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We've all raised our concerns about the opinions of Germans before on these threads. A brilliant scientific nation that seems to have become recently confused.

by s_dev 5y ago

We've all raised our concerns about the opinions of Germans before on these threads. A brilliant scientific nation that seems to have become recently confused. Sort of like the British. Green Gas? Nuclear is bad because it produces waste despite that waste often being the size of a can of coke after a year of service? Buying Russian gas is actually making Russia more democratic and drawing it in to the West? The past week will have a lot of Germans revising many silly opinions they were originally able to afford but not anymore -- so I'm going to wait for that tide of opinion change rather than try to persuade anymore. Being naive sometimes is a luxury some can simply afford while others can't afford it. Climate change is happening and it's not going to wait for Germany, Russia has always been like Russia -- corrupt and unreliable. Amazing that Germany have considered the US a poor partner under Trump but a reliable one with Russia/Putin. France seems have better answers on how to solve energy problems than Germany.

_ph_ 5y ago
France doesn't have any good answer on how to solve energy problems. Yes, they currently have a large amount of nuclear reactors - probably the most nuclear industry nation on the planet. However, most of them are aging and so far they fail to build new plants at a rate to sustain their production long term. They have 1 in construction, much delayed and with huge cost overruns. Even if they build another 10 that only delays the switch, they would have to replace 50 nuclear power plants. Their nuclear future so far depends on prolonging the run times of the existing plants.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  France has 50 plants? They need to go headfirst into modular reactors. Usually I would say that nuclear research and development dollars are wasted: they just displace purchasing solar/wind/storage. But with that big of an extant installed base, with approved/regulated sites and various other infrastructure, they may be the only country that can save money staying nuclear. Of course, being a LFTR stan I would push for mass manufactured LFTRs the size of a couple shipping containers that can be decommissioned on a regular basis. 50 big nuclear plants replaced with about 1000 or more shipping container sized reactors on a replacement schedule. LFTR would reduce waste, and separation of other fission products could be done elsewhere. WHat is the French resistance to LFTR? I know that the US has strange bureaucratic resistances to LFTR built into academic funding and their regulatory agencies as an artifact of the ORNL reactor vs PWR reactor politics from the 1950s. If France just piggybacking on the solid fuel rod reprocessing industry of the US and its same resistance to new reactor designs?
  - VaxWithSex 5y ago
    None of these modular "blueprint reactors" has been build. not a single one is producing power on gridscale.
    - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
      You are correct, but nuclear is weird: it has so many regulatory and NIMBY hurdles that change is hard. However, what has happened is that many many people have taken a swing at scalable reactors for a long time in the design phase. And we do know the test ORNL reactor for MSR/LFTR practically fit in a closet, at least for the actual reactor. So there is an opportunity.
    - ryathal 5y ago
      The U.S. Navy has a few hundred samples built. They just put boats around them.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    Its 56 even. That is a huge fleet to replace. I am not in the details of their decisions, but I think one can simply conclude that if a nation, which is so all-in on nuclear like France, doesn't have a good answer yet, it seems to be a non-trivial problem. France has their own fuel reprocessing industry and had breeding reactors in the past but gave up on them.
- realusername 5y ago
  Yes but even those problems are far easier to handle than the ones of renewables. On one side we have investment problems, large scale planning issues, political issues, workforce issues. On the other side we simply have the tech ... just not existing at all (and nobody knows if it will). Current rollout of renewables in France has also been a financial disaster and I don't see many people talking about that.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    >Yes but even those problems are far easier to handle than the ones of renewables. I don't think so. Look at UK's recent transition to renewables. They're making big moves nowadays, but we only talk about Germany. France is going backwards (it was an excellent idea to build nuclear plants after WW2, but not so much today compared to renewables' plunging cost and progress in energy storage).
    - realusername 5y ago
      France's renewable story has also been a disaster, 120 billions euros invested (half of the total cost of the whole nuclear grid (!) ) for 5% of the electricity production. Even Flamanville isn't as bad as that, there's hope it'll be good for future plants, that was just completely wasted.
  - kitkat_new 5y ago
    France needs renewables, if they don't want to ruin themselves and build 150 additional reactors. If they want to become carbon neutral at some point... "On the other side we simply have the tech ... just not existing at all (and nobody knows if it will)." What tech doesn't exist in your opinion? P2G is tech with "large scale planning issues".
    - realusername 5y ago
