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Good job leaving out some important details to blame the greens. 1. Coal was turned on because France messed up their nuclear fleet 2. They were meant to be t

Good job leaving out some important details to blame the greens. 1. Coal was turned on because France messed up their nuclear fleet 2. They were meant to be turned off. But due to Russia's boyscout army having a field day, they were put on ready, in case the gas goes low. Which didn't happen, but ironically they had to be turned on to keep France from going dark. 3. It was conservatives who messed up the renewable thing and did a back and forth with nuclear 4. It was conservatives who stopped or slowed down the shutdown of fossil power plants, because of the "but muh job" gang 5. It was conservatives, once again, who put ridiculous rules in place to prevent wind power from being built in sufficient amount (Bavaria) 6. Greens weren't in power for 16 years, but still get the blame. Once again it was conservatives in the majority, who did their best to make fossil fuel lobbyists happy the entire time. 7. The majority of households heat with fossil fuels (mostly gas nowadays). No amount of nuclear can change that overnight. Millions of homes need to switch their entire heating systems. This should have been done long ago, but guess who prevented it? So if you want to blame someone, blame the CDU/CSU for their lobbyism and the SPD for their lack of a spine.

sc4les 3y ago
This. But that’s not the current narrative unfortunately
Zenst 3y ago
> 1. Coal was turned on because France messed up their nuclear fleet Not true. France had their nuclear fleet in limbo, unable to know how to plan due to EU rules saying X amount of energy must be generated from a green source. Sadly EU (well Germany) blocked that for many years, causing France to be stuck in a position of unable to invest or develop its nuclear energy (which btw they used to export lots, including to Germany). https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-veto-eu-plan-to-label-nuclear-energy-as-green-european-commission/ https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-veto-eu-plan-to-l... That got fixed in the end, as long as they agreed to label Gas as green energy generation, which Germany wanted and indeed, needed to comply with EU rules they help create. You could say Germany handicapped France and held them to ransom, you could say that, but to say France messed up would be utterly unfair with the full context at play.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  edit: I think I misread your claim about EU rules and "gas" as being about e-fuels, but I'll leave the comment as it still seems broadly relevant. Regarding your claims about what "Germany" was up to, the article I posted elsewhere in the thread suggest it was the FDP overuling the Green's agenda. > They're particularly worried about Berlin's blockade of an EU ban on sales of polluting cars and vehicles from 2035, which the German government previously agreed to, and was specifically promoted by the Greens. However, at the very last stage of the legislative approval process, the FDP of Porsche-driving Finance Minister Christian Lindner threw a spanner at the works, demanding that the European Commission create a loophole for cars operating with synthetic fuels, or e-fuels.
  - Zenst 3y ago
    Aha, we use gas to refer to "natural gas" and mindful of some countries refer to what we call petrol as gas. Hence, the whole car aspect is a whole other subject. Sorry for the confusion. I didn't go into, nor felt need to go into the finer political drivers, beyond, the overall representation of effect that was Germany, who sign and agreed things with the EU as a country, hence said Germany.
- BurningPenguin 3y ago
  That looks more like a somewhat recent thing. There is the Ademe study, which showed that renewable would be a good idea for France. Which was swept under the table, because it didn't fit Macrons idea of going full speed nuclear. https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-idUSL8N1YF5HC https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-idUSL8N1... Maybe having a sizeable renewable fleet would have helped to avoid much of the problems France has now. But i guess they also had a government playing that back and forth game... There was also a lot going on there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Histor... So, putting all blame on Germany alone doesn't really fit the history. Oh, and we're also net exporter of energy for many years now: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331853/electricity-imports-exports-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331853/electricity-impo...
_dain_ 3y ago
>1. Coal was turned on because France messed up their nuclear fleet ... and they would not have needed to do this in the first place if Germany's nuclear fleet hadn't already been crippled on purpose. You cannot deliberately reduce your baseload capacity, and then blame another country for an accidental reduction. >2. They were meant to be turned off. But due to Russia's boyscout army having a field day, they were put on ready, in case the gas goes low. Which didn't happen, but ironically they had to be turned on to keep France from going dark. They should never have been "meant to be turned off" in the first place. And by the way, the gas did go low. That was what all the energy rationing and crazy prices were about. People and businesses had to reduce their consumption of energy. >3. It was conservatives who messed up the renewable thing and did a back and forth with nuclear; >4. It was conservatives ... Yes and who was forcing that back-and-forth? They're trying to win anti-nuclear votes and get shit done in states with Green coalitions. You recognize that the fossil fuel lobby can sway the behaviour of politicians without literally being in power as a formal governing party, yet you don't recognize the lobbying influence of the Greens, which is much stronger in practical terms? >7. The majority of households heat with fossil fuels (mostly gas nowadays). No amount of nuclear can change that overnight. Millions of homes need to switch their entire heating systems. This should have been done long ago, but guess who prevented it? This is a funny thing Green apologists do: they'll say nuclear can't fix gas dependency overnight. But the gas-dependency problem is only in existence because years ago nuclear was chosen to be phased out, and the only alternative was gas. In the counterfactual world where this didn't happen, a greater share of houses would have electric heating rather than gas, like it is in France, so the problem would not exist. In other words, Green anti-nuclear policies create an artificial problem, then they'll use the fact that nuclear can't instantly fix that problem as an additional anti-nuclear argument. Nobody else is as fanatically opposed to nuclear power as the Greens. They ran a focused, deliberate campaign of propaganda, lies, obstructionism, protest, and sabotage, over decades. Conservative fecklessness doesn't get you to this situation. UK conservatives aren't much different to yours; they take money from fossil fuel interests and have to listen to anti-wind NIMBYs. But somehow our old reactors are still running, and yours aren't, and the difference is something in the German political culture that made the Greens more effective there than here. Imagine a counterfactual Green party, actually worthy of the name, that shed the anti-nuclear message after the Cold War ended, and embraced nuclear as a valuable tool to fight global warming. Imagine that party is as effective in that timeline as it is in ours. In that timeline, the Energiewende doesn't have a gas-dependent "transitional phase"; instead existing nuclear reactors are kept running and new ones begin construction around the end of the 2000s, coming online in the late 2010s, where they form the backbone of a decarbonized grid. Electric heating gradually displaces gas heating, Putin's regime doesn't get as much hard currency from gas exports, and nobody would have ever heard of Greta Thurnberg.

