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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

> Maybe there's no simple answer for energy issues and countries don't simply build or close down power plants over single issue?

Well, two things. One, pretty sure the push to shut down Germany’s nuclear plants was a response to a single issue, Fukushima.

Two, one simple answer to this particular situation is to assess your energy independence before sanctioning the country you rely on for natural gas. Germany is getting raked over the coals with the same talking points precisely because they walked into a situation they weren’t well-equipped to handle.

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Nuclear power plant construction is flat since Chernobyl and seen slight decline after Fukushima: https://dropover.cloud/ec077b#c8239728-7d32-49ab-98c7-865fb0...

Safety concerns are definitely an issue that can nudge you to prefer alternative sources but this doesn't make it single issue. It's simply one of the things you consider.

As you can see, despite NPP construction stalling in late 1980s, world energy consumption continued to increase: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

This simply means, considering the risks and cost of all energy sources, nuclear power fell unfavourably. Doesn't mean single issue.

I think this is mostly due to the fact that the advantage of nuclear is long term and humans -- and especially politicians and bureaucrats -- aren't good at long term planning. Globally we basically rolled out a bunch of nuclear plants and went "welp, that'll hold us off for the next 50-60 years." It's like exercising and eating right for a year and expecting this to keep you healthy for decades as you eat poorly with little to no exercise. Maintenance and continual production is key to cost reduction and advancement but this is something nuclear never got. I really do think nuclear's biggest flaw is its lifespan. Just allows people to get lazy.

> assess your energy independence before sanctioning the country you rely on for natural gas.

Trump blurted that to the Germans around 2019. The press brushed it off as "highly misleading".

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/trump-is-exaggerating-german...

> President Donald Trump repeated a highly misleading claim on Friday that Germany will soon depend on Russia for 50 percent to 70 percent of its energy needs.

Then the article spends significant time pointing out that Russian natural gas plays only a small part in Germany's total demands in energy, citing numbers like 20% & 13% and thus Trump's claim is am exaggeration.

And then goes on to say:

> To be sure, Russia also accounted for about 40 percent of Germany's crude oil imports and 30 percent of its foreign coal supplies in 2016, according to IEA. But that hardly makes it an outlier in Europe.

How is that glossed over? Is it just me or - I hate to say it - Trump actually had a point?

He has been shown to have been correct on this. I think he was also correct to ask Europe to fund NATO on their own. As USA taxpayer, I don't want to pay for it. Europeans know where they live and their history.

This is a bit tricky and I don't think many consider it. One of the leading theories for peace in Europe is the lack of militarization in Europe. Countries with standing armies are more likely to go to war with one another. So we got the rise of superpowers and where better to place that superpower than across an ocean and in an area with few contested borders and not thousands of years of history of fighting? I mean it seems the other approach is akin to what China did. Just be successful in conquering the region.

Obviously this point is _highly_ debatable but it is worth consideration. And it is not like the US hasn't benefited from the military industrial complex. Though I do think the funding structure could be reworked or we at least acknowledge that this is what is happening.

we dont want nato it was pushed on us. no one ever voted for being a tool in the us armada. you know the usa that would definitly go crazy if russia or china had weapons in mexico but see no problem of doing the same. one day u will understand that american people live well because their number one investment is their army and nato

> Is it just me or - I hate to say it - Trump actually had a point?

I'm not sure why people are afraid to say this. He has literally said everything under the sun. You throw enough darts and you're bound to eventually hit the board. Supporters just focus on the hits and don't pay attention to the misses, but this isn't different from any populist (I mean look at Musk. If you keep predicting that autopilot is a year away you'll eventually be right and that's all we'll ever remember)

I tend to think that Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Now thinking about people/politicians that laugh him off when they were warned about energy dependence on Russia... they must be dumb AF or bribed by Putin or both.

EU/Germany energy politics were/are a trainwreck and that was obvious for at least a decade. Instead of recognizing the obvious warning in 2014, most of the continent doubled down on Russia energy dependency.

As a citizen of EU county - this is depressing. Most of our political elite should be locked up somewhere and keys tossed away. They are directly responsible for the clusterf*ck that follows.

>Trump blurted that to the Germans around 2019. The press brushed it off as "highly misleading".

And the Germans literally laughed in his face: https://youtu.be/FfJv9QYrlwg

Pretty hard to watch now. The smugness is palpable.

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