      > France needs renewables, if they don't want to ruin themselves and build 150 additional reactors. If they want to become carbon neutral at some point... As I said in another comment, France's investment in renewable has actually been even worse in terms of results than Flamanville. 120 billions euros (half of the cost of the whole nuclear grid) for 5% of the production, you can't really go lower than that. In terms of carbon, the other European countries have a lot to catchup to reach France's level. They currently fight very hard against carbon pricing because well, that would mean the french industry would have an edge compared to them... P2G just isn't good enough for now, let's be fair.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Per capita I believe they do, total amount the US has about 50% more capacity(which is a shame given how much bigger we are than France). we should have a lot more if we were serious about global warming.
cookiengineer 5y ago
The discussions in the Bundestag streams the last couple days were pretty unified in their decision making. Germany is now going to up their military defenses, and that seems to be the highest priority. The dependency on gazprom kind of put us in "Schach", so we as a country can't do anything (as the chancellor kind of admitted in his speech). Historically, Schroeder has always been the direct bridge to Putin. And he knows how to hold the mutual respect that Putin expects from others. It seems as the current ruling parties don't realize that this is a game of strategy, not a game of moral or emotions. You can't win against Putin with moral code, so I kind of fear that they make it worse and he'll hold a grudge against Germany.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Sometimes the threat of war and invasion cuts through a bunch of cruft and corruption. This is another miscalculation on Putin's side. Ukraine was the comfort blanket for Europe keeping them complacent. This crossed an emotional line with the entirety of Europe. Heck, I feel it in the United States. Russia/Putin are nuts and not entirely rational. They are actual palpable evil: a direct threat to your survival and prosperity. Remember the dogs thing with Merkel and Putin? I'm sure the "elites" of the EU have wanted to get more coordinated against Russia, but the populace was a bit ... soft. Putin may have motivated far more people than just the populace of the Ukraine. Looking at the map and the conduct of the war so far, this is a massive geopolitical opportunity for the West. Set fleets of drones into Ukraine and repulse the forces. Actually, I would sucker Belarus into invasion (they've already announced it, have they actually done it). That would provide a casus belli for Ukraine (ahem NATO) forces to then invade Belarus, the other major buffer state between the NATO and Russia. Topple their autocrat. Then put Belarus and Ukraine into NATO. Then there is a wall of NATO states at the doorstep of Russia.
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    I was thinking something similar recently. When an army leaves the safety of its homeland to invade another country, it becomes vulnerable to its supply lines being cut off and being stranded in a foreign country with lack of fuel, food/water, and/or ammo. We’re already seeing scattered anecdotal examples of this happening to the Russian invasion force even without their supply lines being directly attacked. I wonder how difficult it would be for Western powers to assemble a fleet of drones, stick a bunch of Ukrainian flag decals on them, and then attack and disrupt the main Russian supply lines into Ukraine. It would only take a few days of that before the Russian army runs out of material to fight the war with. Then Ukrainian troops can force a surrender, round them up, treat them appropriately under the Geneva Conventions, and then offer and encourage them to accept political asylum in the West. (Same with Belarus if they invade). Destroy or confiscate the materials. Then boom, Russia no longer has an army. And without the West ever directly attacking the Russian (or Belorussian) homeland.
ploden 5y ago
I look forward to the day when renewables provide >90% of our energy, and old men on the Internet are still bloviating that it can't be done. As for me, I'm looking at pallets of solar panels on eBay to expand our PV system.
- VaxWithSex 5y ago
  Leben mit der Energiewende TV! https://www.youtube.com/c/LebenmitderEnergiewende https://www.youtube.com/c/LebenmitderEnergiewende
- realusername 5y ago
  I'll believe it when the tech for that will exist, you can't bet the future of the country on non-existing tech which might come up from R&D
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    What is the tech that doesn’t exist?
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    The tech exists today with solar, wind, batteries, transmission, hydro (pumped and otherwise), demand response, and electrification using heat pumps and EVs. We're not waiting on anything groundbreaking, no heroic technologies are needed. There is no magic. It's just a matter of manufacturing/install capacity and funds. It's like insulation for buildings: not sexy, but it works and it's a known quantity. Work backwards from first principles based on how much energy the Sun delivers to the planet. US: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-impact/news/recent-news/the-us-can-reach-90-percent-clean-electricity-by-2035-dependably-and-without-increasing-consumer-bills https://gspp.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-impact/news/recent-new... Australia: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.05.168 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.05.168 Europe: https://www.energyplan.eu/smartenergyeurope/ https://www.energyplan.eu/smartenergyeurope/ | https://www.irena.org/publications/2018/Feb/Renewable-energy-prospects-for-the-EU https://www.irena.org/publications/2018/Feb/Renewable-energy... | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918312790 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191... Central/South America: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173820 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173820 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173820 (if anyone has other resources for geographies I didn't mention, please comment with them to contribute to the knowledge graph!)
