7 ms·

Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid act

Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid actual blackouts. The bizarre thing is that our government still wants to close down the remaining nuclear power plants. One of the issues with our proportional electoral system is that smaller, more extreme parties can become kingmakers and in our current situation the centre-left governing party relies on the support of the far-left party to stay in power, and those guys are rabidly anti-nuclear power. But this should be a clear signal that we need renewable power and nuclear power and we need to speed up the adoption of electric vehicles. Ending the tariffs with China that stop us benefiting from their affordable PV panels and electric cars would be a good step towards this.

DaedalusII 7mo ago
what do you think of theory that denuclearisation movement in west europe was funded by CCCP? it makes sense to think CCCP/Putin would finance subversive movements to remove nuclear and coal and make the region dependent on russian energy exports
- schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
  I think some of them are definitely funded by them, there was an article about it I saw: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-european-environmental-activists-202846 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-europe... They fund other stuff that weakens and divides Europe too like the separatist movements in Scotland, Catalonia etc. That's not to say that all the people in these movements are Russian agents or that these groups don't have some good points and legitimate grievances, but nonetheless they are an easy, cost-effective way for Russia to attack us.
- miohtama 7mo ago
  Related the children book from Germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-nuclear-novel-that-shaped-germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-n...
- hallway_monitor 7mo ago
  Of all the silly things I’ve seen Europe do over the last 20 years, getting rid of nuclear plants has to be one of the strangest. Sure, we all want solar but it’s not there yet. Hidden forces here would not be a surprise.
  - ipython 7mo ago
    Well, lets not forget that Europe was downwind of the worst nuclear accident in world history. https://radioactivity.eu.com/articles/nuclearenergy/chernobyl_plume https://radioactivity.eu.com/articles/nuclearenergy/chernoby... That sort of event doesn't fade away quickly and definitely influenced energy policy that persists to this day. Thankfully the tide is turning due to safer designs.
- pydry 7mo ago
  An absurd conspiracy theory. Nuclear power has an LCOE that is 5x the cost of solar and wind. Nobody would build it on cost alone. The only reason countries build and run nuclear power plants is because it shares supply chain and a skills base with the nuclear military. Which means they have nukes (France, Russia, US) or they they want to take out an option to one day build a nuke in a hurry just in case for a threat that is usually very obvious (Sweden, Japan, South Korea). This was clearly recognized when Iran started building nuclear power plants but when Poland suddenly got interested in 2023 ostensibly "because environment" after decades of burning mountains of coal nobody batted an eye.
  - mono442 7mo ago
    Solar and wind are intermittent. Grid scale energy storage is not even a thing yet.
    - defrost 7mo ago
      https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-australia/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-austr...
      - mono442 7mo ago
        That's not much. Projects listed there can't store energy for winter needs.
        defrost 7mo ago
        Ahhhhhhh . . . it's Australia. Winters here have more sunshine than UK summers.
        triceratops 7mo ago
        It's windy and sunny in the winter too.
        pydry 7mo ago
        Neither could French nuclear plants when they were turned off for weeks at a time for emergency maintenance. So, France fired up the gas. 5x cheaper electricity, on the other hand, makes power-to-gas economic, which can smooth out seasonal variations in a carbon neutral way.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
jmclnx 7mo ago
> The bizarre thing is that our government still wants to close down the remaining nuclear power plants. That is very weird, even Germany stated recently that closing down their Nuclear Plants was a big mistake. For a very long time, I have always said France is smarter than what people give them credit for. Spain should take a peek over the mountains at France to see what a sane energy policy looks like.
- schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
  Even France shut down the Superphénix. It was just built too! A waste of ten billion dollars because the government gave in to these extremist environmental groups. One of them even fired an RPG at it while it was being built.
  - kuerbel 7mo ago
    ... it was shut down in 1998, relevant section from German Wikipedia as the English version is lacking details: In June 1997, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced the closure of the power plant as one of his first official acts. He justified this step by pointing to the enormous costs the plant incurred. In the preceding ten years, it had produced no electricity for most of the time due to malfunctions. It even consumed considerable amounts of electricity to keep the sodium in the cooling system above its melting temperature. Each pipe carrying sodium and every tank was equipped with heaters and thermal insulation for this purpose. ... so it used a lot of energy while being shut down because of malfunctions for most of those 10 years. Seems like shutting it down was the best course of action.
    - schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
      It had problems but it was new technology. That’s always the case. Now only China, Russia and India have Fast Breeder Reactors. Plus there was the pressure from Les Verts and Sortir du nucléaire, the Molotov cocktail attacks by the Fédération Anarchiste, the RPG attack by the Cellules Communistes Combattantes etc. It was a highly political decision.
  - 7mo ago
bryanrasmussen 7mo ago
in the election that is running in Denmark right now it looks like nuclear power is back on the table.
- tfourb 7mo ago
  Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh than wind + battery in Denmark, which also has excellent links to reliable hydropower from Norway and Sweden? Especially when your greatest external security threat is Russia which has openly threatened targeting nuclear reactors of a country they are trying to invade? Not to speak of the inconvenient fact that Uranium is not a resource found in sufficient quantity in Europe and current European nuclear reactors get their fuel from Russia and Niger, not exactly reliable havens of stability. Nuclear power makes certain sense for nations that want a military nuclear arsenal and are willing to subsidize nuclear reactors to retain the required workforce and research base. For everyone else it is a money sink and a complication when designing their grid for renewable energy.
  - coldtea 7mo ago
    >Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh Because the related lobby pays well and a huge power station project (which runs well into the tens of billions) has much larger space for bribes
    - crimsoneer 7mo ago
      Alternatively, because nuclear power still works at night.
      - coldtea 7mo ago
        If only we had some way to store energy
        mrmlz 7mo ago
embedding-shape 7mo ago
Yeah, sucks they're trying to shut down our nuclear power, I agree. However, we're lucky the country is so sunny, if we could cover the inland deserted areas with solar panels, batteries and what not as an alternative, I'm OK with that as a compromise I suppose.
Chyzwar 7mo ago
Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear. In the case of Spain, it is cheaper to build more energy lines with Morocco and battery storage than to use nuclear. Spain already has some of the cheapest energy in Europe thanks to renewables. In the case of Germany, nuclear makes sense, but it is not clear where you would buy fuel for it, It might still be a supply chain risk since Russia and Kazakhstan are the main players there.
- samuel 7mo ago
  It's not that easy, and the 2025 blackout good evidence of that. Renewables need a grid that's engineered for them and that require significative investments. Without them, closing power plants (of any kind) is, IMO, nonsensical. Ironically, Spain has plenty of Uranium, but there is an environmental law that doesn't allow its mining. https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 This country is crazy.
  - kuerbel 7mo ago
    No it's not. Nuclear plants are not compatible with climate change. Spain and it's rivers will be too warm to cool them down: https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...
    - Ekaros 7mo ago
      Well only to certain point. When the rivers will naturally be too hot. You can start making them even hotter and it does not matter anymore.
    - surfaceofthesun 7mo ago
      That may require retrofitting the plants to use open loop cooling instead of closed loop. That would increase water consumption.
  - tfourb 7mo ago
Zardoz84 7mo ago
> Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid actual blackouts. I live on Spain . What the hell restrictions are you talking about ?
- hijodelsol 7mo ago
  This did happen in summer of 2022, but only in public buildings, private households were not affected, so the OP's point seems a bit overly dramatic. Given that AC usage is highest when solar production is also highest, this seems highly unlikely given the solar build-out of the last 4 years.
  - schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
    That included offices though so work was difficult. I guess private homes weren’t included because of the difficulty of enforcement.
- schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
  It was in 2022 and 2023: https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligaciones-en-materia-de-climatizacion-de-edificios-publicos-y-privados/ https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligacion...
somelamer567 7mo ago
That would then make sense why Russia's dirty tricks squad likes to back extreme-Left and extreme-Right parties, and is likely behind calls for proportional representation: it would give the geopolitical aggressors an effective veto over national politics and prevent the emergence of a European superpower on land they consider "theirs".
readitalready 7mo ago
Seems Europe also has the option of using Northern Africa as a solar energy hub as well. Is that a viable option?
- nradov 7mo ago
  Purely from an engineering standpoint that is an attractive option. But North African countries have often been politically unstable. It's risky to place your energy security in the hands of a region that could erupt in another coup or civil war at any time.
