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Comment by drited | Hacker News Reader

Not just a dictatorship problem. Look at the halting of nuclear in Germany - a decision made by Angela Merkel after a bottle of wine with her husband according to The Atlantic.

I would argue that the current energy crisis was also partly caused by the ESG drive which while laudable in aspiration got ahead of physical practical implementation capacity.

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Large scale buildouts of natural gas infrastructure is not ESG.

I know it is tempting to pin this one on the environmentalists, but this is on the establishment. Starting with Schröder who realized he could find an easy way to keep German industry competitive and line his pockets and live a comfortable life forever.

This is similar to the Sri Lankan situation. It does not matter how you label it. The lack of fertilizer was clearly not voluntary.

Sri Lanka has an ESG score of 98.1 out of 100.

Devemoped countries have underinvested in natural gas infrastructure compared to its importance in keeping their shiny new renewable-heavy grids actually operating though - and in particular ESG campaigners have been very successful at blocking investment in natural gas production in most of the Western democratic world. Which has just resulted in heavy dependencies on imports from unstable dictatorships since there's no real alternative to fossil fuels yet. I know the Guardian here in the UK has been pushing for a continued block on new natural gas production that they admit will only stop it being produced in stable democratic countries, even well after Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the actual consequences of this.

Substituting electricity made at natural gas fuelled power stations for electricity made at coal fuelled power stations does however result in large carbon emission reductions and is seen as ESG (or was prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine anyway)

What I don't get is how nuclear goes against any ESG. It's just fear.

Merkel is pro nuclear, the public sentiment forced her hand after Fukushima though.

>the public sentiment forced her hand after Fukushima though

I wonder how many people died in Fukushima vs how many Ukrainians were killed by Russian soldiers this year.

Or vs how many people die every day due to German coal plants :(

I fail to see the correlation. Blaming Germany for everything is becoming a tiresome meme.

The problem for Germany, and Europe more broadly, is that nuclear power stations don't create natural gas.

Electricity and natural gas aren't interchangeable commodities, particularly given Germany's infrastructure.

They can be used to create hydrogen however which can substitute for many energy uses that currently consume natural gas.

Also Europe produces a lot of electricity with natural gas fuelled turbines.

The amount of shilling for nuclear energy on this site is never ceases to amaze me. It's just more expensive than alternatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla... and the costs related to storing fuel, decommission old reactors and so on are also huge and paid by the taxpayer.

Nuclear is reliable and can run 24/7.

Wind and solar cannot guarantee production. This means you need storage. The problem with storage is you need to determine how much you want. If you decide on 1 month of storage what happens when you have limited wind and sun for a month and you are running out of stored power?

Nuclear doesn't have that problem. This is why nuclear is a must in the future.

Are you seriously claiming that saying closing existing nuclear is stupid is 'shilling' for nuclear?

New nuclear is expensive. Existing nuclear is not.

Angela Merkel was in power for 16 years. How is she not a dictator. She usurped power.

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