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Comment by simfoo | Hacker News Reader

It's truly remarkable how badly the whole energy sector was managed in the past 16 years of Angela Merkel and her conservative-lead coalitions. It's not about nuclear or no nuclear really, Germany started out with a strong wind and solar industry and has lost all of it to China over the past decade. New wind turbines and (importantly) new power lines connecting the wind-heavy north to the power hungry south have been continuously delayed by nimby politics, also mostly pushed by conservative parties. Meanwhile the coal and nuclear industry got huge compensation payments and issuing new debt to finance investments was basically made unconstitutional by the horrible "Schuldenbremse" legislation. How bad can you fuck up country and still be seen mostly positive in the world??

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In 10 years or so, maybe everyone and their mother is back to burning coal. I'm convinced that even in the face of prolonged economical downturn, we'll still be able to increase our greenhouse gas emissions.

For fucks sake, in The Netherlands, we are burning WOOD for """green energy""", while everyone NIMBYs the fuck out of any windmill or power grid expansion project.

Sometimes we, as a species, act in a monumentally stupid manner.

Part of the problem is that we don't act as a species.

We act as a bunch of individuals, each responding to the incentives which are put before us.

You'll never get people to stop doing something if it is easy and profitable.

Solar/wind is highly overrated in Europe. Nuclear is really the only option in Europe that's climate change friendly. Incredible that there's been a push away from it.

Realistically, in this new world (since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's coordination and complicity in it), there's zero reason for China or Russia or any of their allies to coordinate with the rest of the world to reduce greenhouse emissions, especially when their economies are so heavily dependent on greenhouse gas for their energy sources and GDP. Deglobalization is going ahead full-speed, and the forces based upon globalization were the only real way to rein in other countries' behaviors in a peaceful way.

So why should the US and EU cripple themselves? The world is in a state of war, and we need to start acting like it. Nuclear energy is a great solution that solves both climate change and energy demands, but it will take a long time for any country to get there.

Ironically, after decades of laughing at the West for worrying about flimsy global warming affecting poor fishermen in the Pacific, Russia is feeling the pinch itself.

Huge amounts of their infrastructure are built in permafrost, now better characterized as "thawing bog". We're talking cities, roads, power lines, gas and oil pipelines (har har), airports, ports, mines... And it's all literally melting away. Slowly for now of course but steadily. Not to mention Taiga fires which seem to be getting worse and worse.

I have no axe in this, but what is actually wrong with wood as a fuel? It really is carbon neutral. You could say, solar energy with free storage.

Is it the relative inefficiency and cabron generated throughout supply chain?

It's carbon neutral if you don't consider time. But take wood which took 10-50 years or more to store up carbon, and then release it all at once... and now, while we're already releasing too much.

We can't grow it (absorb carbon) as fast as we can burn it (release it), so it's effectively NOT carbon neutral in our time.

I thought that's taken care of. Fast-growing willow is used, it's not chopping up old forests but rather growing new ones... No?

Woody biomass covers more than trees. Corn stover, sugar cane bigasse, rice hulls and a load of other agricultural and waste plant materials that are produced annually, and can be gasified and burned cleanly to produce electricity and heat.

The core proposal isn't to replace all energy production from burning wood alone, but to explore all renewable energy sources at our disposal. Producing high value heat and energy when the sun doesn't shine through biomass gasification or anaerobic digestion helps us to fill in the gaps and utilize fuel sources that are just otherwise rotting and releasing methane in the atmosphere.

It is wise to look at all waste which each region has and seek ways to use it better. In the case of the Netherlands, I'm not sure how much of those opportunities there are beyond manure (which could perhaps be very big).

Perhaps we should be burning manure here... there's a LOT of it to share.

Let's be real here, this is Europe we're talking about. It's not like those trees were holding carbon from 500y ago. Wood is pretty ok in terms of carbon. It's the same carbon going around and around again over the course of a century. The tree doesn't grow out of nothing.

Pollution on the other hand...

Europe is burning wood cut in the US for fuel, and I wouldn't call the logging practices or shipping in any way green 0r sustainable. It's crazy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/climate/eu-burning-wood-e...

What is definitively clear by now: They never did a proper "worst case" planning. They haven't thought through that case (no more Gas coming from Russia).

