5 ms·

https://www.energy.gov/articles/restoring-americas-competitive-nuclear-energy-advanta https://www.energy.gov/articles/restoring-americas-competiti... "the U.S.

by lispm 2y ago

https://www.energy.gov/articles/restoring-americas-competitive-nuclear-energy-advanta https://www.energy.gov/articles/restoring-americas-competiti... "the U.S. Government will move into markets currently dominated by Russian and Chinese State Owned Enterprises (SOE) and recover our position as the world leader in exporting best-in-class nuclear energy technology, and with it, strong non-proliferation standards" Russia and China have state owned enterprises. Now the US government will move into their markets... "The U.S. has ceded its leadership position to countries with state-owned-enterprises, including Russia and China," The US government is the actor who is directing the US industry. > The claim that renewables foster "local ownership" and "distributed industry" oversimplifies the reality. The topic was that "we", Germany, don't want this. We want to strengthen local ownership of energy production. There are a lot of examples here. Nuclear power plants are so far large (large plants are more cost effective) and based on large monopolies (granted or even owned by the government). Example: Before the movement towards renewable energy, the grid and the electricity production was owned by only four large companies each occupying a region in Germany. The electricity grid was then taken away from them and opened to many players. Now (basically) everyone has the right to be a producer and to feed electricity into the grid. Now we have a large landscape of energy producers, with the goal to establish this across the EU. Nuclear power plants (owned by very few companies in protected markets) are dinosaurs in the effort to create dynamic energy markets. Nuclear power demands long-term contracts and guaranteed prices for huge monopolistic players. See for example the new nuclear power plants in the UK... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... "EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C under a government sanctioned Contract for difference (CfD)." https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/france-seeks-more-uk-government-funding-nuclear-plants-its-edf-builds-sources-2024-01-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/france-seeks-more-uk... "PARIS, Jan 25 (Reuters) - France wants the British government to contribute more money to two new nuclear plants its state-owned energy utility EDF was contracted to build in the UK, given delays and spiralling costs, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters." A state-owned French company builds for the British government a nuclear power plant. We are not talking about a distorted "free market". There is no market at all, it's all government controlled: building and financing.

Herz 2y ago
Cherry-picking and pseudo-Marxist rhetoric. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not interested in entertaining your moralistic arguments. Your position is very transparent; it’s a celebration of ideologies that prefer "good" inefficiency. Even though goodness is a completely subjective factor and communicates nothing except a political position, to me, the goodness of a technology, especially in this time of extreme climate urgency, has only one valuable metric: pollution. I understand that this might not be your priority, and for this reason, I have no intention of continuing this discussion with you. Taking the disaster of the Energiewende as a virtuous example is laughable, given that it is one of the greatest environmental and economic disasters. And of course, the Energiewende is also financed with state money. Your problem is very simple: if the money goes to nuclear power, it's bad; if it goes to renewables, under the guise of collective and decentralized well-being, it's perfectly fine. What's "free market" about this? Absolutely nothing. You don't like state-owned nuclear power but completely ignore my argument that every solar panel bought is equivalent to the same thing, just at a higher level. Instead of the French buying electricity from the French government, you have the Germans (like you and me, as a non-German living in Germany) buying electricity from German fossil fuels and Chinese-made panels. Are you content with this? Honestly, I prefer to give money to the French state rather than the Chinese state if I had to choose. Besides, we are talking about a democratic state that has also decarbonized. You criticize, but they are decades ahead of any European state. Meanwhile, as we are writing, France is polluting at 18 gCO₂eq/kWh, and Germany at 210 gCO₂eq/kWh with a daily peak of 510 gCO₂eq/kWh. Moreover, if German pollution is so low, it’s also because you're importing 2.2 GW from France's "bad and evil" government-financed nuclear power. Not to mention that the French have the lowest electricity bills in Europe, and the Germans almost always have the highest. It's up to others to make their own considerations.
- _19qg 2y ago
  "pseudo-Marxist" ? LOL, you have no idea what you are talking about. I'm arguing for a smaller-scale energy landscape, for privately owned enterprises, individuals, etc. If that is Marxist, you are seriously confused. EVEN if I were to buy solar panels from China, then I'm still financing them, I'm buying them, I'm installing them, I'm operating them, I'm selling the energy and the profits from solar electricity is MINE - over the full lifetime. Solar energy production is more than "chinese panel manufacturing". The nuclear reactor Flamanville/France, which has massive cost overruns and delays: * controlled by the state * financed by the state * bought by the state * constructed by the state * operated by the state * energy sold by the state EDF (Electricité de France) is government owned and builts and operates the power plant, it also sells the electricity to the customer. ALL, literally all, of the electricity production and distribution from French nuclear power plants is owned by the state. That's Marxian! If I see where I live, the Wind Farms serving the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_North_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... The construction firms for Wind Turbines are Vestas, Siemens, etc. These are not state owned. They are private enterprises. Example, the German Wind Farm "Kaskasi". The Turbines were built by Siemens. The Wind Farm is owned by RWE, a private enterprise. https://www.rwe.com/en/the-group/countries-and-locations/offshore-wind-farm-kaskasi/ https://www.rwe.com/en/the-group/countries-and-locations/off... > Energiewende is also financed with state money The Energiewende had established a mechanism where the consumer pay higher prices (which you have lamented about), which finances the build-up of renewable energy -> the money goes to the renewable energy electricity providers, which are private enterprises and individuals. The energy companies, the grid, the construction companies, etc., none are owned by the German state. These are all private enterprises or local municipal utilities.

