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The article completely disregards an important benefit of keeping mines open: national security. Germany has basically said it will forfeit its coal technology
by dev_dull 8y ago
The article completely disregards an important benefit of keeping mines open: national security. Germany has basically said it will forfeit its coal technology and rely instead on the US and Russia.
In the US I want to see these industries kept alive even with skeleton crews. A few billion in subsidies (tax breaks) is a pittance compared to allowing a local fuel source to atrophy.
- programmarchy 8y agoThe military needs steel needs coal. This does appear to be a signal that Germany is letting down its guard.
- jupp0r 8y agoI think most machinery in the military runs on gas nowadays.
- programmarchy 8y agoCoal is an input to steel production.
- jupp0r 8y agoCoal can be used for steel production. There are also electric arc furnaces, being used for around 25% of steel produced globally [1]. Also, only 12% of coal production is used to make steel [2]. [1] https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal/how-steel-produced https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal/how-steel-produced [2] https://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make-steel-without-coal https://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make-steel...
- dev_dull 8y agoIt’s not about heating the furnaces. Coking coal is an ingredient in steel production with iron.
- geff82 8y agoCoal is needed for steel production, so if the coal supplies from abroad stop, no steel can be produced and thus no tanks.
- rdl 8y agoEnergy matters a lot more, since it is essential to military operation AND to production, and production is very heavily biased toward things other than large quantities of steel these days. Even a 1-2 year crash program of building new weapons in advance of a conflict is probably not limited by steel production.
- hwillis 8y agoYou are wrong. Direct reduced iron[1] is made with natural gas instead of coal. The amount of steel currently made without coal is about the same as the amount of crude steel made in the US. [1]: https://www.midrex.com/news-literature/news-releases/world-dri-statistics https://www.midrex.com/news-literature/news-releases/world-d...
- oaiey 8y agoNational Security? This is an US Hype. What conflict will appear in Germany in the next 100 years? Germany has friends all around. Two of them are members of the security council and own nuclear weapons. France even has an explicit policy of extending their nuclear (MAD) protection over Germany. Central Europe has 70 years of peace thanks to the European Union. There is currently little realistic reason to believe this will change anytime soon. There is no scenario which require steel sovereignity on standby. The only realistic scenarios (e.g. Russia being stupid) ends in a global inferno.
- dev_dull 8y agoI suppose the difference in our worldview depends on whether we think the last 70 or so years of world history is the one that will stick, and we can safely ignore history up until that point.
- oaiey 8y agoOh one day there will be war in Europe again. But chances are very high, that it will be 100 years or more from now.
- amai 8y agoNo, it will rely on renewable energy in the future. US and Russia are unfortunately not really renewable.