It is ok to take some risks. It is not acceptable to be without a plan once these risks materialise.

I have been discussing this with friends in-loco, and they witness - especially bewilderingly to the many of us that strongly plan in terms of business continuity - that backup plans are culturally not a priority in current Germany.¹ Friends report that it is seen in daily live in firms and elsewhere. Quite a strange note.

¹Consistently, they apparently put backup plans for worst-case scenarios "there where they must" (there where they must only - where it is part of the scripted plan, there where it is consolidated practice), not as a general consideration.

Wind installation and Wind gear are completely different things.

On the former, it's not a competition.

On the later, Chinese state massively subsidized the industry with the objective of wiping out foreign competition.

That said, few saw a war with Russia coming.

The Greens are the #1 culprit, for their social destruction of Nuclear over the last 50 years.

If we were to have expanded Nuclear at the pace of 1980 we'd be within striking distance of getting away from fossil fuels.

It might be too late now.

It's going to be a crappy winter and I have no faith that politicians will be able to do the big pie in the sky strategy things necessary.

A Nuclear rewnewal, alongside doubling down on renewables is in order on 'Marshall Project' scale.

The stakes are high now.

The "green" parties around Europe also tried to get people to switch to solar/wind and other renewables. But the parties in charge (with their oil company lobbyists) didn't want that.

And now those parties are blaming the greens because "you told us to get rid of nuclear".

The technology is only just getting to the point a solar/wind grid is remotely feasible. Relying on it 40 years ago would have been laughable.

Nuclear and hydropower are the only reliable options to be the backbone of the grid.

> That said, few saw a war with Russia coming

It was public doctrine in textbooks, taught at university. The warnings about moves at the chessboard (which in diplomacy often are issued in advance, contrary to chess) have been stated for decades, publicly and face to face. The products of the propaganda machine were quite reachable, and not really ambiguous.

Really, that «few saw» is farcical.

Edit: and it is quite worrisome to think that said "doctrine" is now implemented only up to a small fraction, and those expressions suggest blindness not just about the current actions, but the openly planned, stated future ones.

> Really, that «few saw» is farcical.

War is always unthinkable. Yes, there were warning signs that, in retrospect, were obvious, but Russia invading Ukraine was so profoundly dumb it was difficult to expect for Putin to really go through with it. He did, his country is suffering in result, and he wants to make it mutual, WWI style. You can't really blame Germany for doing their best on making a war unthinkable through economic interdependence.

> warning signs that, in retrospect, were obvious

An intention spelt out in textbooks?! Quite an understatement.

Q: "So the part had been expressing an explicit, literal intention, public, codified, written, divulgated, explained et cetera?" // A: "...Heart, Hope, Daily routine, Expectation, Being alike..."

You are defending a perspective of intentional removal of reality, and the principle of reality constraint, from conscience.

> You can't really blame... for doing their best on making a war unthinkable through

In that '«unthinkable»' you show the whole point. It was very much duly thinkable.

Surely those who overrode reality, and in favour of illusion, and clinging unprepared in a cage of "que será", are to blame, and to blame, and to blame.

The onus on you to show is this supposed 'doctrine' in 'textbooks' or we should assume you're wrong.

I don't even agree in 'hindsight' this situation was obvious. It's a hugely risky and crazy manoeuvre by Putin that may very well be his undoing.

The Russian economy is starting to crack, vast elements of key industrial sectors are collapsing.

There are no good cars being made in Russia, and even their garbage Lada's, which nobody wants, might not get made due to sanctions.

Car sales have dropped 80%, there's a vicious black market for spare parts.

Most Russians drive foreign cars. What happens when the all need parts?

Russian airline fleets cannot get maintenance or parts. They are being grounded.

Nothing about this invasion is obvious or doctrinal.

Entirely a surprise? Maybe not - but certainly not expected by anyone, even those paying attention.

> The onus on you to show is this supposed 'doctrine' in 'textbooks' or we should assume you're wrong

Illogical. You could do your own research. Hint, anyway: some material was found as "most interesting" by investigative journalism after Brexit.

Likewise,

> Nothing about this invasion is obvious or doctrinal

is a fully irrational statement.

