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Comment by taylodl | Hacker News Reader

Had to lookup up why climate protestors would be protesting the Tesla gigafactory. It's about protecting drinking water. https://www.thelocal.de/20240229/why-are-activists-building-...

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>Had to lookup up why climate protestors would be protesting the Tesla gigafactory.

We're not going to stop climate change by moving everyone from a personal use internal combustion vehicle to a personal use electric vehicle. The protestors primary focus is the local water, but their camp carries many slogans like “Clean cars are a dirty lie”.

You're right to an extent, but personal use electric vehicles are still a step in the right direction. Even if all the power generated for them comes from coal, which is another argument people make against them. I would wager that EV buyers are more willing to look at smaller electric vehicles like ebikes and scooters as compared to the average person.

If all our vehicles were electric, it would be much simpler to transition to greener methods of electricity production. ICE vehicles don't have this kind of flexibility.

Seems fair enough. Why was the factory allowed to be built there if it threatens the drinking water?

They really stretched regulations and started building - with the possibility for approval being denied thus the whole thing having to be teared down. Basically creating facts, I think that has created immense pressure on local politics/regulators. Also considering the region has lots of structural problems. It's quite incomprehensible to me why it wouldn't have been possible to build it a few kilometers further where there's no water protection area. Not to mention they had a number of water contamination incidents since then

Local politicians who wanted to promote themselves and probably also got lobbied hardcore.

Lobbied by who ? Unlikely Tesla itself as the company would have likely move the factory few kilometers away if that could guarantee future expansions.

I'm not a Musk fanboy, but one of Germany's (edit: Europe's) largest oil refineries (a very dirty industry) is barely 60 miles away [0], and a couple large coal plants in neighboring Poland barely 100 miles away.

It's just NIMBYism and bad faith.

If you can storm an EV plant, why not a refinery.

[0] - https://www.pck.de/en/

Feels to me that it is a cry for attention. It is like pouring red paint on the Mona Lisa. It seems a bit disproportionate, but it clearly provides some publicity for those activists with little investment. The same against another random Volkswagen factory in Germany would have not the same impact and worldwide coverage. It is an efficient way to make a local town issue, becoming a worldwide cause.

Storming a VW plant or one of Europe's largest refineries absolutely would have worldwide coverage, but also National Security level prosecution.

It looks like Tesla is facing the brunt because it's not a German company.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's also being astroturfed, as it is being spearheaded by a militant/direct action group [0]

Right and Left-Wing extremists are two sides of the same coin, and German utilities are viewing this as having potential ramifications on German stability [1][2]

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volcan...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

[2] - https://www.ft.com/content/c88509f9-c9bd-46f4-8a5c-9b2bdd3c3...

German here. My interpretation of the situation is that Berlin tends to be pretty far left (compared with other parts of the country) and has an sizeable community of activists for various causes. Now, ever since Musk started his journey to the far right fringe, Tesla has increasingly lost sympathy / become a target of these left wing groups.

A militant/direct-action/anarchist far-left group like Vulkangruppe is drastically different from your more garden variety left leaning or environmental activists like the Green Party or factions of the SDP or Die Linke

I was responding the the parent's suspicion that Tesla is being targeted because they aren't a German company ("It looks like Tesla is facing the brunt because it's not a German company"). I don't think that's the case since these far left groups likely don't care too much about that, but rather the fact that the company is owned by the (now controversial) Musk.

Fair enough! That makes sense!

I don't believe anything from any of those groups

"Climate activists" is the reason why we have so little nuclear power plants

Technically they are the reason why we don’t have small nuclear reactors.

No Chernobyl is the reason why we don't have nuclear reactors. either Tokio tsunami disaster or the 600 nukes after Hiroshima should prove that mankind can't be trusted with this technology imho. there has to be a better way.

"climate activists" is not a uniform group. They've got a common goal and many conflicting opinions on the way to get there.

I think what they mean is "climate activist" is often code for people with de-growth and anti-human leanings.

I wouldn't even say a common goal. There's plenty of opinions on what the ideal Earth's climate would be like. Some people strive for what they view as "natural", vs other people who aim to reduce natural disasters, and yet even more who just think we should be reducing our impact in general.

That's what reactionaries have used in their continuing war to deligitimize everyone and everything left of center. But nobody has demonstrated a reliably cost-effective way to run nuclear power plants, and renewables are the future.

> But nobody has demonstrated a reliably cost-effective way to run nuclear power plants,

Half of Europe disagrees with you

They run plants, but are they reliably cost-effective?

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