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January 28, 2025 08:15 AM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

–Winston Churchill

Comments

8 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread

    1. DavidT, why do you repeat the worst right wing lies about energy? It's like Elon's middle-school mimicry of a Nazi salute – intended to shock, and to signal his loyalty to  the worst human impulses. You repeat the AFD's characterization of the Greens as "morons" and promote  nuclear power and Russian gas as the solution to Germany's energy woes.

      All of this is contrary to common sense and lived experience – wind and renewables, far from "not working when the wind doesn't blow," as the neo-Nazis claim, already fill 59% of Germany's energy needs – at a much lower cost than either fossil or nuclear.:

      Wind power has an edge in Germany

      Increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity generation could help to bring down energy prices in Germany, which are among the highest in the world. Schill pointed out that wind power plays such a significant role in climate neutrality plans, "precisely because it is cheap."

      A July 2024 study by the Fraunhofer Institute

      which calculated the average cost of electricity generation over a power plant's lifetime showed a marked difference between renewables and conventional power plants in Germany.

      The costs for varying kinds of solar and wind power were at the lower end of the scale, ranging from €0.041 to €0.225 ($0.04 to $0.23) per kilowatt hour. Gas, coal and nuclear power tended to be higher, costing anywhere from €0.109 to €0.49 per kilowatt hour — with nuclear being the most expensive.

      So I don't expect you to answer this. You never do. Your primary purpose appears to be to generate clicks for your substack. And your unsubstantiated claims that wind power is unreliable and wasteful, while nuclear energy is wonderful , clean and cheap, are contrarian enough to fulfill this purpose.  But at least I will set the record straight.

      1. Nuclear power – yes. Russian gas – no.

        You're smart. Do you think Germany made a good decision to shut down perfectly good nuclear plants that were producing reliable baseload power?

        As to wind, it's a giant problem for Germany. They have these week long doldrums and it shoots the electricity price sky high. And even worse – wind + its backup power (you have to count everything) does not reduce CO2.

        You just look at prices when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. But you also have to count the cost and emissions for when we have a multi-day snowstorm with no wind.

        Solar is great (when used appropiately). Hydro is great (but floods the area upstream of the dam). But if you want reliable inexpensive power that does not emit CO2 – it's nuclear. No other green way to meet our needs.

        And even if you don't want that, most voters do. They did a survey and less than 50% of the voters are willing to spend $70.00/year to reduce CO2 emissions. What they want is cheap reliable energy. If it's also green, they're good with that. But the vote is for cheap, reliable.

        And I'm not going to predict that the election in 2026 will turn on energy. Who knows what the big issue(s) will be. I'm surprised that energy is the singular issue in Germany. But it is.

        And it could be here in 2026. 

          1. kw – I'm disappointed in you. Someone disagreeing with you does not make them a Nazi and throwinf that around cheapens both the appelation and the level of discourse on this site.

            As to the sources, there are links in the above post. Follow them. Those articles (one by me) then use sources like the Dept of Energy for the numbers.

            Blindly supporting Wind energy to go down Germany's road does no one any good. And it will cause Democratic candidates the same kind of problems they hit with housing. I prefer that we Dems acknowledge the world as it is and speak to issues in a way that gets us back to a majority.

  1. Guess we are getting a preview of the extent of the dictatorship … by 5 pm Eastern today.

    AP:  Legal battle looms as Trump orders a funding freeze during a review of federal loans and grants

    It’s unclear from the White house memo how sweeping the pause will be. Vaeth said all spending must comply with Trump’s executive orders,

    Vaeth [Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget] wrote that “each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders.” He also wrote that the pause should be implemented “to the extent permissible under applicable law.”

     

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