About the substantive part of your post: you are committing the error of confusing reasoning, under subjective value assumptions, as a ground for prediction. You do not go "certainly they would not do that" projecting in others the role of "rational agents" according to criteria you defined for them. Generic actors do not act "like you would", they act like _they_ would.

"Illogical, you could do your own reasearch"

No, it's not illogical for us to ask you to validate your completely made up, speculative claims that have no basis in reality.

I've already 'done my research'. I know there is nothing 'doctrinal' about Russia's invasion.

You're making claims about other's rhetorical posture (i.e. "you are committing the error of confusing reasoning") - at the same time you're unsubstantiated fantasy statements.

Your claims about 'Russian doctrine' are a bit outrageous and I suggest you might not even know what the term 'doctrine' even means.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, so again, provide evidence for your wild claims.

Looking forward to it (I really am actually, prove me wrong ...).

Recheck the thread. (And your attitude.)

(And your logic: I never said it was «illogical to ask». You never even asked.)

A basis in reality:

"In the days leading up to Russia's February invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin gave a televised address that rejected the idea of Ukraine as an independent country. It never had the 'stable traditions of real statehood,' Putin said. Instead, modern Ukraine was 'entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.'

More than prelude and pretext for a bloody war, Putin's words echo the writings of a man who has proselytized this idea for almost three decades: Aleksandr Dugin. A Russian political philosopher, Dugin has been influential with Russian military and political elites — even with Putin himself."[0]

Dugin's textbook in question, translated from Russian:

"On the key question of Ukraine, Dugin underlines: 'Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning. It has no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness" (377). 'Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions,' he warns, 'represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics' (348)"[1]

[0]:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aleksandr-dugin-russia-ukraine-... [1]:https://web.archive.org/web/20160607175004/https://www2.gwu....

A book "influential" with Russian elites doesn't mean it's teachings are in textbooks or doctrine. The mere fact that many soldiers sent into Ukraine in the first days were surprised, and at least one whole unit surrendered, indicates that popular as Dugin might be among the elites, the common people didn't really know or care.

Why should the "«common people»" be relevant? They have been indoctrinated in other ways - as emerged also through recent reports and as I reminded with «The products of the propaganda machine were quite reachable, and not really ambiguous».

What is relevant are the decision makers - although to the analyst all phenomena are differently relevant, but to reconstruct decision making - and said mention of «teachings [] in textbooks or doctrine» is obscure with regard to the point.

I wrote «It was public doctrine in textbooks, taught at university». I very clearly intended to mean that those doctrines were shown in the open, and that they should have "rung warning bells" together with many other puzzle pieces. Nothing secret, not "documents in safes". And there have been occasions to remind analysts of them.

When the "Ruler formerly known as Mr" (the intention of a change of title was news of the past few hours) took Presidents one by one and clearly spelt out conditions - as they witness -, when doctrine was formulated in clear words and infographics available at your best bookstore (but you can probably attend a lecture), it becomes farcical to act as if Las Vegas had no signs.

If she is wearing a T-shirt, read it: it may contain a message. Otherwise they will complain rightfully you do not listen.

The one chief question about the "book" is how extensive analysts valuated its penetration. Being there, it was there.

Will the frigging snipers pace their reading or be productive.

Quite the contrary, you can and should blame Germany for hiding their head in the sand for the past 10+ years, while a massive threat was growing next to them. It was obviously a catastrophic policy failure. They must have some intelligence services warning the leaders what Russia is really up to. They were being warned by Poland's leadership for quite a while as well. They chose to ignore all that and instead chose to pretend that the threat isn't real - for the sake of short-term convenience and, no doubt, some profits under the table as well.

> hiding their head in the sand

You may enjoy the following cartoon (20 Jan 2022) from Zemgus Zaharans from Riga - I literally just met it:

https://cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/germany-and-russia

Which by the way is about having kept the stance until the last moment.

No, this is false.

It was absolutely not 'doctrine' on either side, in any sense, either military or economic, that dependency on Russian Oil would bring war.

Nor was it 'doctrine' that Russia would ultimately invade Ukraine 'full on'. Even most Russian elite were surprised.

