2 ms·

> we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead. In my opinion, you're confusing bad political choices (=let's get addicte

by mk89 3y ago

> we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead. In my opinion, you're confusing bad political choices (=let's get addicted to Russian gas, then we will see about it in 10 years) with everything else. Germany could have done more in the past 10 years to not get to the point in 2022 to be threatened by a country - they didn't, now they have to brute-force innovation/renovation. I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
Germany's energy policy is the best example in Europe of ideology over pragmatism. The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. Ban of fracking is not pragmatic, either. If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative.
- mk89 3y ago
  > The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. > If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative. It's different in the sense that you don't depend entirely on a single country for your gas (like it was before), so that particular country cannot threaten you like they did. The goal of this governement is to drastically reduce energy consumption and use renewables, while at the same time "buying" gas from wherever else. This was for a political reason, otherwise they would have kept on buying gas from Russia and implemented slowly their green/eco program. The issue is not fracking yes or no, but the fact that in the previous 10-15 years it wasn't done enough to avoid what happened in 2022.
  - eru 3y ago
    > I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. Well, voters are still idiots: even with the accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima accounted for, nuclear power still kills far fewer people per Joule than basically any other form of power generation. And that includes renewables. (Though large scale solar doesn't look nearly as bad, if you separate out residential rooftop solar into its own category.) The German reactors are also of a design that can not have the kinds of accidents they had in those two examples.
    - mk89 3y ago
      Voters are usually biased and shaped by what they see on TV. If TV shows a disaster in a nuclear plant that can lead to X, they will just connect "nuclear plants are dangerous". Plus, there is still the unresolved issue about the nuclear waste which is another reason for concern/fear. I wouldn't dismiss the reasons to be concerned - it's just that they did a campaign based on fear, and this type of thing typically doesn't lead to good solutions. So you go and vote but with a heavy bias in your heart: are you going to be responsible for destroying "the world"? Nobody wants to be that guy. TV should have done a better job at informing people, so that ideally they could have made up their mind on their own, considering a variety of scenarios and not just one: a nuclear plant explosion. It's also true that Germany and other countries (like Italy) were affected when Chernobyl happened - I do remember of people saying that it wasn't safe back then to eat some products because of the radioactivity levels. People don't want that again. And all TV did was (I guess?) reminding them how it was just 10-20 years before. When Fukushima happened it brought all back in an instant.
eru 3y ago
> I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news. There's plenty of uranium to go around from alternate, more friendly suppliers. Uranium is also only a small part of the costs of running a nuclear power plant.

by mk89 3y ago

mytailorisrich 3y ago

Germany's energy policy is the best example in Europe of ideology over pragmatism. The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. Ban of fracking is not pragmatic, either. If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative.

mk89 3y ago
> The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. > If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative. It's different in the sense that you don't depend entirely on a single country for your gas (like it was before), so that particular country cannot threaten you like they did. The goal of this governement is to drastically reduce energy consumption and use renewables, while at the same time "buying" gas from wherever else. This was for a political reason, otherwise they would have kept on buying gas from Russia and implemented slowly their green/eco program. The issue is not fracking yes or no, but the fact that in the previous 10-15 years it wasn't done enough to avoid what happened in 2022.
- eru 3y ago
  > I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. Well, voters are still idiots: even with the accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima accounted for, nuclear power still kills far fewer people per Joule than basically any other form of power generation. And that includes renewables. (Though large scale solar doesn't look nearly as bad, if you separate out residential rooftop solar into its own category.) The German reactors are also of a design that can not have the kinds of accidents they had in those two examples.
  - mk89 3y ago
    Voters are usually biased and shaped by what they see on TV. If TV shows a disaster in a nuclear plant that can lead to X, they will just connect "nuclear plants are dangerous". Plus, there is still the unresolved issue about the nuclear waste which is another reason for concern/fear. I wouldn't dismiss the reasons to be concerned - it's just that they did a campaign based on fear, and this type of thing typically doesn't lead to good solutions. So you go and vote but with a heavy bias in your heart: are you going to be responsible for destroying "the world"? Nobody wants to be that guy. TV should have done a better job at informing people, so that ideally they could have made up their mind on their own, considering a variety of scenarios and not just one: a nuclear plant explosion. It's also true that Germany and other countries (like Italy) were affected when Chernobyl happened - I do remember of people saying that it wasn't safe back then to eat some products because of the radioactivity levels. People don't want that again. And all TV did was (I guess?) reminding them how it was just 10-20 years before. When Fukushima happened it brought all back in an instant.

eru 3y ago

> I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news. There's plenty of uranium to go around from alternate, more friendly suppliers. Uranium is also only a small part of the costs of running a nuclear power plant.