes passed. Her boyfriend, who takes one-and-a-half-minute cold showers, couldn't fathom how she could be so wasteful. He bought her a five-minute sand-filled timer. "Sometimes I used it a bit to relax," she said of her extended shower routine. She would often daydream and lose track of time. "I think I'm probably not the only person in the world" doing that, she added. Now the Dutch government is trying to get the Noordwijk resident, a 37-year-old executive for an online retailer, and others like her to save some of that hot water and help build the Netherlands' energy reserves, following Russia's squeeze on gas supplies in response to Western sanctions for invading Ukraine.

The average shower in the Netherlands lasts nine minutes, according to Milieu Centraal, a government-affiliated research organization. It says cutting that to under five minutes could save a household 60 cubic meters a year of natural gas, the fuel many homes use to heat water. Before the energy crisis, 40 billion cubic meters of gas was used annually nationwide, according to Pieter ten Bruggencate, a spokesman for the country's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. The speedier showers could also save each household about $130 a year, the government says. In one northeastern province, local authorities handed out timers to prod people along, just as Ms. Generaal's 8 did. The transition hasn't always been easy. Ms. Generaal's timer broke. There is some debate as to how it happened.
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Europe's Energy Crisis Brings Calls for 5-Minute Showers. Not All Are Keen on That. More

Europe's Energy Crisis Brings Calls for 5-Minute Showers. Not All Are Keen on That.

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  • 15 minutes in the shower (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @04:49PM (#62868211)

    One could share the shower with two other people and apply their 5 minute allotment to the total.

    • During pandemic they put a sign up on the showers at work. "In order to maintain employee well being, this shower has a maximum occupancy of _1_." This kind of ruins the team building plans.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjoast ( 1310293 )
      I like where you're going with this. Please continue.

    • Group showers are a good option. Person A can soap up while person B rinses.

      A low-flow showerhead can cut energy consumption in half.

      Take showers late at night or very early in the morning, when power is more likely to be coming from wind or nukes.

      Finally, keep some perspective. A typical home in the EU uses about 1000 kwh/month. A ten-minute shower uses one kwh. Even if you take a shower every day, that is only 3% of your power consumption. Turning down the thermostat will make a way bigger difference.

      • Let's do the math. Shower = 10L/min or 100L or 100,000g of water.
        Heat capacity of water ~= 4J/g*ÂC, and water typically needs to be heated from 10ÂC (ground temp is fairly constant) to 40ÂC, so a change of 30ÂC.

        4 * 30 * 100,000 = 12,000,000J = 12,000,000W-s or 12,000kW-s.

        12,000kW-s / 3600s/hr ~= 3kW-h. 3*30 = 90kWh, or closer to 10%.

      • Nuts to group anything. And there will always be at least one person that fucks it up for everyone else.

      • Easier still is to shower Navy style: turn on once to shampoo your head, turn off and soap your body, turn on briefly to rinse off.

    • If I remember what Ms. Thompson taught me in kindergarten correctly, 5+5 = 10, not 15. Granted, there's a .009998% chance she misled me.

    • We had a fresh-water crisis on an aircraft carrier and were ordered to "take a Navy shower" which was just enough water to quickly get wet all over and then cut the water, soap down, and rinse off quickly.

      There was a guard posted outside the head and some of us would sing out, "It's my pee pee and I can wash it as faaaaast as I want to!!"

  • Won't work in France (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09, 2022 @04:52PM (#62868223)

    That's 5 minutes too long

  • Needs a cut-off valve (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marcle ( 1575627 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @04:54PM (#62868235)

    My wife and I use a valve on the shower head so that we can rinse, then turn the water off to soap up. It's silly to run the water while you're soaping, it just rinses the soap away. So we can take a thorough shower, take our time scrubbing, and still save water and energy.

    • My wife and I use a valve on the shower head so that we can rinse, then turn the water off to soap up.