The only 'doctrine' we have to rely on is a) how Russia will use nuclear weapons, b) how they generally operate on the battlefield (aka heavy on Army, esp. Artillery), and how they basically 'lie about everything' in foreign policy.

It was in many ways rational to contemplate that economic ties would diminish hostility, it mostly worked for the rest of Europe.

Were Putin to have eventually retired, his replacement would not have had the power necessary to do, almost alone, what he and a very small cadre of people did.

> either military or economic, that dependency on Russian Oil would bring war

This is something you conjured - it was not in the original post.

> Nor was it 'doctrine'

And this is something you cannot state.

The documents were there: I read articles about them many years ago.

> surprised

May that possibly be because of a "they would never" bad reasoning, as mentioned in the other sibling post?

> It was public doctrine in textbooks, taught at university.

Which book(s), at which university? Genuinely curious.

> Genuinely curious

Of course! I think you just should (or at least that it makes full sense to ask).

I remember - to the best of my memory, it was probably well over five years ago when I read the articles - it was the geopolitics course at Uni Moscow; the professor is/was an ideologist influential in the circle of the core decision makers. The list included a pretty large number of objectives, of which the current topic is just a line.

When, after the war really started¹ and of course you think of the tick-mark in the list, I looked for the original article, I found it definitely not the most immediate needle in the haystack. A few weeks later, though, as the ideologists started to present their point of view to the western public, one interview emerged which I have good reasons to believe was from the above said professor.

I will check for you later when I will have some contiguous time: the name of that interviewed professor (easier to find: I have it in my RSS harvest) should be a better lead to retrieve the articles about his course about the national geopolitical objectives.

¹With reference to those commentators which gave it for a fact well before the actual border trespassing - e.g. Niall Ferguson.

Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, Foundations of Geopolitics (1997).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Exactly that, thank you!

Correctly, as I remembered, he was one of the voices that gave interviews to spread the "creed" in the past weeks - I recognized the name. And he stated in the interviews: "We will get hurt immensely, but we will reach the goal" - this shall be an intellectual warning to the adopters of naïve rational-agentism ("homo oeconomicus would never").

I see that I remembered the wrong faculty: he worked at the Department of Sociology (I probably confused the book name with the department). And I see that the use as textbook has been sparse - adopted and celebrated here and there.

I must recommend that readers go through that list: it is "quite strong". The presence of the UK in the list as an entity that should be separated from Europe is what woke up some commentators after Brexit, with the question "Could they have helped it - surely they expressed they wanted it".

Reported words of that author, that may give a sketchy profile:

> I think that Internet as such, as a phenomenon is worth prohibiting because it gives nobody anything good

> If we want to liberate ourselves from the West, it is needed to liberate ourselves from textbooks on physics and chemistry

...And those lines should again be flashing hints to those who like to consider the players at the chessboard agents following a common rational framework.

Why didn't the German government massively subsidize Green energy?

How on earth is it right to criticize a government for subsidizing green energy in the face of climate change? The reason why solar panels are so cheap today was because Chinese companies achieved economies of scale due to governmental support. This is a GOOD thing.

European countries were way ahead of the curve 10 years ago in terms of these green technologies but chose to do nothing. Their solar companies could have been world leaders as long as governmental policies supported them too. They would have been wiping others out. How can anyone blame China for investing/subsidizing in green energies? The way I view it, it's their just rewards for at least taking this aspect of green technology seriously while others did next to nothing in terms of subsidies.

You are again confusing production with installations.

Europeans were never going to be the 'leaders' - and even without massive Chinese subsidies, it's unlikely that Europe would beat China in industry.

Europe has been rolling out renewables at a good clip.

The Greens of Europe and 'Greepeace' NA have been scaremongering about 'Nuclear' for decades. Fukishima was the last straw.

We should have been investing in Nuclear for the last 30 years.

> Why didn't the German government massively subsidize Green energy?

But they did? (Sorry if Iʼve misunderstood you.)

“According to a 2016 study commissioned by a neoliberal think tank, €150 billion have been spent so far, and the bill is estimated to reach half a trillion euros by 2025.”[1]

That was started by the Schröder government (1998–2005) and rather half-heartedly continued by the Merkel government (2005–2021), decreasing the subsidies.

