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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

The current US administrations moves against renewables should make you realize how powerful the oil gas lobby is. They got some pushback from local politicians so were slowed down but the way they started they were looking to end all wind and solar for a false promise of nuclear tomorrow.

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The last decades' worth of German administrations (and EU countries in general) removed nuclear on the promise of a cheap grid made from green hydrogen and renewables. What they delivered was a EU grid dependent on imported natural gas and a record high ~€400 billions energy subsidies.

It is hard to see whose promise of a bright future seems most realistic.

Germany is not the same as other countries. They have a culturally different view towards nuclear power.

Italy used to be similar (though they have seemed to be softening their stance recently). Austria is even more anti-nuclear than Germany ever was.

Sweden was also on the same german track, shutdown some of the nuclear fleet, but is now going back and forth on the issue. They are also investing in new natural gas fueled thermal plants, with similar "future" plans of using green hydrogen.

The national debate in Sweden is also similar. The right is arguing that the future is nuclear, and the left is arguing that green hydrogen is the future and natural gas is the stepping stone to get there. It is a miniature copy of the general energy discussion in EU.

except that there are more than two possibilities, but the debate is reduced to artificial Left and Right -- a miniature copy of the American political duopoly

That is correct, and I would add that the debate is also addressing the wrong questions. We should ask what role government should have in providing reliable and steady energy grid, what the values such grid provide to society, and how the costs should be distributed between market forces and taxes.

It is the failure to define what people actually want from the grid that results in people creating a religion behind power production, believing in a promise of a future that we have never seen.

Germany is not unique either. Both France and Belgium are struggling with their inventory of nuclear power plants: many are operating near or past their designed lifespans, so maintenance is getting more expensive but they can't be decommissioned because there are no replacement plants (and due to electric transportation, demand is only going up). Germany definitely made the wrong choice, but at least they were aware enough to make an explicit choice. Other European countries have basically been burying their head in the sand on the same issue.

As of today, France is looking to start construction on six new plants but that still means the plants likely won't be in operation until 2040. And Belgium hasn't even started the planning phase. That's 15 more years of operating nuclear power plants designed in the mid 1900s.

I don't think poor transition planning should be seen as an indictment of renewables. Germany planned their transition poorly; that's on them.

(Germany also is culturally/politically somewhat anti-nuclear, too, which is a shame.)

> The current US administrations moves against renewables

It is promoting electric cars fairly forcefully.

Only Teslas.

Without a doubt it’s ‘despite being electric’ rather than ‘because they are electric’.

Only because of Musk's involvement. This is crony capitalism at its worst.

If they had their way, we'd all be driving Teslas, charging them with electricity generated from fossil fuels.

Powerful is correct. It's strange to me the number of people on this site who think we should just throw away trillions of dollars. We should use natural gas to make renewable dirt cheap, just that would offset any externalities you can make up.

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