      Thank you. Came here to say the same thing. It's simple, cheap, and effective.
    • The last couple places I've lived, it's been on the diverter instead of the shower head, but basically this. 5 minutes of running water should be about enough. I also tend to take warm showers instead of hot showers, and I've had low-flow shower heads for years.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        My shower has a pressure balanced valve [thespruce.com] that returns to the same temperature whenever you turn it on. Requiring these in new builds would help conserve water.

        Another strategy is to make the shower area smaller and closed at the top so you don't get cold when you turn off the shower.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sdavid ( 556770 )
          I thought those were already required in new builds at least here in Canada, presumably to lower the scald risk.

        • What you need is a THERMOSTATIC valve that accounts for actual hot water input temperature, not just pressure, Ideally with a separate handle for flow, so that turning it off doesn't tweak the temperature setting.

          They're common in Europe and Asia, not so common in North America:

          https://www.aliexpress.com/ite... [aliexpress.com]

          • Just turn the water on and feel it with your hand until it's the desired temperature...

            • If you're going to be turning it on and off while in the shower, you don't want that spike of hot or cold water when you turn the valve on -- you want proper temperature control.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by r1348 ( 2567295 )

      So... basically your shower has a faucet? Are there showers that don't?

      • Electric ones. Generally if you turn them off then immediately back on you'll be scalded as the heating element runs too hot then frozen as the thermal cutoff kicks in. On the other hand they can run with less water and only need a cold water connection.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xrikcus ( 207545 )

        Old fashioned two knob hot + cold make it hard to do. One-knob-does-everything showers that the US seems to like also make this fiddly because you go through cold to get to hot and it's often fiddly to reset the temperature. Hotels in the US seem particularly bad at having clunky showers that make it hard to turn off and on mid-shower.

        • The worst is the OFF to COLD to HOT knob with no independent pressure control that many cheaper American buildings are cursed with.

        • The one handle threw me off at first but now I can't even imagine going back to seperate hot/cold valves for the shower head.

          • The best is two knobs - one for temperature, one for flow, so you can turn down the flow without altering the temperature setting. Even if you have a separate axis for temperature, you'll likely tweak the temp setting a bit if you change the flow on a single handle.

            • The one handle works pretty good because once you figure out where to turn the handle to, it's that same spot every single time. No mystery about it unless you are of course out of hot water.

              Two knobs works also but as Malays2 said, I couldn't imagine going away from the single handle now.

              Someone above mentioned electric. Electric what? I assume a faucet but just sounds like added complexity to be fancy dancy. I'll admit having that at the sink for washing hands is actually pretty awesome but completely not

              • But imagine a two-handle faucet where you can set a temperature with one handle, and you can always leave that in the same place. Then you just use the flow handle to vary flow. You don't need to know where to set the temperature handle to since you'd never touch it.
              • An electric shower, i.e. one that uses a heating element to heat cold water rather than an external source of hot water. They generally donâ(TM)t have as much flow as the other kind and have some other quirks but theyâ(TM)re not affected by someone in the kitchen running the hot tap.
      • The problem is that many showers have a 2 axis valve (rotate for temp, pull for pressure), a single-axis valve goes OFF to COLD to HOT, or (even) worse, separate hot and cold faucets. A cutoff valve should be separate from the main valve to allow the user to keep the same temperature setting after re-starting the flow.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ve3oat ( 884827 )
      Exactly!! People only need running water during three periods of having a shower :
      1) while wetting the hair;
      2) while rinsing the shampoo from the hair and wetting the body;
      3) while rinsing the soap from the body.
      It should be possible for almost everyone to do that with a total time of about five minutes of running water.

      Also, as some others have pointed out, hot showers are not usually necessary. For years now, I have been washing in only warm water, with the final rinse in cooler water. (Muc
  • I usually take quick 5-minute showers, but there have been times that I've sat in the shower with a drink in my hand for 15-30 minutes easily. It's one thing to ask this temporarily in a pinch (which I understand), but taking 5-minute showers becomes the norm and people try to make this a way of life and make others feel guilty for taking a long shower, that's when some have lost a much-needed benefit of their shower.

    • but there have been times that I've sat in the shower with a drink in my hand for 15-30 minutes easily.