V1ndaar 5y ago
> The past week will have a lot of Germans revising many silly opinions they were originally able to afford but not anymore Honestly, as a German myself I'm rather doubtful of that unfortunately. Some? Maybe. Many? Probably not. I cannot even convince my parents (who grew up in Germany during the time when the anti nuclear sentiment really started) to rethink their anti nuclear stance (despite having a great relationship with them). I say that as a physicist that absolutely sees there are flaws with aging nuclear plants. But people who are not able to a) appreciate the energy density of nuclear and b) see that climate change is an urgent problem we face, whereas any issues from nuclear waste are long term problems (not even talking about future reactor technologies etc. etc.) is just... I don't know? It sounds insane, but indoctrinated? I just utterly fail to understand. I mean, what's the point of a "nuclear waste free Earth" if our civilization collapses due to climate change?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Why oppose nuclear and renewables? It's about getting rid off fossil fuels isn't it? It's like focusing on competition among EV manufacturers when they are tiny compared to ICE. Take a step back.
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    > Why oppose nuclear I'm not sure anyone here will have a good answer for you, but anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany is incredibly strong.
- AnonCoward4 5y ago
  Maybe the problem with the "green" nuclear energy is that we still do not have a final waste site for it. This stuff may not be much in terms of size, but it is bad for hundreds of thousands of years and can contaminate a lot of water. > I mean, what's the point of a "nuclear waste free Earth" if our civilization collapses due to climate change? That is a bit panic-fuelled and frankly even religious, while completely ignoring the immediate threat of radiation, which cannot be reversed for hundreds of thousands of years. PS.: Climate change is going to happen whatever we do. This happened even before we existed.
sascha_sl 5y ago
> Nuclear is bad because it produces waste despite that waste often being the size of a can of coke after a year of service? The history of the German anti-nuclear movement is quite long, Chernobyl has essentially put a stop on new investments and killed any ongoing research for good (see THTR-300). This is also due to the ecological impact it had on Germany. And now, because of this stop in new investments, Germany ended up with reactors stuck somewhere in between 1960 and 1980. Critical issues went unaddressed, the control rooms are cold war era time machines, incidents were swept under the rug for fear of it finally dropping the sword of damocles on the industry. Operators showed gross negligence all around (especially Vattenfall, who are now suing the German government over the phase out) and it's a small wonder we've not had a more serious incident (though significantly larger incidence of leukemia around Krümmel should probably be considered serious). Nuclear is not happening here. The best we can hope for is keeping our fossil fuels mostly off and buying nuclear power from France until renewables are viable on their own (if ever).
- isomel 5y ago
  > This is also due to the ecological impact it had on Germany. What impact did it had on the environment in Germany?
  - layer8 5y ago
    See here for example: https://www.thelocal.de/20100729/28819/ https://www.thelocal.de/20100729/28819/
landemva 5y ago
Do you have insight into why the chief of Greenpeace and an American is in charge of Germany climate? https://www.greenpeace.org/international/author/jennifer-morgan/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/author/jennifer-mor... Maybe she is being granted German citizenship to become Secretary of State.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  There are some factual errors in what you stated. She isn't becoming the Secretary of State, but a high ranking official in the state department. Her role is to be a special envoy to discuss climate related topics with foreign states. Which absolutely makes sense as to stop climate change, an international effort needs to be made. The state department would be the obvious administration to conduct these talks and puts them on the same priority level as previously economical and military topics. But indeed, she needs to take up a German passport to become a state official.
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    Yep, it's a genius move by the Germans. The actual secretary of state is from the Green party, Annalena Baerbock. She just deployed some great pragmatic & lateral thinking. They have an American lobbying as their official representative for their cause on the international stage and the US (obviously). And they export renewable tech to America. Win win. Move the cause further while doing some business. I wouldn't necessarily have voted for the green party in Germany (I live here but I am not a German national), but this is both very rational and very smart. Loving it.
loehnsberg 5y ago
