111–120 of 150 posts
Very good article. The industry-government nexus in Germany is indeed super powerful and underrated: other countries call it corruption, in Germany is called corporatism. In the last few years we saw it in action, with important repercussion on the global level: for example, the way the Greek crisis was managed it had to do much more with the safety of German banks, that with the welfare of Greece ( https://www.esmt.…
The article voices a bunch of valid criticism, but I really wish it could have done so without turning environmental damage into a contest and using unsubstantiated superlatives. Is it not enough to criticize someone without claiming that they are the worst ? The jab at Trump felt misplaced as well.
Are you familiar with "The Guardian"?
Everything is the worst, or (rarely) the best there. It's not exactly a tabloid, but it is becoming more and more of a sensationalist leftie/left-liberal opinion vehicle.
They've spent a lot of time on the "Merkel is a saint" angle lately, because of her actions on refugee flows a couple of years ago, and because they have considered her most righteous when held up against the hubris and failings of the UK (most particularly concerning "Brexit").
So now it's time to demonise her...
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There have been zillions invested in the Diesel, which would have been wasted. The Diesel is also seen as the more efficient engine: less fuel consumption and less CO2 emissions.
This is what I don't understand, it seems like a sunk cost fallacy. For each diesel sold, the auto makers sell one less gasoline car, the profits should stay the same.
On that playing field only Toyota came close to beat the German diesels so it's not only a sunken cost fallacy, they have an advantage on diesel technology that makes it understandable (from a business perspective) on them pushing for it.
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Without being tied to the common currency, the Greek Drachma would have devalued relative to the Deutsche Mark, making Greek exports and tourism more lucrative. Had this been able to occur, the impact to the Greek economy would have been far less. Instead, the common currency has greatly benefited Germany: had the Germans retained the Deutsche Mark, their currency would be valued higher than the Euro is now, making t…
Probably true, but that doesn't help anyone. Greece wanted to have the euro, they weren't forced to. They also knew from the start that devalueing your currency isn't possible anymore. Today their debts are in Euro not Drachme, now leaving the Euro doesn't change that fact.
Basically Germany will miss the goal of a 40% reduction by 2020 with only reducing CO2 by 30%. Beside coal/gas power, mostly from closing nuclear power plants. For example a quarter of CO2 emission in Berlin is coming from two Vattenfall coal power plants. Other effects are larger increase in people and economic growth. I have been buying renewable energy for 15 years, but not many/not enough people in Germany care.…
Closing all of the Nuclear power plants after Fukushima was a bit of a dumb reactionary move. It's shifted power generation from emission free Nuclear to dirty emission heavy coal, which emits more radioactive Uranium into the atmosphere than a Nuclear plant (or so I am led to believe). It's basically paying lip-service to being environmentally friendly so that you can feel good about yourself while doing nothing pro…
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However the jab at Trump shows what is wrong with the political level of environmental activity. there is so much more implied by the Paris Accords that it actually will do and heaps of FUD to convince you it must be done or we are all doomed with a good dose of of thanks thrown to the politicians who so boldly stood up for it. So the sycophants in press, special interest groups, and science, were all dutifully march…
I don't know why you are getting down voted for this - can only think people don't like having their cosy bubble disturbed.
Very good article. The industry-government nexus in Germany is indeed super powerful and underrated: other countries call it corruption, in Germany is called corporatism. In the last few years we saw it in action, with important repercussion on the global level: for example, the way the Greek crisis was managed it had to do much more with the safety of German banks, that with the welfare of Greece ( https://www.esmt.…
Without European (and incl. German) money Greece would be bancrupt and no longer in the Eurozone. Bancrupt banks in Europe would have helped no one, particularly not Greece. For the welfare of the people in Greece the greek government is responsible, not Angela Merkel.
IMO being anti-nuclear and pro-environment are mutually exclusive positions. Easy way to discern who really wants to reduce carbon emissions and who is just a populist.
According to environmentalists in Germany, nuclear and pro-environment are indeed mutually exclusive. But I prefer not to copy all of my opinions from the group I most agree with. FWIW I think nuclear is good in principle, but neither states nor companies have proven responsible enough to handle it. So I'm kind of against nuclear but not in this dogmatic way. The practical difference is that I think there should be f…
In practice this attitude makes you pro-coal (but not in a dogmatic way).
In the real world, waiting for things to improve before pulling the trigger means using what's currently used until then. That has costs.
What's the energy source that's most dangerous? The common sense answer is nuclear (probably because of nuclear bombs first, Chernobyl second). Some clever people might argue about coal given its high emission output.
But at least by death count, the winner is clearly hydro power. Mostly due to the Banqiao Dam incident [1] which directly killed 26,000 people and indirectly killed 145,000.
Of course, that incident is a mess of stupid decision after stupid decision and some might want to claim that it's an outlier. To that I will reply that the same can be said of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima (as well as every other hydro incident[2]).
The fact is that the world is full of stupid. I predict that in the future there will be some solar power company that figures out how to kill a bunch of people with a battery fire. And yet, that won't change anything to my support of hydropower or solar power. Nuclear safety is a minor issue compared to its advantages over coal and other fossil fuels.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_...
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I'm not sure what that means. Are you pointing out a severe deficiency that makes their whole operational record somehow moot?
It means their design is flawed, cannot be fixed and likely would not pass muster if proposed today. Whether or not you consider this a severe enough deficit to necessitate a shutdown is a matter of policy. As to any operation record, just keep in mind that the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had one dating back to 1971.
Germany's generous subsidy and build out of solar, while solar was still really expensive, was key in driving the cost down which now the whole world benefits from. Huge credit there. But bio fuels are an unmitigated disaster. Electric ground transportation is the future.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country
China is saving nuclear power too:
https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...