by lispm 2y ago

Herz 2y ago

Cherry-picking and pseudo-Marxist rhetoric. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not interested in entertaining your moralistic arguments. Your position is very transparent; it’s a celebration of ideologies that prefer "good" inefficiency. Even though goodness is a completely subjective factor and communicates nothing except a political position, to me, the goodness of a technology, especially in this time of extreme climate urgency, has only one valuable metric: pollution. I understand that this might not be your priority, and for this reason, I have no intention of continuing this discussion with you. Taking the disaster of the Energiewende as a virtuous example is laughable, given that it is one of the greatest environmental and economic disasters. And of course, the Energiewende is also financed with state money. Your problem is very simple: if the money goes to nuclear power, it's bad; if it goes to renewables, under the guise of collective and decentralized well-being, it's perfectly fine. What's "free market" about this? Absolutely nothing. You don't like state-owned nuclear power but completely ignore my argument that every solar panel bought is equivalent to the same thing, just at a higher level. Instead of the French buying electricity from the French government, you have the Germans (like you and me, as a non-German living in Germany) buying electricity from German fossil fuels and Chinese-made panels. Are you content with this? Honestly, I prefer to give money to the French state rather than the Chinese state if I had to choose. Besides, we are talking about a democratic state that has also decarbonized. You criticize, but they are decades ahead of any European state. Meanwhile, as we are writing, France is polluting at 18 gCO₂eq/kWh, and Germany at 210 gCO₂eq/kWh with a daily peak of 510 gCO₂eq/kWh. Moreover, if German pollution is so low, it’s also because you're importing 2.2 GW from France's "bad and evil" government-financed nuclear power. Not to mention that the French have the lowest electricity bills in Europe, and the Germans almost always have the highest. It's up to others to make their own considerations.

_19qg 2y ago
"pseudo-Marxist" ? LOL, you have no idea what you are talking about. I'm arguing for a smaller-scale energy landscape, for privately owned enterprises, individuals, etc. If that is Marxist, you are seriously confused. EVEN if I were to buy solar panels from China, then I'm still financing them, I'm buying them, I'm installing them, I'm operating them, I'm selling the energy and the profits from solar electricity is MINE - over the full lifetime. Solar energy production is more than "chinese panel manufacturing". The nuclear reactor Flamanville/France, which has massive cost overruns and delays: * controlled by the state * financed by the state * bought by the state * constructed by the state * operated by the state * energy sold by the state EDF (Electricité de France) is government owned and builts and operates the power plant, it also sells the electricity to the customer. ALL, literally all, of the electricity production and distribution from French nuclear power plants is owned by the state. That's Marxian! If I see where I live, the Wind Farms serving the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_North_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... The construction firms for Wind Turbines are Vestas, Siemens, etc. These are not state owned. They are private enterprises. Example, the German Wind Farm "Kaskasi". The Turbines were built by Siemens. The Wind Farm is owned by RWE, a private enterprise. https://www.rwe.com/en/the-group/countries-and-locations/offshore-wind-farm-kaskasi/ https://www.rwe.com/en/the-group/countries-and-locations/off... > Energiewende is also financed with state money The Energiewende had established a mechanism where the consumer pay higher prices (which you have lamented about), which finances the build-up of renewable energy -> the money goes to the renewable energy electricity providers, which are private enterprises and individuals. The energy companies, the grid, the construction companies, etc., none are owned by the German state. These are all private enterprises or local municipal utilities.