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Dude: 1. I'm not from US - and I wasn't speaking about US. I was speaking about rest of the world. Which whether you like it or not wants to live american life

Dude: 1. I'm not from US - and I wasn't speaking about US. I was speaking about rest of the world. Which whether you like it or not wants to live american lifestyle. 2. Current american model is indeed sustainable if we manage to bring cost of energy (total cost, including intangibles) to a low enough level. 3. I also try to minimize my impact upon world by using as few resources as I can. Being economic is fine and good. But it won't solve all our problems. 4. You resorted to an ad-hominem attack upon my person you also dared to insult me by calling me fucking lazy - when all I wanted to hear from you is what kind of alternative you propose. 5. I'm not denying that substantial progress has been made in the field of renewable power sources. The problem is that its just not enough. 6. You are vehemently claiming that Germany will be completely on renewables in 40 years. Thats what green power lobies claim. Green power is also a huge industry. Never forget that. edit: Calling an engineer technocrat just shows that you don't even understand either the meaning of the word "engineer" or either "technocrat" for that matter.

lispm 16y ago
Look, the 40 year plan is an official plan of the current conservative government. If it is a huge business, well, fuck, that's the plan. We want green technology to be the huge growth industry for the next decades. Making money with that is the plan. Technocracy means for example that engineers are the decision makers. Here in Germany the decision to invest billions into nuclear energy has been supported and promoted by engineers and scientists in all levels of government, government funded research institutes and universities and by companies using their influence on government. This faulty advice has cost us billions and has left us with some industry ruins and fucked up attempts on storing nuclear waste. Ordinary people are protesting against this for decades.
- JanezStupar 16y ago
  I totally agree with this last comment. However - I have two major issues with it. 1. You assume that green technocracy is "better" than current technocracy. Or are you proposing that we let hysteric extremist (fascist?) wing of green take over? 2. The largest issue of nuclear power is that people who are declaratively for saving environment block any and all attempts to improve current situation. In this sense - the greens are at fault for Fukushima. Otherwise this plant would be probably dismantled 10 years ago and replaced with more modern and safer model. The same goes for nuclear waste - green is playing an extremely dangerous game of trying to prove that the problem of nuclear waste is insolvable, by obstructing any attempts of solution. 3. In retrospective - show me single plan created by bureaucrats that stood the test of time.
  - lispm 16y ago
    The greens are definitely not fascist. I think you are confusing this. Fascist is the influence of huge corporations over people. Not the influence of people over themselves. Wow, Fukushima is caused by the Greens now? And I though it was caused by a greedy and incompetent company not willing to invest into safety. No company would invest into a newer model. These are extremely expensive. Like 5 billion Euro in western Europe. Every electricity company is talking about EXTENDING the life of the current plants. Replacing old ones which are running with new ones is the most stupid thing an electricity company can do. What they want is getting the money from the existing plants with as little effort as possible.
    - JanezStupar 16y ago
      Excuse me. I didn't mean to imply that all greens are fascist. And I also meant Green in the broadest possible sense - as in environmentalists of all denominations. And this context I meant the extremist faction(s) when I said fascist green extremists. Because they only have one agenda: Stop corporations. Stop Nuclear Power. Stop Consuming Carbon power sources. But I don't see an alternative proposal how to deal with everyday human existence in 21st century. Saying renewables have loads of potential just doesn't cut it. In US last nuclear power plant has been built in 1977. Something similar holds true worldwide (there haven't been that many nuclear power plants built since then). Nuclear power production is probably THE most regulated industry in the world (and probably state owned a lot). Newer better plants haven't been built since, guess who, didn't allow it. These old reactors should be shut down and replaced, but since coal power plants are also not allowed to be built (by guess whom) and there are only that many rivers you can turn into accumulation lakes (not to mention disastrous effect on environment - species are dying out due to hydro power). World is in this weird deadlock where we are forced to expand lifetimes of these old nuclear power stations, just to keep going. And I'm accusing you of being disingenious by pretending that current renewable plans won't have adverse side effects. And by pretending that nuclear industry is in its current state due to greed of plant operators. And you still haven't provided me with an alternative strategy for while we wait for renewables to save us. We have 40 years of burning coal to meet our demands for energy in front of us - whether you accept it or not. We could diminish some of that impact by building safer, better nuclear power plants.

lispm 16y ago

Look, the 40 year plan is an official plan of the current conservative government. If it is a huge business, well, fuck, that's the plan. We want green technology to be the huge growth industry for the next decades. Making money with that is the plan. Technocracy means for example that engineers are the decision makers. Here in Germany the decision to invest billions into nuclear energy has been supported and promoted by engineers and scientists in all levels of government, government funded research institutes and universities and by companies using their influence on government. This faulty advice has cost us billions and has left us with some industry ruins and fucked up attempts on storing nuclear waste. Ordinary people are protesting against this for decades.

JanezStupar 16y ago
I totally agree with this last comment. However - I have two major issues with it. 1. You assume that green technocracy is "better" than current technocracy. Or are you proposing that we let hysteric extremist (fascist?) wing of green take over? 2. The largest issue of nuclear power is that people who are declaratively for saving environment block any and all attempts to improve current situation. In this sense - the greens are at fault for Fukushima. Otherwise this plant would be probably dismantled 10 years ago and replaced with more modern and safer model. The same goes for nuclear waste - green is playing an extremely dangerous game of trying to prove that the problem of nuclear waste is insolvable, by obstructing any attempts of solution. 3. In retrospective - show me single plan created by bureaucrats that stood the test of time.
- lispm 16y ago
  The greens are definitely not fascist. I think you are confusing this. Fascist is the influence of huge corporations over people. Not the influence of people over themselves. Wow, Fukushima is caused by the Greens now? And I though it was caused by a greedy and incompetent company not willing to invest into safety. No company would invest into a newer model. These are extremely expensive. Like 5 billion Euro in western Europe. Every electricity company is talking about EXTENDING the life of the current plants. Replacing old ones which are running with new ones is the most stupid thing an electricity company can do. What they want is getting the money from the existing plants with as little effort as possible.
  - JanezStupar 16y ago
    Excuse me. I didn't mean to imply that all greens are fascist. And I also meant Green in the broadest possible sense - as in environmentalists of all denominations. And this context I meant the extremist faction(s) when I said fascist green extremists. Because they only have one agenda: Stop corporations. Stop Nuclear Power. Stop Consuming Carbon power sources. But I don't see an alternative proposal how to deal with everyday human existence in 21st century. Saying renewables have loads of potential just doesn't cut it. In US last nuclear power plant has been built in 1977. Something similar holds true worldwide (there haven't been that many nuclear power plants built since then). Nuclear power production is probably THE most regulated industry in the world (and probably state owned a lot). Newer better plants haven't been built since, guess who, didn't allow it. These old reactors should be shut down and replaced, but since coal power plants are also not allowed to be built (by guess whom) and there are only that many rivers you can turn into accumulation lakes (not to mention disastrous effect on environment - species are dying out due to hydro power). World is in this weird deadlock where we are forced to expand lifetimes of these old nuclear power stations, just to keep going. And I'm accusing you of being disingenious by pretending that current renewable plans won't have adverse side effects. And by pretending that nuclear industry is in its current state due to greed of plant operators. And you still haven't provided me with an alternative strategy for while we wait for renewables to save us. We have 40 years of burning coal to meet our demands for energy in front of us - whether you accept it or not. We could diminish some of that impact by building safer, better nuclear power plants.