  - g8oz 7mo ago
    I thought the proposal for a solar link between Morocco and the UK was a great idea. Unfortunately the UK government has decided not to back it with a contract for different guarantee. https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
- fy20 7mo ago
  There's plenty of land in Spain that would be suitable too. Outside of the major cities, Spain is very sparsly populated: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Feufne34tvqr31.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fe... It could actually be beneficial in a lot of places to have agrovoltaics.
giantg2 7mo ago
This might make sense on a larger timeframe but stating that your grid isn't stable enough to support AC demand while also pushing for electric car adoption seems counter intuitive. It would likely take years to improve the grid to support accelerating electric vehicle demands.
- Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
  Years and tens if not hundreds of billions; the Netherlands is experiencing this, after a decade of cheap solar, a rise in EV, and new builds being built fully electric on the consumer side, and many datacenters and green energy generators built on the business side, our grid is at capacity to the point where new businesses can't get connected and new housing projects are put on hold (I think); the grid can't manage any more. The grid manager Tennet spent 15 billion last year, and will need to keep doing that for at least another decade - and that's a relatively small country.
outime 7mo ago
Spain's situation is bad: very high gas prices (now at the same level as Finland, despite much lower purchasing power), poor public transport (train) services, opposition to nuclear energy, electric cars that are only affordable for the wealthy (and even then, the infrastructure makes them difficult to use), high VAT on electricity, etc. All this in a country where many people have to ration their heating or air conditioning because they often can't afford it under normal circumstances. Population seem to not care much about being miserable as the same parties that do nothing about it keep getting elected so good luck I guess.
- gib444 7mo ago
  Poor train service? (Recent accidents aside) Any areas in particular?
  - outime 7mo ago
    Well, I think that's a bit of an aside but sure: - Track maintenance is horrendous, and it's public knowledge (not that it wasn't known before, it was just hidden) - Many high-speed trains are now running much slower after the accident, and will continue to do so. Also, compensation for delays has been significantly reduced - Some rather important routes (Madrid-Málaga, for example) still have no service after the accident - The public train company (Renfe) is now setting up a bus company and openly saying that this is going to be very useful for years to come (wink wink) - Cercanías is absolute garbage in most areas but especially in Madrid, with constant delays, broken trains, etc - The pricing situation has improved with recent competitors (Ouigo, Iryo, etc) but it's often still laughable - I've been taking flights instead of trains when I travel there since they're much cheaper (and nowadays definitely much faster, given all the issues) I could continue but I guess that's plenty. I'd say taking a train in Spain nowadays is an exercise of faith for many.
    - gib444 7mo ago
      Sorry didn't mean to go off on a tangent, it's just I like trains, and Spain (and have an Interrail trip coming up and I was considering including Spain. They are famously Interrail unfriendly though) I followed the accident but not much news following, so that's really really interesting. I didn't know Madrid-Malaga still has no service, nor that Renfe had set up a bus company! I haven't been to Madrid for a few years. Sad to hear the Cercanías is so bad these days
the_gipsy 7mo ago
The far-left are not the cause of the nuclear close down, nor are they unilaterally holding the government hostage in this area. The centre-left party made the agreement with the power companies in 2019 when they were not yet in coalition, for economic reasons. The far-left, now in the coalition, does consider nuclear a red line. It is unknown what the cost of crossing it would be. But I believe it's irrelevant, because if the centre-left party would be governing alone, they wouldn't walk back the agreement now. No matter price of oil, the investment in nuclear has a too large price-tag, and would take way to long to reap any benefits. If any - given the current progression on renewables.
Tiktaalik 7mo ago
> One of the issues with our proportional electoral system is that smaller, more extreme parties can become kingmakers and in our current situation the centre-left governing party relies on the support of the far-left party to stay in power, and those guys are rabidly anti-nuclear power. A side comment but I'm sad to say I don't think that another electoral system (or at least not FPTP) fixes this issue of there being a niche group being kingmakers. In FPTP the dynamic that occurs is that an enormous amount of seats become "safe" and then the kingmakers end up being the relative handful of seats that are likely to trade hands. This ends up creating distortions where certain regional seats and regional issues rise well above how important they should be. PR seems like a more fair way to represent a niche group. At least they are a genuinely representative part of the population, and the influence isn't an accident of electoral math distortion.