The following about the sentiment towards nuclear power in Germany: - Germany is a densely populated country and Germans have always been sensitive towards environmental pollution. - Nuclear fallout is a reality as every consumer of mushrooms from Bavarian forests knows that are still today contaminated with caesium-137. - Finding a secure final storage for nuclear waste has failed. The front-runner in Gorleben proved to be unreliable after decades of serving as a temporary storage. - Most Germans believe that their country would have been obliterated if a nuclear war between East and West had turned hot. - Most Germans find that nuclear power generation comes with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. From this vantage point, nuclear is not all that attractive.
kitkat_new 5y ago
Tell me about the answers of France They have more than 50 plants, partly very old and due for shutdown, supplying 70% of ELECTRICAL energy. They want to build up to 14 new ones. Well and don't expect them before 2040 So now tell me how this answers going climate neutral.
- s_dev 5y ago
  >So now tell me how this answers going climate neutral. Because Nuclear energy emits a tiny fraction of the Co2 that fossil fuels emit for the same energy.
  - kitkat_new 5y ago
    and how are they going to get rid of it?
    - snovv_crash 5y ago
      Preferably react it again in a 'fast' reactor and get the other 90% of the energy out. And after that bury it for a much shorter amount of time than traditional waste requires, since it isn't as high in energy.
    - s_dev 5y ago
      In a more considered manner than the billions of tonnes of carbon and crap polluting our environment causing the greenhouse effect. A small bit of nuclear waste can be buried deep in a secure location.
      - kitkat_new 5y ago
        I am talking about fossil energy
danans 5y ago
> Buying Russian gas is actually making Russia more democratic Right now, autocratic Russia and Saudi Arabia are actively colluding to drive up oil prices during the invasion of Ukraine. https://theintercept.com/2022/02/23/ukraine-russia-gas-prices-saudi-arabia-biden/ https://theintercept.com/2022/02/23/ukraine-russia-gas-price... EDIT: I misread the tone of the original comment, and have updated my comment to reflect it.
- cbdumas 5y ago
  I think the comment you're responding to was using that as an example of a "silly opinion" that needs revising.
  - danans 5y ago
    Thanks for pointing that out. I've updated my comment to be illustrative rather than corrective.
- s_dev 5y ago
  Completely agree however that was the line German government officials were trotting out to justify buying fuel from Russia when other EU countries were rolling their eyes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jillesvangurp 5y ago
You are mixing topics here and please restrain yourself with the "royal we" here. Some of us don't simply don't share your beliefs. The mistake the Germans made, which they are now correcting, is over reliance on Russian gas to bridge the brief gap to energy neutrality. Though, in fairness, until Putin's melt-down last week, he could have saved that deal and kept on milking the Germans for billions for quite some time. Such melt-downs have not been seen in international politics since Trump reluctantly disappeared from it last year. You might say that Putin (whom Trump referred to as a 'genius' just last week) has trumped Trump in that respect. Basically, the fix for Germany is importing expensive natural gas from the US and elsewhere as a stop gap solution while accelerating the move away from burning that to clean up the energy sector and lower cost. That's what they just announced. 80% renewables eight years from now and 100% five years later. They are over 50% right now. Also, a recession is a great time to inject some capital into your economy. And of course the Germans have a healthy economy and low debt; unlike certain other countries. And of course they export a lot of their renewable tech to others; like the US. Also, France and Germany have connected grids. So, with Germany producing lots of wind powrr and France providing nuclear base-load, both will be fine. No need for Germany to build nuclear plants. And no need for France to build a lot more plants either when they can import cheap German renewables to complement their expensive nuclear supply. The math to get rid of coal and natural gas in fifteen years actually adds up.
- LexGray 5y ago
  Maybe that is the end goal of this nonsense. Make Jan 6 look like a forgivable hiccup compared to loosing 200k armed conscripts. Suddenly Trump looks rational by comparison. Importing gas from the US looks difficult given how polluting cargo ships are and the complete lack of capacity.
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    It's not nonsense if they get it done. 2035 is only 13 years away. That might be within the governing period of the current chancellor. Importing gas even with the pollution associated with shipping it in is still better than burning lignite; which actually affects the health of lots of people in Germany and France (depending on winds). That's what they are trying to get rid off in the next eight years or so. Shutting down coal is the number 1 priority as it is by far the most polluting. If they could have done that with Russian gas that would have been better indeed. But that ship has sailed. Shutting down gas becomes the next priority after coal has been removed as a source of energy. You keep on dragging in Trump. I'm not sure what your argument is other than that he did not do anything productive here other than promoting coal; which I would argue is indeed pure lunacy. Capacities can be scaled up if the price is right.
nest0r 5y ago
Just curious who is the biggest producer for nuclear fuel? ;)