China has even benefitted from German subsidies.

“Germany long aimed to be a front runner in the solar energy industry, but waning subsidies and rising competition from China have clouded its outlook. To add insult to injury, the Chinese boom has been generously supported by German financial aid.” … “According to KfW officials, it was precisely the subsidy policy's goal to help Chinese solar producers achieve a breakthrough, in order to promote the environmentally friendly technology internationally.”[2]

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-issues-in-a-nutshell-energiewen... [2] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-capital-error...

> few saw a war with Russia coming.

Wilful blindness is a thing in international relations. Churchill plowed a lonely furrow in the 1930s. We were sure the bad old days were over in 1992. Etc. Policymakers and the public /wanted/ to believe that the era of aggression was over (or perhaps, more cynically, that the only permissible aggressor would remain the US).

A state’s responsibility is first and foremost to its people. European states collectively messed up by going against their interests: sanctions on Russia were colossally stupid. The people are starting to wake up and see through the charade leading to an interesting winter. I predict mass protests in a number of places.

>>sanctions on Russia were colossally stupid

Only in the sense that they weren't harsh enough, yes. They are stupid in how many areas they haven't tackled yet.

Is there a reason to believe that this was done on purpose and not because of stupidity? High energy prices stimulate transition to the green energy, and there are literally $trillions to be made there.

With that formulation, you seem to be considering short-term interests only. (Apart from hints of seeing practical interests only.)

I fully agree.

The sanctions must be taken back, Ukraine must be divided and de-militarized, relationship with Russia and China MUST be improved. All this as long as we can.

Unfortuntatly, we only have trash politians in Germany.

Once there are demonstrations against this shit system, I will join. For the first time in my life. I am sick and tired of this system that knows it better and just hurts us. No thanks.

> Ukraine must be divided and de-militarized

Ukraine first, then Poland then the baltics, then all the way to Berlin, and when we're there, all the way to the Atlantic ocean.

Russian shills, do you think we're that stupid?

Russia must be split.

During the Soviet times, the main enemy of the Soviet State was their own people which could revolt.

The russian people today are sadly 90% behind Putin with his ruscism because of the effective propaganda -- today, the only real enemy of Russia is Reality and Truth itself and that's what Russia is really fighting. The only way to postpone reality & truth from emerging is perpetual war.

Russia must be stopped in Ukraine in order for the reality of things to take hold in Russia and for Russia to be rebuilt on sane values.

I agree, Vladvostok should be given to China /s

edit: yes, it's more in jest than anything else

Actually I was just trolling with the "Russia must be split". Giving parts of a country to another country is a bad idea. Greater autonomy and less central power was what I actually meant.

>Ukraine must be divided and de-militarized

Are you Ukranian?

While we're at it, why don't we split up and de-militarize Germany too? You wouldn't mind being under the Russian yoke again would you? Actually, better yet, why don't we go ahead and have Russia just directly annex the eastern part of Germany and send all the Germans living there to the far east. After all, if you're willing to dish out such terms to another sovereign nation, you should accept the same being done to yours.

I would prefer to split Russia between China and Europe, and split their gas resources while we’re at it. Their military is trash anyway and everyone hates Putin. I’m sure the Russians won’t mind being part of Europe and being ruled by normal people instead of thugs.

> sanctions on Russia were colossally stupid

Declaring war to Hitler over invading Poland was colossally stupid.

No, relying on oil and natural gas was stupid.

We had so many warnings -- Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014 and Ukraine now -- the only explanation possible is that Merkel and her cronies are russian agents.

The much simpler explanation is that Merkel is not an independent agent but the agent of her party, even if the was running it with an iron fist, she was beholden to the whims of the voter base. And the party advertised itself on a platform of "no change". So reliance on gas built up by Gas-Gerd Schröder was never built back but only strengthened as to not endanger status quo.

> Merkel and her cronies are russian agents.

That would imply going against the grain.

Merkel always did what was popular. And not freezing and supporting your industry is popular.

Modern industry requires gas/oil. Green industry requires rare earth minerals. Guess which two countries have huge amounts of those available?

Germany was always in a tight spot.

Depends on Russia for energy, depends on US for security, and exports to China (+future rare earth minerals)

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