sc4les 3y ago

This. But that’s not the current narrative unfortunately

Zenst 3y ago

> 1. Coal was turned on because France messed up their nuclear fleet Not true. France had their nuclear fleet in limbo, unable to know how to plan due to EU rules saying X amount of energy must be generated from a green source. Sadly EU (well Germany) blocked that for many years, causing France to be stuck in a position of unable to invest or develop its nuclear energy (which btw they used to export lots, including to Germany). https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-veto-eu-plan-to-label-nuclear-energy-as-green-european-commission/ https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-veto-eu-plan-to-l... That got fixed in the end, as long as they agreed to label Gas as green energy generation, which Germany wanted and indeed, needed to comply with EU rules they help create. You could say Germany handicapped France and held them to ransom, you could say that, but to say France messed up would be utterly unfair with the full context at play.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
edit: I think I misread your claim about EU rules and "gas" as being about e-fuels, but I'll leave the comment as it still seems broadly relevant. Regarding your claims about what "Germany" was up to, the article I posted elsewhere in the thread suggest it was the FDP overuling the Green's agenda. > They're particularly worried about Berlin's blockade of an EU ban on sales of polluting cars and vehicles from 2035, which the German government previously agreed to, and was specifically promoted by the Greens. However, at the very last stage of the legislative approval process, the FDP of Porsche-driving Finance Minister Christian Lindner threw a spanner at the works, demanding that the European Commission create a loophole for cars operating with synthetic fuels, or e-fuels.
- Zenst 3y ago
  Aha, we use gas to refer to "natural gas" and mindful of some countries refer to what we call petrol as gas. Hence, the whole car aspect is a whole other subject. Sorry for the confusion. I didn't go into, nor felt need to go into the finer political drivers, beyond, the overall representation of effect that was Germany, who sign and agreed things with the EU as a country, hence said Germany.
BurningPenguin 3y ago
That looks more like a somewhat recent thing. There is the Ademe study, which showed that renewable would be a good idea for France. Which was swept under the table, because it didn't fit Macrons idea of going full speed nuclear. https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-idUSL8N1YF5HC https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-idUSL8N1... Maybe having a sizeable renewable fleet would have helped to avoid much of the problems France has now. But i guess they also had a government playing that back and forth game... There was also a lot going on there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Histor... So, putting all blame on Germany alone doesn't really fit the history. Oh, and we're also net exporter of energy for many years now: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331853/electricity-imports-exports-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331853/electricity-impo...