by s_dev 5y ago

_ph_ 5y ago

France doesn't have any good answer on how to solve energy problems. Yes, they currently have a large amount of nuclear reactors - probably the most nuclear industry nation on the planet. However, most of them are aging and so far they fail to build new plants at a rate to sustain their production long term. They have 1 in construction, much delayed and with huge cost overruns. Even if they build another 10 that only delays the switch, they would have to replace 50 nuclear power plants. Their nuclear future so far depends on prolonging the run times of the existing plants.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
France has 50 plants? They need to go headfirst into modular reactors. Usually I would say that nuclear research and development dollars are wasted: they just displace purchasing solar/wind/storage. But with that big of an extant installed base, with approved/regulated sites and various other infrastructure, they may be the only country that can save money staying nuclear. Of course, being a LFTR stan I would push for mass manufactured LFTRs the size of a couple shipping containers that can be decommissioned on a regular basis. 50 big nuclear plants replaced with about 1000 or more shipping container sized reactors on a replacement schedule. LFTR would reduce waste, and separation of other fission products could be done elsewhere. WHat is the French resistance to LFTR? I know that the US has strange bureaucratic resistances to LFTR built into academic funding and their regulatory agencies as an artifact of the ORNL reactor vs PWR reactor politics from the 1950s. If France just piggybacking on the solid fuel rod reprocessing industry of the US and its same resistance to new reactor designs?
- VaxWithSex 5y ago
  None of these modular "blueprint reactors" has been build. not a single one is producing power on gridscale.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    You are correct, but nuclear is weird: it has so many regulatory and NIMBY hurdles that change is hard. However, what has happened is that many many people have taken a swing at scalable reactors for a long time in the design phase. And we do know the test ORNL reactor for MSR/LFTR practically fit in a closet, at least for the actual reactor. So there is an opportunity.
  - ryathal 5y ago
    The U.S. Navy has a few hundred samples built. They just put boats around them.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  Its 56 even. That is a huge fleet to replace. I am not in the details of their decisions, but I think one can simply conclude that if a nation, which is so all-in on nuclear like France, doesn't have a good answer yet, it seems to be a non-trivial problem. France has their own fuel reprocessing industry and had breeding reactors in the past but gave up on them.
realusername 5y ago
Yes but even those problems are far easier to handle than the ones of renewables. On one side we have investment problems, large scale planning issues, political issues, workforce issues. On the other side we simply have the tech ... just not existing at all (and nobody knows if it will). Current rollout of renewables in France has also been a financial disaster and I don't see many people talking about that.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  >Yes but even those problems are far easier to handle than the ones of renewables. I don't think so. Look at UK's recent transition to renewables. They're making big moves nowadays, but we only talk about Germany. France is going backwards (it was an excellent idea to build nuclear plants after WW2, but not so much today compared to renewables' plunging cost and progress in energy storage).
  - realusername 5y ago
    France's renewable story has also been a disaster, 120 billions euros invested (half of the total cost of the whole nuclear grid (!) ) for 5% of the electricity production. Even Flamanville isn't as bad as that, there's hope it'll be good for future plants, that was just completely wasted.
- kitkat_new 5y ago
  France needs renewables, if they don't want to ruin themselves and build 150 additional reactors. If they want to become carbon neutral at some point... "On the other side we simply have the tech ... just not existing at all (and nobody knows if it will)." What tech doesn't exist in your opinion? P2G is tech with "large scale planning issues".
  - realusername 5y ago
    > France needs renewables, if they don't want to ruin themselves and build 150 additional reactors. If they want to become carbon neutral at some point... As I said in another comment, France's investment in renewable has actually been even worse in terms of results than Flamanville. 120 billions euros (half of the cost of the whole nuclear grid) for 5% of the production, you can't really go lower than that. In terms of carbon, the other European countries have a lot to catchup to reach France's level. They currently fight very hard against carbon pricing because well, that would mean the french industry would have an edge compared to them... P2G just isn't good enough for now, let's be fair.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Per capita I believe they do, total amount the US has about 50% more capacity(which is a shame given how much bigger we are than France). we should have a lot more if we were serious about global warming.