      Doesn't this water down your drink too much?

    • One of the benefits of a long shower is being by myself and having time to think while the hot water relaxes my muscles.

      Of course follow the leader, everyone baaa in unison. I guess Europe is very used to this kind of thing.

    • Don't worry, people will still have their swimming pools in their backyards, but you better sacrifice your nice peaceful warm shower. Fuck that.

      And since I'm Californian, cut back on the amount of cow milk (hence amount of cows) and cut back on high water usage crops. That's really how you fix a water problem.

      Obviously in Europe they are trying to save on natural gas for heating and aren't really concerned with the water really. It's nice to conserve but maybe they have access to ample fresh water. I've no

  • On the other hand (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @04:56PM (#62868249)

    Carla Generaal used to spend 15 minutes in the shower, slowly raising the temperature as the minutes passed. Her boyfriend, who takes one-and-a-half-minute cold showers, couldn't fathom how she could be so wasteful.

    Maybe if he stops complaining and lets her warm up he won't have to take those cold showers ... :-)

    He bought her a five-minute sand-filled timer.

    Husband Tip: Timing your girlfriend/wife on things never ends well for you.

  • Keep your $130 per year and (Score:3)

    by lusid1 ( 759898 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:07PM (#62868309)

    Stay out of my shower.

  • Voluntary rationing and price controls will fail (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Echoez ( 562950 ) * on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:09PM (#62868317)

    It's not fun to say, but the only real mechanism that's going to get people to change their behaviors (and consumption) is to allow the price to float freely. If you make the price of energy based on actual supply+demand, it will certainly spike and folks will adjust their consumption accordingly.

    The new UK PM is already talking about price controls. Setting a maximum prices means insulating folks from the full price, and they won't cut consumption as much. Voluntary rationing (as we've seen in California with the drought and people watering their lawns) also won't achieve the end result.

    This is not to say that we can't help people with lower incomes: When the prices get high, you can give vouchers for the first X amount of energy. You could also change the formula for cost so that folks who use the top 10% of energy pay astoundingly higher rates than the bottom 10%.

    But overall, the only efficient mechanism of allocating a scarce resource is price, and politicians are deluding themselves if they think otherwise.

    • The energy market is inherently un free (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:24PM (#62868373)
      The sheer size and complexity coupled with the political aspects and the fact that energy is a universal desire means that you can't just let it ride on the market. When you try that you get monopolies and trusts and people dying of heat stroke and or freezing to death depending on the region and time of year.

      The free market works great for things that aren't natural monopolies. Energy production and distribution is a natural monopoly. As a result you can't just hope market forces are going to fix everything. What will happen is as soon as people get to the point where they stop being able to afford food because of energy prices that you left up those people will get angry and bitter and violent and find a dictator who promises to get energy prices down.

      • And the dictator unsuprisingly turns out to be a real shitbag and the people get angry again and overthrow him. Thus begins a new cycle.

        • They're dictator seem to be doing just fine. I seem to recall both Stalin and Mao live to ripe old ages too. Mao died of smoking related diseases. Stalin might have been killed but he was 74 so it's just as likely he wasn't. The death of neither of them created a democracy.

          America is at the point where it has to decide if it's going to continue to be a Democratic Republic or not. We've got about 10 years to make that decision. There's about 20,000 people at the top who want to end the Republic because t

    • No: first it will bankrupt people, then it will change behaviours.

      Contrary to hot tea in a bistro, hot water, aka energy, isn't paid for the moment it is consumed.
      Instead usually one has monthly payments, and once a year the difference between real consumption price and the amount paid in the monthly payments is settled. At least that is how it worked everywhere I lived so far.

      I don't even pretend to have the beginning of an idea on how to solve this. What I do know is that when an inelastic and non-substit

    • Several EU countries have price controls in force for all or for low-income families. These price controls are the last remaining part of what used to be the State monopoly on energy market (which was the situation in Europe for decades after WW2). The EC mandated final end to State controls and it was scheduled for the years to come, 2023-2025. We might see some EU countries negotiating a delay given the situation. From my place the regulated prices for natural gas are close to 8 cEUR/kWh, while commercial

    • Water is usually a public good, precisely because the required infrastructure lends itself to a strong natural monopoly.

