Well, it is not really a new problem. Stopping-starting nuclear power plants is also slow and costly. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity and industrial batteries are good ways to solve it at the grid level. In addition to the possibility of some local solutions others have mentioned.
Readit Newsrmind commented on The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain wastedwind.energy/... · Posted by u/bashy
rmind commented on Yes-rs: A fast, memory-safe rewrite of the classic Unix yes command github.com/jedisct1/yes-r... · Posted by u/ericdiao
For an academic reference, they should have quoted "Code Inflation" (Holzmann, 2015).
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=705...
rmind commented on Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge yle.fi/a/74-20161606... · Posted by u/axelfontaine
In the distant past of the 1990s, it was.
It was the case during the Soviet occupation and briefly during the transitional period, but otherwise - no, it wasn't. For example, in 1990, Latvia simply restored its 1922 constitution (still in effect today, although with some amendments) which enacted Latvian as the sole official language. This has also been the case with Lithuanian and Estonian constitutions, respectively.
rmind commented on Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge yle.fi/a/74-20161606... · Posted by u/axelfontaine
As you suggest, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was bolstered by Russian sympathizers in the east. Every country bordering Russia is incentivized to break free of any sort of alignment with Russia in order to reduce the threat of local insurgency which will aid Russia in its invasion. For example, the Baltic countries removing Russian from their list of official languages, in addition to decoupling from the Russian power grid. There are a lot of steps to be taken, and a lot of them will take decades. Fortunately, Russia's capacity to wage war measured against their number of potential targets means that it would take them decades to reconquer it all, assuming Europe steps up to fund the defense. Train gauge alignment is just one of many steps towards this end, and the sooner the better.
"Removing Russian from their list of official languages"? It was never an official language in the first place.
rmind commented on Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge yle.fi/a/74-20161606... · Posted by u/axelfontaine
Today is 2025. Rail Baltica started in 2013.
Yes, I understand very well that "research" is a pipe, where you put billions of euros in one end, and get stack of papers on the other end. And somebody becomes rich in the process. Sapienti sat.
You are counting from some early planning phases. Compare, for example, how long it took for the UK to build High Speed 1 line.
It's worth noting that the non-HS standard gauge (part of Rail Baltica I) between Poland and Lithuania (up to Šeštokai Intermodal Terminal) was completed back in 2015. The freight trains have been operating on this line all the time.
rmind commented on Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge yle.fi/a/74-20161606... · Posted by u/axelfontaine
> Was there a comparable large scale rail infrastructure change in some other country?
Baltic states attempted this (project Rail Baltica). Lots of EU money were spent with no visible result. I guess, several people in Baltic states became super rich, but in terms of rail infrastructure nothing was done.
The work is very much ongoing in Lithuania: 114 km of railway is under construction, with tracks already laid in large parts of it. That is 43% of the initial phase (links to Poland and Latvia).
Let's keep in mind that it's not just standard gauge track. It's a high-speed rail project (200-250 km/h) and, for any country, it takes time to build such a huge infrastructure.
Baltic states are trying to decouple from Russia's electrical grid [1]. Latvia wants to move fast, Estonia is asking for more time. Concerningly, Estonia signed an agreement recently with Finland for a new submarine cable ("Estlink 3") to import more power (as Finland has an excess due to their new nuclear generator recently coming online, current interconnector runs maxed out most of the time at ~1GW). This infra may be at go forward risk from Russia, making the investment questionable at this time (unless the route and burial depth can sufficiently defend against a nation state threat actor).
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-fr...
Baltic States can disconnect already in case of an emergency. The infrastructure is ready, several tests have been conducted. Lithuania wanted to disconnect already, but Estonia pushed for more conservative approach: they want more synchronous condensers to handle a higher number of possible simultaneous failures in the system. It's a technical debate whether that is necessary (Lithuanian operator thinks it isn't): the probability of such failure is already very small, but the Estonian operator wants to reduce it a bit further.
PDF version here: https://kam.lt/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Assessment-of-Thre...
It will be interesting to see what you did differently!