cookiengineer 5y ago

The discussions in the Bundestag streams the last couple days were pretty unified in their decision making. Germany is now going to up their military defenses, and that seems to be the highest priority. The dependency on gazprom kind of put us in "Schach", so we as a country can't do anything (as the chancellor kind of admitted in his speech). Historically, Schroeder has always been the direct bridge to Putin. And he knows how to hold the mutual respect that Putin expects from others. It seems as the current ruling parties don't realize that this is a game of strategy, not a game of moral or emotions. You can't win against Putin with moral code, so I kind of fear that they make it worse and he'll hold a grudge against Germany.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Sometimes the threat of war and invasion cuts through a bunch of cruft and corruption. This is another miscalculation on Putin's side. Ukraine was the comfort blanket for Europe keeping them complacent. This crossed an emotional line with the entirety of Europe. Heck, I feel it in the United States. Russia/Putin are nuts and not entirely rational. They are actual palpable evil: a direct threat to your survival and prosperity. Remember the dogs thing with Merkel and Putin? I'm sure the "elites" of the EU have wanted to get more coordinated against Russia, but the populace was a bit ... soft. Putin may have motivated far more people than just the populace of the Ukraine. Looking at the map and the conduct of the war so far, this is a massive geopolitical opportunity for the West. Set fleets of drones into Ukraine and repulse the forces. Actually, I would sucker Belarus into invasion (they've already announced it, have they actually done it). That would provide a casus belli for Ukraine (ahem NATO) forces to then invade Belarus, the other major buffer state between the NATO and Russia. Topple their autocrat. Then put Belarus and Ukraine into NATO. Then there is a wall of NATO states at the doorstep of Russia.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  I was thinking something similar recently. When an army leaves the safety of its homeland to invade another country, it becomes vulnerable to its supply lines being cut off and being stranded in a foreign country with lack of fuel, food/water, and/or ammo. We’re already seeing scattered anecdotal examples of this happening to the Russian invasion force even without their supply lines being directly attacked. I wonder how difficult it would be for Western powers to assemble a fleet of drones, stick a bunch of Ukrainian flag decals on them, and then attack and disrupt the main Russian supply lines into Ukraine. It would only take a few days of that before the Russian army runs out of material to fight the war with. Then Ukrainian troops can force a surrender, round them up, treat them appropriately under the Geneva Conventions, and then offer and encourage them to accept political asylum in the West. (Same with Belarus if they invade). Destroy or confiscate the materials. Then boom, Russia no longer has an army. And without the West ever directly attacking the Russian (or Belorussian) homeland.

ploden 5y ago

I look forward to the day when renewables provide >90% of our energy, and old men on the Internet are still bloviating that it can't be done. As for me, I'm looking at pallets of solar panels on eBay to expand our PV system.

VaxWithSex 5y ago
Leben mit der Energiewende TV! https://www.youtube.com/c/LebenmitderEnergiewende https://www.youtube.com/c/LebenmitderEnergiewende
realusername 5y ago
I'll believe it when the tech for that will exist, you can't bet the future of the country on non-existing tech which might come up from R&D
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  What is the tech that doesn’t exist?
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  The tech exists today with solar, wind, batteries, transmission, hydro (pumped and otherwise), demand response, and electrification using heat pumps and EVs. We're not waiting on anything groundbreaking, no heroic technologies are needed. There is no magic. It's just a matter of manufacturing/install capacity and funds. It's like insulation for buildings: not sexy, but it works and it's a known quantity. Work backwards from first principles based on how much energy the Sun delivers to the planet. US: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-impact/news/recent-news/the-us-can-reach-90-percent-clean-electricity-by-2035-dependably-and-without-increasing-consumer-bills https://gspp.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-impact/news/recent-new... Australia: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.05.168 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.05.168 Europe: https://www.energyplan.eu/smartenergyeurope/ https://www.energyplan.eu/smartenergyeurope/ | https://www.irena.org/publications/2018/Feb/Renewable-energy-prospects-for-the-EU https://www.irena.org/publications/2018/Feb/Renewable-energy... | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918312790 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191... Central/South America: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173820 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173820 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173820 (if anyone has other resources for geographies I didn't mention, please comment with them to contribute to the knowledge graph!)

