3 ms·

To be fair, he's making two separate points. One technological and one political. Germany is neither sunny nor windy nor has a long coastline. It's a poor ca

To be fair, he's making two separate points. One technological and one political. Germany is neither sunny nor windy nor has a long coastline. It's a poor candidate for those forms of energy regardless of who's making the panels and windmills. If they want zero emissions from power production they'll have to go nuclear or build out the infrastructure to import clean energy from countries with better renewable options. Solar and Wind as we know them are part of the solution, but aside from a few areas that are abnormally sunny or windy by global standards there's no way they can even theoretically be the entire solution, and that's not even touching on the inadequacy of current battery technologies and mineral inputs needed to manufacture all this stuff. From a political perspective, I'd say he's right that being beholden to China is little better than being beholden to Russia, only practical difference being China lacking options for military invasion. Simple fact is there is no solution to climate change at the moment. We're working on a number of things that might one day become pieces of the solution, but I see too much "we just have to do X, Y and Z and climate change will be solved!" rhetoric that is wishful thinking at best, and ivory tower edicts ignoring all externalities of said decisions at worst. The world isn't a computer model.

marcosdumay 4y ago
Buying photovoltaic panels does not make one beholden to anybody. What is completely different from buying fuel.
- ISL 4y ago
  In the short term, yes, but in the long term, panel-production capacity will be a key pillar of a country's independence. Buying panels from another country helps that other country realize both enduring expertise and aides their economy of scale. Also, should solar-powered countries ever go to war, I suspect single airbursts of comparatively small conventional munitions will be sufficient to shatter large swaths of panels, making production capacity important.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    The long term contains plenty of time to grow internal industry or find another seller. And yes, productive capacity of everything is important when you consider a war. Still, fuel supplies are much more fragile than solar generation.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Lomborg is Danish, a country famous for it's success with wind power. He's not making a specific point about Germany, he's attacking anything that might lead to government action on climate change: Seven years ago: > When considering climate change, most people think wind turbines and solar panels are a big part of the solution. But, over the next 25 years, the contribution of solar and wind power to resolving the problem will be trivial – and the cost will be enormous. Thirteen years ago: > A good illustration is Denmark, which early on provided huge subsidies for wind power, building thousands of inefficient turbines around the country from the 1980s onwards. Today, it is often remarked that Denmark is providing every third terrestrial wind turbine in the world, creating billions in income and jobs. > A few years ago, however, the Danish Economic Council conducted a full evaluation of the wind turbine industry, taking into account not only its beneficial effects on jobs and production, but also the subsidies that it receives. The net effect for Denmark was found to be a small cost, not benefit. > Not surprisingly, the leading Danish wind producer is today urging strong action on climate change that would imply even more sales of wind turbines. Turning round after 20 years of saying solar is bullshit and attacking the wind industry in his home nation as if they're part of a climate hoax and then complaining that they're all made in China is shockingly brazen.
legulere 4y ago
> they'll have to go nuclear Germany built up more renewables in 20 years than there ever was nuclear and the speed is still accelerating: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.s... Nuclear currently is too slow to be built and too expensive for fighting climate change in time. France is partially to blame for the current energy crisis in Europe, because they put pride in their nuclear power plants before realistic replacements for their old reactors that are way over their initial designed runtimes.
- rpdillon 4y ago
  My prediction: we'll need nuclear in the end. Time to get serious and invest in new tech. Light water reactors were invented roughly 70 years ago, and it shows. There are much more modern designs we can employ. I wish we didn't discuss 'nuclear' as though it's one technology. Have no problem with renewables in the meantime.
  - legulere 4y ago
    Work on the EPR started in 1989 with the first reactor starting commercial operation 2018. That's almost 30 years for an evolutionary Gen III design. Bringing more revolutionary Gen IV designs to market will take probably even longer, and that's not speaking about mass roll out. We don't have that time to prevent a climate disaster. It really makes sense though to keep existing nuclear plants running as long as their safety can be guaranteed.

marcosdumay 4y ago

Buying photovoltaic panels does not make one beholden to anybody. What is completely different from buying fuel.

ISL 4y ago
In the short term, yes, but in the long term, panel-production capacity will be a key pillar of a country's independence. Buying panels from another country helps that other country realize both enduring expertise and aides their economy of scale. Also, should solar-powered countries ever go to war, I suspect single airbursts of comparatively small conventional munitions will be sufficient to shatter large swaths of panels, making production capacity important.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  The long term contains plenty of time to grow internal industry or find another seller. And yes, productive capacity of everything is important when you consider a war. Still, fuel supplies are much more fragile than solar generation.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Lomborg is Danish, a country famous for it's success with wind power. He's not making a specific point about Germany, he's attacking anything that might lead to government action on climate change: Seven years ago: > When considering climate change, most people think wind turbines and solar panels are a big part of the solution. But, over the next 25 years, the contribution of solar and wind power to resolving the problem will be trivial – and the cost will be enormous. Thirteen years ago: > A good illustration is Denmark, which early on provided huge subsidies for wind power, building thousands of inefficient turbines around the country from the 1980s onwards. Today, it is often remarked that Denmark is providing every third terrestrial wind turbine in the world, creating billions in income and jobs. > A few years ago, however, the Danish Economic Council conducted a full evaluation of the wind turbine industry, taking into account not only its beneficial effects on jobs and production, but also the subsidies that it receives. The net effect for Denmark was found to be a small cost, not benefit. > Not surprisingly, the leading Danish wind producer is today urging strong action on climate change that would imply even more sales of wind turbines. Turning round after 20 years of saying solar is bullshit and attacking the wind industry in his home nation as if they're part of a climate hoax and then complaining that they're all made in China is shockingly brazen.

legulere 4y ago

> they'll have to go nuclear Germany built up more renewables in 20 years than there ever was nuclear and the speed is still accelerating: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.s... Nuclear currently is too slow to be built and too expensive for fighting climate change in time. France is partially to blame for the current energy crisis in Europe, because they put pride in their nuclear power plants before realistic replacements for their old reactors that are way over their initial designed runtimes.

rpdillon 4y ago
My prediction: we'll need nuclear in the end. Time to get serious and invest in new tech. Light water reactors were invented roughly 70 years ago, and it shows. There are much more modern designs we can employ. I wish we didn't discuss 'nuclear' as though it's one technology. Have no problem with renewables in the meantime.
- legulere 4y ago
  Work on the EPR started in 1989 with the first reactor starting commercial operation 2018. That's almost 30 years for an evolutionary Gen III design. Bringing more revolutionary Gen IV designs to market will take probably even longer, and that's not speaking about mass roll out. We don't have that time to prevent a climate disaster. It really makes sense though to keep existing nuclear plants running as long as their safety can be guaranteed.