_dain_ 3y ago

>1. Coal was turned on because France messed up their nuclear fleet ... and they would not have needed to do this in the first place if Germany's nuclear fleet hadn't already been crippled on purpose. You cannot deliberately reduce your baseload capacity, and then blame another country for an accidental reduction. >2. They were meant to be turned off. But due to Russia's boyscout army having a field day, they were put on ready, in case the gas goes low. Which didn't happen, but ironically they had to be turned on to keep France from going dark. They should never have been "meant to be turned off" in the first place. And by the way, the gas did go low. That was what all the energy rationing and crazy prices were about. People and businesses had to reduce their consumption of energy. >3. It was conservatives who messed up the renewable thing and did a back and forth with nuclear; >4. It was conservatives ... Yes and who was forcing that back-and-forth? They're trying to win anti-nuclear votes and get shit done in states with Green coalitions. You recognize that the fossil fuel lobby can sway the behaviour of politicians without literally being in power as a formal governing party, yet you don't recognize the lobbying influence of the Greens, which is much stronger in practical terms? >7. The majority of households heat with fossil fuels (mostly gas nowadays). No amount of nuclear can change that overnight. Millions of homes need to switch their entire heating systems. This should have been done long ago, but guess who prevented it? This is a funny thing Green apologists do: they'll say nuclear can't fix gas dependency overnight. But the gas-dependency problem is only in existence because years ago nuclear was chosen to be phased out, and the only alternative was gas. In the counterfactual world where this didn't happen, a greater share of houses would have electric heating rather than gas, like it is in France, so the problem would not exist. In other words, Green anti-nuclear policies create an artificial problem, then they'll use the fact that nuclear can't instantly fix that problem as an additional anti-nuclear argument. Nobody else is as fanatically opposed to nuclear power as the Greens. They ran a focused, deliberate campaign of propaganda, lies, obstructionism, protest, and sabotage, over decades. Conservative fecklessness doesn't get you to this situation. UK conservatives aren't much different to yours; they take money from fossil fuel interests and have to listen to anti-wind NIMBYs. But somehow our old reactors are still running, and yours aren't, and the difference is something in the German political culture that made the Greens more effective there than here. Imagine a counterfactual Green party, actually worthy of the name, that shed the anti-nuclear message after the Cold War ended, and embraced nuclear as a valuable tool to fight global warming. Imagine that party is as effective in that timeline as it is in ours. In that timeline, the Energiewende doesn't have a gas-dependent "transitional phase"; instead existing nuclear reactors are kept running and new ones begin construction around the end of the 2000s, coming online in the late 2010s, where they form the backbone of a decarbonized grid. Electric heating gradually displaces gas heating, Putin's regime doesn't get as much hard currency from gas exports, and nobody would have ever heard of Greta Thurnberg.