      If you allow a monopoly to set the price it will rise until the total profit ($ per unit*number of units sold) is maximized.

      Markets are also only good at efficiency, and tend to result in severe injustice - e.g. the rich waste as much as they want because even at 100x the price it's still pocket change for them, while everyone else goes without. Or make do with whatever "base ration" they'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsqr ( 808554 )

      Voluntary rationing (as we've seen in California with the drought and people watering their lawns) also won't achieve the end result.

      Most municipalities in SoCal are saying it's been effective. But really, residential landscape watering is such a tiny fraction of total water use - around 3 or 5 percent of the total - that conserving water by restricting that is like saving for retirement by quitting chewing gum. Agricultural and "environmental" uses account for 90% of California water use. "Environmental" is about 50% -- that's basically diverting water into rivers and ultimately into the oceans, to preserve wetlands and protect endanger

  • 9 minute average shower is a luxury in drought ridden California. If they're worried about that kind of stuff, just wait until you got to hold off on flushing the toilet until every third piss in your household.

  • wat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by diffract ( 7165501 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:18PM (#62868347)
    - create an energy crisis by shutting down nuclear reactors
    - also cut off Russian intake of fuel
    - "Guys, it's your fault for spending too much time in the shower"
    Yeah i wouldn't be keen on that either, in fact I'd demand whoever caused this crisis to be put on trial

    • - create an energy crisis by shutting down nuclear reactors

      - also cut off Russian intake of fuel

      - "Guys, it's your fault for spending too much time in the shower"

      Yeah i wouldn't be keen on that either, in fact I'd demand whoever caused this crisis to be put on trial

      Put Putin on trial? I don't think you'd find much disagreement there.

      He's the one who caused the original crisis by invading Ukraine.

      He's also the one who shut off the gas in an attempt to pressure Europe into removing sanctions and stopping arms shipments.

      At the rate the invasion is going in 6 months a trial will probably be the best case scenario for him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Don't forget the Netherlands has an enormous amount of gas in the ground, but no longer pumps it up because it was causing earthquakes in populated areas.

  • Remember your ancestors? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:21PM (#62868359)

    It wasn't that long ago that Europeans were asked to sacrifice and ration that much more under albeit far more dire circumstances, but still, war is war and with citizens of the EU are supporting all the efforts in Ukraine anywhere from 70-95% [euneighbourseast.eu] some small sacrifices to move away from gas dependance on Russia is not unreasonable imo, espeically not for a winter or two.

    When we are talking about hundreds of millions of households small changes make a big difference, a couple minute shorter shower, a few degrees colder thermostate. Since this is being asked and not ordered I think this is far to put out and I think it will work. California's text message campaign actually worked really well [bloomberg.com] and a bunch of storage and other measures helped them avoid major outages or fires through a tough few hours.

    Now these EU governments and industries have to not squader the window and continue to aggressively pursue alternatives to make up the gap from Russian gas and other sources. If they do though the entire continent comes out better on the other side.

    • We have indeed seen Europeans face far greater difficulties and sacrifices before but when that happened they saw a government acting with all they had to bring this situation to a close as quickly as possible. What are the governments of Europe doing so people can get back to a life where every action they make doesn't remind them of how this might make their neighbors suffer for lack of food and fuel?

      If Europe was taking this energy crisis seriously then they'd cut the bullshit about not building new nuc

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by real_nickname ( 6922224 )

      war is war and with citizens of the EU are supporting all the efforts in Ukraine anywhere from 70-95%

      No. Nobody really care about Ukraine. People are angry because energy is more expensive not because people are dying in a country they can't locate on a map. And Europe is just in the middle of USA vs Russia and soon vs China.

      continue to aggressively pursue alternatives to make up the gap from Russian gas

      Yes, buying Russian gas from China is the current solution...