DaedalusII 7mo ago

what do you think of theory that denuclearisation movement in west europe was funded by CCCP? it makes sense to think CCCP/Putin would finance subversive movements to remove nuclear and coal and make the region dependent on russian energy exports

schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
I think some of them are definitely funded by them, there was an article about it I saw: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-european-environmental-activists-202846 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-europe... They fund other stuff that weakens and divides Europe too like the separatist movements in Scotland, Catalonia etc. That's not to say that all the people in these movements are Russian agents or that these groups don't have some good points and legitimate grievances, but nonetheless they are an easy, cost-effective way for Russia to attack us.
miohtama 7mo ago
Related the children book from Germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-nuclear-novel-that-shaped-germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-n...
hallway_monitor 7mo ago
Of all the silly things I’ve seen Europe do over the last 20 years, getting rid of nuclear plants has to be one of the strangest. Sure, we all want solar but it’s not there yet. Hidden forces here would not be a surprise.
- ipython 7mo ago
  Well, lets not forget that Europe was downwind of the worst nuclear accident in world history. https://radioactivity.eu.com/articles/nuclearenergy/chernobyl_plume https://radioactivity.eu.com/articles/nuclearenergy/chernoby... That sort of event doesn't fade away quickly and definitely influenced energy policy that persists to this day. Thankfully the tide is turning due to safer designs.
pydry 7mo ago
An absurd conspiracy theory. Nuclear power has an LCOE that is 5x the cost of solar and wind. Nobody would build it on cost alone. The only reason countries build and run nuclear power plants is because it shares supply chain and a skills base with the nuclear military. Which means they have nukes (France, Russia, US) or they they want to take out an option to one day build a nuke in a hurry just in case for a threat that is usually very obvious (Sweden, Japan, South Korea). This was clearly recognized when Iran started building nuclear power plants but when Poland suddenly got interested in 2023 ostensibly "because environment" after decades of burning mountains of coal nobody batted an eye.
- mono442 7mo ago
  Solar and wind are intermittent. Grid scale energy storage is not even a thing yet.
  - defrost 7mo ago
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-australia/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-austr...
    - mono442 7mo ago
      That's not much. Projects listed there can't store energy for winter needs.
      - defrost 7mo ago
        Ahhhhhhh . . . it's Australia. Winters here have more sunshine than UK summers.
      - triceratops 7mo ago
        It's windy and sunny in the winter too.
      - pydry 7mo ago
        Neither could French nuclear plants when they were turned off for weeks at a time for emergency maintenance. So, France fired up the gas. 5x cheaper electricity, on the other hand, makes power-to-gas economic, which can smooth out seasonal variations in a carbon neutral way.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

jmclnx 7mo ago

> The bizarre thing is that our government still wants to close down the remaining nuclear power plants. That is very weird, even Germany stated recently that closing down their Nuclear Plants was a big mistake. For a very long time, I have always said France is smarter than what people give them credit for. Spain should take a peek over the mountains at France to see what a sane energy policy looks like.

schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
Even France shut down the Superphénix. It was just built too! A waste of ten billion dollars because the government gave in to these extremist environmental groups. One of them even fired an RPG at it while it was being built.
- kuerbel 7mo ago
  ... it was shut down in 1998, relevant section from German Wikipedia as the English version is lacking details: In June 1997, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced the closure of the power plant as one of his first official acts. He justified this step by pointing to the enormous costs the plant incurred. In the preceding ten years, it had produced no electricity for most of the time due to malfunctions. It even consumed considerable amounts of electricity to keep the sodium in the cooling system above its melting temperature. Each pipe carrying sodium and every tank was equipped with heaters and thermal insulation for this purpose. ... so it used a lot of energy while being shut down because of malfunctions for most of those 10 years. Seems like shutting it down was the best course of action.
  - schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
    It had problems but it was new technology. That’s always the case. Now only China, Russia and India have Fast Breeder Reactors. Plus there was the pressure from Les Verts and Sortir du nucléaire, the Molotov cocktail attacks by the Fédération Anarchiste, the RPG attack by the Cellules Communistes Combattantes etc. It was a highly political decision.
- 7mo ago

bryanrasmussen 7mo ago

in the election that is running in Denmark right now it looks like nuclear power is back on the table.

