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3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

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Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#141

Post by deeviant »

antattack wrote: post #114
deeviant wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was previously ardently against nuclear power, and now I'm staunchly for it. The world needs to be rid of oil, there are few other things that have caused as much human and environment suffering as oil. Hell, I even back bio fuels, as bad as they are, as long we can conclusively show they have a major impact in oil use and aren't just a subsidy handout farmers.

As invasion in Ukraine shows nuclear power plants can be taken hostage, then you're somewhat at the mercy of whomever is controlling it.

Yep. Still for it.

The plants don't need to be in non-nato countries, they need to be in NATO countries and help eliminate the need for oil.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#142

Post by AlanSE »

wffurr wrote: post #48
tuyguntn wrote: post #34

Quoted post unavailable.

Begs the question, why didn't the world wean off oil and supporting then-repressive regimes 50 years ago. I despair for the species sometimes.

As a young adult during the Bush years, I felt strongly that we needed to take aggressive action to replace foreign oil dependence with new energy sources (renewables, nuclear, whatever, sign me up). Politically, I saw both a nationalistic reason for it, as well as the obvious environmental reasons. Paul Friedman's "Real Men Tax Gas" seemed like the right angle that cut across the ENTIRE political spectrum. Really, who can disagree with this?

But I could offer a concession, at the time, that the solutions were not off-the-shelf available.

Now? The bottom has fell out of the "we can't" argument. Solar just kept going down in price along with batteries. Anyone defending coal power is hardly doing so on the price argument. A solar-based economy is not familiar, no. We will have to build infrastructure that turns on and off daily and seasonally in response to electricity supply-and-demand balance. There are large engineering changes needed... but no cultural ones.

There's no day like today. The energy transition will benefit our friends and crush our enemies.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#144

Post by FDSGSG »

ummonk wrote: post #101
choeger wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be consensus. This war started over one party having lots of demands and not even recognizing the other party as sovereign and the other party just wanting to be left in peace. How the fuck should a compromise look like here? It's like being robbed at gunpoint and negotiating a deal with the robber about how much you might keep.

This war started in 2014 when a foreign funded protest was created to overthrow a democratically elected (albeit corrupt) government. This government then responded to local demands for autonomy in minority provinces by attacking them with neo-Nazi militia for the past 8 years.

Do you genuinely believe that the top levels of Russian government care about the people of DPR and LPR?

If you do, then you're a fool.

If you don't, then you're a liar.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#145

Post by tuyguntn »

FDSGSG wrote: post #118
tuyguntn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh when you expose crime, it is freedom of speech, diversity of opinions right? But when others expose double standards of West (usually politicians) and crime, it is whataboutism right?

Nobody is exposing double standards here. It's simply not hypocrisy to care about the war in Europe, and not care about Saudis killing Yemenis somewhere far away. This is very obviously not a double standard, as the first one directly affects Europeans in a way which the second one does not.

what you are suggesting is we should not fight for basic human rights and give everyone equal opportunity to live (they haven't chose to be born, so why not give them at least a chance to live), instead we should fight for people who are like us? close to us? And we don't give shit to other people dying?

Imagine, Germany bans Russian oil, does it make you a happy if they buy oil from Saudi? For me its same, both sides are killing innocent people, why make a switch then?

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#146

Post by jka »

deeviant wrote: post #70
macspoofing wrote: post #17

If you double-down on renewables, then you double-down on natural gas. Germany decided to close down their nuclear and coal generation, so the only thing that is left is natural gas for base load (and to augment renewable intermittency problems).

I was previously ardently against nuclear power, and now I'm staunchly for it. The world needs to be rid of oil, there are few other things that have caused as much human and environment suffering as oil. Hell, I even back bio fuels, as bad as they are, as long we can conclusively show they have a major impact in oil use and aren't just a subsidy handout farmers.

Glad to hear that you're keen to move away from fossil fuels. I'd add that renewable energy production methods are currently cheaper, faster to construct, easier to secure (both in terms of perimeter and supply chain), easier to train staff for and maintain, and safer long-term than nuclear energy production methods.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#147

Post by aksss »

cm2187 wrote: post #85
tuyguntn wrote: post #34

Quoted post unavailable.

As JP Morgan said, a person always has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason. I think the sympathy for Ukrainians is a bit of a pretext. It's not just a pretext, there is clearly a lot of sympathy in Europe for Ukraine, not the least because of the geographical and cultural proximity, and we all know ukrainians personally. But the real reason for Europe to be tough on Russia is because Ru…

I think we need to acknowledge that no “red line” implied by NATO’s mutual defense pact has been crossed yet (to my knowledge). I think there are instincts and interests champing at the bit for any pretext to engage with Russia using the lives of their neighbors kids to do so, but for now, I think it’s wise to keep that impulse in check and talk about what the red line really is in a practical sense.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#148

Post by FDSGSG »

tuyguntn wrote: post #145
FDSGSG wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is exposing double standards here. It's simply not hypocrisy to care about the war in Europe, and not care about Saudis killing Yemenis somewhere far away. This is very obviously not a double standard, as the first one directly affects Europeans in a way which the second one does not.

what you are suggesting is we should not fight for basic human rights and give everyone equal opportunity to live (they haven't chose to be born, so why not give them at least a chance to live), instead we should fight for people who are like us? close to us? And we don't give shit to other people dying? Imagine, Germany bans Russian oil, does it make you a happy if they buy oil from Saudi? For me its same, both side…

It's not the same for me. I live in Europe, not the Middle East. Very simple.

No matter how evil the Saudis are, their bullshit does not affect me in the same way that Russian actions do.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#149

Post by numpad0 »

axiosgunnar wrote: post #6
dmitrygr wrote: post #3

Ok, so what is the solution you propose? Quit russian gaz cold turkey, today? Let people in Berlin freeze to death tonight? (Temperatures are 0 degrees C at night)

Yes. (nobody will freeze to death btw) And the reasoning is as follows: The actually morally necessary step is to establish a no-fly zone above Ukraine, enforced by force with NATO fighter jets and anti-aircraft systems. People (possibly rightfully) consider that this could lead to a WW3, possibly escalating into the usage of nuclear weapons. So far so good. So the bargain we do is basically "Ukraine, we would do eve…

I believe the plan is to let Russia fire first, and escalate progressively until a) Russia wisely retreats, or b) Moscow is fallen, while carefully rendering nuclear options seem undesirable. That except the last part was how it went last time for us.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#150

Post by lambdasquirrel »

sendfoods wrote: post #63

Does anybody know why Germany isn't really using their domestic gas fields? According to the german EPA equivalent[1] there's enough for 10 years of usage. While I agree with the need to shut off Nordstream I, I am not sure Germany can afford this right now due to historically low gas reserves [2]. I have to disagree with the tone of the statement "We can afford the consequences". Who is "we"? The lower middle class…

An unfortunate and overlooked fact is that Europe (Germany in particular) effectively exported the resource curse problem to Russia, which was probably the country in its sphere least likely to deal with it well. Hindsight is 20/20.

Besides the fact that we can't exactly build infrastructure for those gas fields overnight, I think Germany wants to avoid any association with sort of problem. The fear I would have is that they'd have to get that gas from the U.S. / Canada, which exports the resource curse problem to the U.S. and Canada instead.

Meanwhile, how Germany is going to solve the spot-generation problem, is unclear.

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