  • I love long showers (10-15min) and most days I have at least 2. Sometimes 3, if I go for an extra run. Sue me.

    • I'm a big greasy, hairy beast, and if I don't have a long and hot shower then I smell like one, too. The title says "Not All Are Keen on That." Yeah, like anyone downwind of me if I don't get an extensive shower.

  • During a drought a decade or so ago I installed shower head shut offs in my house. Wet down yourself and the soap, turn off the water flow, soap up with shower off. When finished turn water back on and rinse off. This was back in the day of separate valves for Hot and Cold so it let the water temperature stay about the same. Not sure if it would be needed with single handle valves.
    • 'single handle valves' - why are they allowed to sell shower faucets with no volume control. I mean it seems silly in an age where they want people to manage their water use that you can't control how much water comes out. Sure you can install a volume valve, or get a shower head with one, but with all these mandates and they can not even mandate proper shower controls that have a 'use less water' setting. It is also nice that valves that control volume usually retain the temp setting until you want to chan

  • Just build some nuclear power plants already! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Friday September 09, 2022 @06:16PM (#62868577)

    There's going to be morons that will try to explain how building nuclear power plants won't help with a natural gas shortage. Or rather not explain anything, instead it will be an expression of frustration on how people can't understand such a thing.

    In Europe they've been on this process of removing coal and nuclear power in an attempt to replace that with wind and solar. This is because coal is polluting and nuclear power is bad for some reason that is left unexplained and merely assumed true. This left Europe with the dilemma of how to fill in the gaps left from intermittent electricity supply as the supply of energy from sun and wind came and went. This meant building all kinds of natural gas power plants, going so far in building these natural gas power plants that they built large pipelines to import natural gas.

    The reason nuclear power would help with natural gas supplies is because with a reliable source of electricity there's less need to burn natural gas to produce electricity. Also, with a reliable supply of electricity there's an opportunity to replace gas heating and cooking with electric heating and cooking. If someone with a gas stove wants to lower their gas use then they can use an electric kettle, a microwave oven, a toaster or toaster oven, or any of a number of small and inexpensive appliances to prepare food instead of their gas oven.

    We've seen Europe use fuel synthesis before to make up for fossil fuel shortages before. They can dust off that old technology, update it a bit to run from heat and electricity produced by nuclear fission, and get back to taking a hot shower when they want one.

    Taking shorter showers won't solve the problem. That's just a measure to buy time for a real long term solution. They will ponder and argue about it but in the end they are going to have to build more nuclear power plants. They may as well stop pondering and arguing and get on with it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jsonn ( 792303 )
      A good part of the current gas shortage is a direct result of nuclear power plants. Half of all reactors in France are down for either much-needed maintenance to fix corrosion issues or because the current drought removed the ability to cool the plant properly. Of the rest, quite a few are only allowed to run by special permit as the river temperature is too high and the extra heat pumped in is making a mess of the ecosystems.

      • A good part of the current gas shortage is a direct result of nuclear power plants.

        Bullshit.

        A failure to maintain their current nuclear power plants is no reason to blame this problem on nuclear power. This is a failure to plan, and so they planned to fail. Maybe they should have been building new nuclear power plants instead of trying to keep 50 year old plants running until they are 80 years old. If the nuclear power plants are heating the rivers too much then maybe they should be building cooling towers. We'd have the same problem with solar power if we dumped water for cooling int

  • https://www.npr.org/sections/g... [npr.org]

    Two items that are essential to most Indian households are a bucket and a pitcher. They are to Indians what showers are to Americans, an integral part of the daily ritual of bathing. In a country where you can't count on running water, the vast majority of people bathe using a bucket of water and a plastic pitcher to pour the water over your head and body.

    Like every other Indian I know, I grew up with bucket bathing. But by the time I was 10, indoor showers had started t

  • Five minutes would be an improvement (Score:3)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Saturday September 10, 2022 @12:17AM (#62869285)

    It's pretty apparent that in some places daily showers and deodorant are not part of the culture.

    Five minute showers daily would improve the climate a lot.

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