tfourb 7mo ago
Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh than wind + battery in Denmark, which also has excellent links to reliable hydropower from Norway and Sweden? Especially when your greatest external security threat is Russia which has openly threatened targeting nuclear reactors of a country they are trying to invade? Not to speak of the inconvenient fact that Uranium is not a resource found in sufficient quantity in Europe and current European nuclear reactors get their fuel from Russia and Niger, not exactly reliable havens of stability. Nuclear power makes certain sense for nations that want a military nuclear arsenal and are willing to subsidize nuclear reactors to retain the required workforce and research base. For everyone else it is a money sink and a complication when designing their grid for renewable energy.
- coldtea 7mo ago
  >Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh Because the related lobby pays well and a huge power station project (which runs well into the tens of billions) has much larger space for bribes
  - crimsoneer 7mo ago
    Alternatively, because nuclear power still works at night.
    - coldtea 7mo ago
      If only we had some way to store energy
      - mrmlz 7mo ago

embedding-shape 7mo ago

Yeah, sucks they're trying to shut down our nuclear power, I agree. However, we're lucky the country is so sunny, if we could cover the inland deserted areas with solar panels, batteries and what not as an alternative, I'm OK with that as a compromise I suppose.

Chyzwar 7mo ago

Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear. In the case of Spain, it is cheaper to build more energy lines with Morocco and battery storage than to use nuclear. Spain already has some of the cheapest energy in Europe thanks to renewables. In the case of Germany, nuclear makes sense, but it is not clear where you would buy fuel for it, It might still be a supply chain risk since Russia and Kazakhstan are the main players there.

samuel 7mo ago
It's not that easy, and the 2025 blackout good evidence of that. Renewables need a grid that's engineered for them and that require significative investments. Without them, closing power plants (of any kind) is, IMO, nonsensical. Ironically, Spain has plenty of Uranium, but there is an environmental law that doesn't allow its mining. https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 This country is crazy.
- kuerbel 7mo ago
  No it's not. Nuclear plants are not compatible with climate change. Spain and it's rivers will be too warm to cool them down: https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...
  - Ekaros 7mo ago
    Well only to certain point. When the rivers will naturally be too hot. You can start making them even hotter and it does not matter anymore.
  - surfaceofthesun 7mo ago
    That may require retrofitting the plants to use open loop cooling instead of closed loop. That would increase water consumption.
- tfourb 7mo ago

Zardoz84 7mo ago

> Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid actual blackouts. I live on Spain . What the hell restrictions are you talking about ?

hijodelsol 7mo ago
This did happen in summer of 2022, but only in public buildings, private households were not affected, so the OP's point seems a bit overly dramatic. Given that AC usage is highest when solar production is also highest, this seems highly unlikely given the solar build-out of the last 4 years.
- schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
  That included offices though so work was difficult. I guess private homes weren’t included because of the difficulty of enforcement.
schnitzelstoat 7mo ago
It was in 2022 and 2023: https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligaciones-en-materia-de-climatizacion-de-edificios-publicos-y-privados/ https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligacion...

somelamer567 7mo ago

That would then make sense why Russia's dirty tricks squad likes to back extreme-Left and extreme-Right parties, and is likely behind calls for proportional representation: it would give the geopolitical aggressors an effective veto over national politics and prevent the emergence of a European superpower on land they consider "theirs".

readitalready 7mo ago

Seems Europe also has the option of using Northern Africa as a solar energy hub as well. Is that a viable option?

nradov 7mo ago
Purely from an engineering standpoint that is an attractive option. But North African countries have often been politically unstable. It's risky to place your energy security in the hands of a region that could erupt in another coup or civil war at any time.
- g8oz 7mo ago
  I thought the proposal for a solar link between Morocco and the UK was a great idea. Unfortunately the UK government has decided not to back it with a contract for different guarantee. https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
fy20 7mo ago
There's plenty of land in Spain that would be suitable too. Outside of the major cities, Spain is very sparsly populated: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Feufne34tvqr31.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fe... It could actually be beneficial in a lot of places to have agrovoltaics.

giantg2 7mo ago

This might make sense on a larger timeframe but stating that your grid isn't stable enough to support AC demand while also pushing for electric car adoption seems counter intuitive. It would likely take years to improve the grid to support accelerating electric vehicle demands.

Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
Years and tens if not hundreds of billions; the Netherlands is experiencing this, after a decade of cheap solar, a rise in EV, and new builds being built fully electric on the consumer side, and many datacenters and green energy generators built on the business side, our grid is at capacity to the point where new businesses can't get connected and new housing projects are put on hold (I think); the grid can't manage any more. The grid manager Tennet spent 15 billion last year, and will need to keep doing that for at least another decade - and that's a relatively small country.

outime 7mo ago

Spain's situation is bad: very high gas prices (now at the same level as Finland, despite much lower purchasing power), poor public transport (train) services, opposition to nuclear energy, electric cars that are only affordable for the wealthy (and even then, the infrastructure makes them difficult to use), high VAT on electricity, etc. All this in a country where many people have to ration their heating or air conditioning because they often can't afford it under normal circumstances. Population seem to not care much about being miserable as the same parties that do nothing about it keep getting elected so good luck I guess.

gib444 7mo ago
Poor train service? (Recent accidents aside) Any areas in particular?
- outime 7mo ago
  Well, I think that's a bit of an aside but sure: - Track maintenance is horrendous, and it's public knowledge (not that it wasn't known before, it was just hidden) - Many high-speed trains are now running much slower after the accident, and will continue to do so. Also, compensation for delays has been significantly reduced - Some rather important routes (Madrid-Málaga, for example) still have no service after the accident - The public train company (Renfe) is now setting up a bus company and openly saying that this is going to be very useful for years to come (wink wink) - Cercanías is absolute garbage in most areas but especially in Madrid, with constant delays, broken trains, etc - The pricing situation has improved with recent competitors (Ouigo, Iryo, etc) but it's often still laughable - I've been taking flights instead of trains when I travel there since they're much cheaper (and nowadays definitely much faster, given all the issues) I could continue but I guess that's plenty. I'd say taking a train in Spain nowadays is an exercise of faith for many.
  - gib444 7mo ago
    Sorry didn't mean to go off on a tangent, it's just I like trains, and Spain (and have an Interrail trip coming up and I was considering including Spain. They are famously Interrail unfriendly though) I followed the accident but not much news following, so that's really really interesting. I didn't know Madrid-Malaga still has no service, nor that Renfe had set up a bus company! I haven't been to Madrid for a few years. Sad to hear the Cercanías is so bad these days

the_gipsy 7mo ago

The far-left are not the cause of the nuclear close down, nor are they unilaterally holding the government hostage in this area. The centre-left party made the agreement with the power companies in 2019 when they were not yet in coalition, for economic reasons. The far-left, now in the coalition, does consider nuclear a red line. It is unknown what the cost of crossing it would be. But I believe it's irrelevant, because if the centre-left party would be governing alone, they wouldn't walk back the agreement now. No matter price of oil, the investment in nuclear has a too large price-tag, and would take way to long to reap any benefits. If any - given the current progression on renewables.

Tiktaalik 7mo ago

> One of the issues with our proportional electoral system is that smaller, more extreme parties can become kingmakers and in our current situation the centre-left governing party relies on the support of the far-left party to stay in power, and those guys are rabidly anti-nuclear power. A side comment but I'm sad to say I don't think that another electoral system (or at least not FPTP) fixes this issue of there being a niche group being kingmakers. In FPTP the dynamic that occurs is that an enormous amount of seats become "safe" and then the kingmakers end up being the relative handful of seats that are likely to trade hands. This ends up creating distortions where certain regional seats and regional issues rise well above how important they should be. PR seems like a more fair way to represent a niche group. At least they are a genuinely representative part of the population, and the influence isn't an accident of electoral math distortion.