V1ndaar 5y ago

> The past week will have a lot of Germans revising many silly opinions they were originally able to afford but not anymore Honestly, as a German myself I'm rather doubtful of that unfortunately. Some? Maybe. Many? Probably not. I cannot even convince my parents (who grew up in Germany during the time when the anti nuclear sentiment really started) to rethink their anti nuclear stance (despite having a great relationship with them). I say that as a physicist that absolutely sees there are flaws with aging nuclear plants. But people who are not able to a) appreciate the energy density of nuclear and b) see that climate change is an urgent problem we face, whereas any issues from nuclear waste are long term problems (not even talking about future reactor technologies etc. etc.) is just... I don't know? It sounds insane, but indoctrinated? I just utterly fail to understand. I mean, what's the point of a "nuclear waste free Earth" if our civilization collapses due to climate change?

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
Why oppose nuclear and renewables? It's about getting rid off fossil fuels isn't it? It's like focusing on competition among EV manufacturers when they are tiny compared to ICE. Take a step back.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  > Why oppose nuclear I'm not sure anyone here will have a good answer for you, but anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany is incredibly strong.
AnonCoward4 5y ago
Maybe the problem with the "green" nuclear energy is that we still do not have a final waste site for it. This stuff may not be much in terms of size, but it is bad for hundreds of thousands of years and can contaminate a lot of water. > I mean, what's the point of a "nuclear waste free Earth" if our civilization collapses due to climate change? That is a bit panic-fuelled and frankly even religious, while completely ignoring the immediate threat of radiation, which cannot be reversed for hundreds of thousands of years. PS.: Climate change is going to happen whatever we do. This happened even before we existed.

sascha_sl 5y ago

> Nuclear is bad because it produces waste despite that waste often being the size of a can of coke after a year of service? The history of the German anti-nuclear movement is quite long, Chernobyl has essentially put a stop on new investments and killed any ongoing research for good (see THTR-300). This is also due to the ecological impact it had on Germany. And now, because of this stop in new investments, Germany ended up with reactors stuck somewhere in between 1960 and 1980. Critical issues went unaddressed, the control rooms are cold war era time machines, incidents were swept under the rug for fear of it finally dropping the sword of damocles on the industry. Operators showed gross negligence all around (especially Vattenfall, who are now suing the German government over the phase out) and it's a small wonder we've not had a more serious incident (though significantly larger incidence of leukemia around Krümmel should probably be considered serious). Nuclear is not happening here. The best we can hope for is keeping our fossil fuels mostly off and buying nuclear power from France until renewables are viable on their own (if ever).

isomel 5y ago
> This is also due to the ecological impact it had on Germany. What impact did it had on the environment in Germany?
- layer8 5y ago
  See here for example: https://www.thelocal.de/20100729/28819/ https://www.thelocal.de/20100729/28819/

landemva 5y ago

Do you have insight into why the chief of Greenpeace and an American is in charge of Germany climate? https://www.greenpeace.org/international/author/jennifer-morgan/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/author/jennifer-mor... Maybe she is being granted German citizenship to become Secretary of State.

_ph_ 5y ago
There are some factual errors in what you stated. She isn't becoming the Secretary of State, but a high ranking official in the state department. Her role is to be a special envoy to discuss climate related topics with foreign states. Which absolutely makes sense as to stop climate change, an international effort needs to be made. The state department would be the obvious administration to conduct these talks and puts them on the same priority level as previously economical and military topics. But indeed, she needs to take up a German passport to become a state official.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  Yep, it's a genius move by the Germans. The actual secretary of state is from the Green party, Annalena Baerbock. She just deployed some great pragmatic & lateral thinking. They have an American lobbying as their official representative for their cause on the international stage and the US (obviously). And they export renewable tech to America. Win win. Move the cause further while doing some business. I wouldn't necessarily have voted for the green party in Germany (I live here but I am not a German national), but this is both very rational and very smart. Loving it.

loehnsberg 5y ago

The following about the sentiment towards nuclear power in Germany: - Germany is a densely populated country and Germans have always been sensitive towards environmental pollution. - Nuclear fallout is a reality as every consumer of mushrooms from Bavarian forests knows that are still today contaminated with caesium-137. - Finding a secure final storage for nuclear waste has failed. The front-runner in Gorleben proved to be unreliable after decades of serving as a temporary storage. - Most Germans believe that their country would have been obliterated if a nuclear war between East and West had turned hot. - Most Germans find that nuclear power generation comes with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. From this vantage point, nuclear is not all that attractive.

kitkat_new 5y ago

Tell me about the answers of France They have more than 50 plants, partly very old and due for shutdown, supplying 70% of ELECTRICAL energy. They want to build up to 14 new ones. Well and don't expect them before 2040 So now tell me how this answers going climate neutral.

s_dev 5y ago
>So now tell me how this answers going climate neutral. Because Nuclear energy emits a tiny fraction of the Co2 that fossil fuels emit for the same energy.
- kitkat_new 5y ago
  and how are they going to get rid of it?
  - snovv_crash 5y ago
    Preferably react it again in a 'fast' reactor and get the other 90% of the energy out. And after that bury it for a much shorter amount of time than traditional waste requires, since it isn't as high in energy.
  - s_dev 5y ago
    In a more considered manner than the billions of tonnes of carbon and crap polluting our environment causing the greenhouse effect. A small bit of nuclear waste can be buried deep in a secure location.
    - kitkat_new 5y ago
      I am talking about fossil energy

danans 5y ago

> Buying Russian gas is actually making Russia more democratic Right now, autocratic Russia and Saudi Arabia are actively colluding to drive up oil prices during the invasion of Ukraine. https://theintercept.com/2022/02/23/ukraine-russia-gas-prices-saudi-arabia-biden/ https://theintercept.com/2022/02/23/ukraine-russia-gas-price... EDIT: I misread the tone of the original comment, and have updated my comment to reflect it.

cbdumas 5y ago
I think the comment you're responding to was using that as an example of a "silly opinion" that needs revising.
- danans 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. I've updated my comment to be illustrative rather than corrective.
s_dev 5y ago
Completely agree however that was the line German government officials were trotting out to justify buying fuel from Russia when other EU countries were rolling their eyes.
deleted 5y ago
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jillesvangurp 5y ago

You are mixing topics here and please restrain yourself with the "royal we" here. Some of us don't simply don't share your beliefs. The mistake the Germans made, which they are now correcting, is over reliance on Russian gas to bridge the brief gap to energy neutrality. Though, in fairness, until Putin's melt-down last week, he could have saved that deal and kept on milking the Germans for billions for quite some time. Such melt-downs have not been seen in international politics since Trump reluctantly disappeared from it last year. You might say that Putin (whom Trump referred to as a 'genius' just last week) has trumped Trump in that respect. Basically, the fix for Germany is importing expensive natural gas from the US and elsewhere as a stop gap solution while accelerating the move away from burning that to clean up the energy sector and lower cost. That's what they just announced. 80% renewables eight years from now and 100% five years later. They are over 50% right now. Also, a recession is a great time to inject some capital into your economy. And of course the Germans have a healthy economy and low debt; unlike certain other countries. And of course they export a lot of their renewable tech to others; like the US. Also, France and Germany have connected grids. So, with Germany producing lots of wind powrr and France providing nuclear base-load, both will be fine. No need for Germany to build nuclear plants. And no need for France to build a lot more plants either when they can import cheap German renewables to complement their expensive nuclear supply. The math to get rid of coal and natural gas in fifteen years actually adds up.

LexGray 5y ago
Maybe that is the end goal of this nonsense. Make Jan 6 look like a forgivable hiccup compared to loosing 200k armed conscripts. Suddenly Trump looks rational by comparison. Importing gas from the US looks difficult given how polluting cargo ships are and the complete lack of capacity.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  It's not nonsense if they get it done. 2035 is only 13 years away. That might be within the governing period of the current chancellor. Importing gas even with the pollution associated with shipping it in is still better than burning lignite; which actually affects the health of lots of people in Germany and France (depending on winds). That's what they are trying to get rid off in the next eight years or so. Shutting down coal is the number 1 priority as it is by far the most polluting. If they could have done that with Russian gas that would have been better indeed. But that ship has sailed. Shutting down gas becomes the next priority after coal has been removed as a source of energy. You keep on dragging in Trump. I'm not sure what your argument is other than that he did not do anything productive here other than promoting coal; which I would argue is indeed pure lunacy. Capacities can be scaled up if the price is right.

nest0r 5y ago

Just curious who is the biggest producer for nuclear fuel? ;)