Thank you for an excellent analysis. South Africa is also on a risky policy road to 'Net Zero', with government increasingly committing to wind and solar in an apparent attempt to emulate Germany. Fortunately some reality has been forced on government by a period of electrcity supply shortfalls, , euphemistically termed 'load-shedding'. This has resulted in a delay in the planned shuttering of coal-fired power stations (80% of our electrcity comes from coal), and new interest in nuclear. South Africa has one French-designed nuclear power station (Koeberg in the Western Cape) that has been running well since 1984. The country also made sigificant progress on its home-grown SMR, the PBMR project, and we have a pilot plant that successfully produced pebble fuel. The project was closed around 2008 for financial reasons as well as lawfare by the local anti-nuke activists. There is talk of trying to revive the PBMR project, but this is unlikely to happen. The skilled PBMR ex-peronnel are now scattered around the globe, with some leading experts with X-Energy in the USA. A large contingent of South Africans worked on the new nuclear plant in the UAE. ' Climate catastrophe' rules the media waves in South Africa and contrarian views get no mention at all. Keep up your good work. John Ledger.
"if the country had kept its existing nuclear plants operational and invested in new reactors, the estimated cost would have been only €36 billion, significantly less than the Energiewende policy.”
For months I've been saying if we spent all the subsidy money on nuclear instead of unrenewable unreliables, we'd have plenty of money for new nuclear power plants and we'd have plenty of energy no matter how cold it gets in the winter.
Greenpeace and others dont disclose their sources of income.
One can only suppose that they get plenty of money from Russia and China as Greenpeace's aim is to wreck the economies of the West via promoting so called renewables to generate electricity. What is happening in Germany and Australia are good examples as capital is deserting these countries at a rapid pace and moving to the US where opportunities abound under the new president.
The article is good and reasonable. But it was impossible for Germany to do other than it did. This is for two main reasons.
1. Germans had been terrorized about the word "nuclear" for more than three decades. A divided Germany was on the front line of the military confrontation between NATO and the USSR and Warsaw Pact. Should an open war have broken out, that conflict would use nuclear weapons by both sides. Along with the military confrontation, no relevant German authorities ever made any significant efforts to make any distinction between civilian power production use and military use of nuclear technology.
2. The USSR made a systematic effort to destroy Germany's nuclear power program. This was because the Soviet Union was dependent upon imports from western nations. With its enormous military budget, about 30% of GDP, the Soviet Union was going bankrupt. It produced nothing that any western economies valued. Except for two things: petroleum and natural gas.
The Soviet Union had proximity to a large demand for oil and gas in Germany. However, that was conditional upon Germany terminating its nuclear power program. To do this, then-KGB head Yuri Andropov instituted a program of Soviet support for left-wing German political parties like the Greens and SPD. It also provided support for environmental NGOs.
This program was highly successful and produced a number of results.
1. Germany's NPP program was terminated after the completion of Emsland.
2. Russia became the dominant oil and gas supplier to Germany. This was accelerated by the 1974 and 1979 oil crises.
3. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was promoted to a senior management position within Gazprom.
4. Yuri Andropov was selected to succeed Leonid Brezhnev as the head of the Soviet Union in 1982 as a reward for his success.
Germans were once viewed as smart & wise.
Greenpeace, by the way, doesn't reveal its funding, especially from the petro biz.
Thank you for an excellent analysis. South Africa is also on a risky policy road to 'Net Zero', with government increasingly committing to wind and solar in an apparent attempt to emulate Germany. Fortunately some reality has been forced on government by a period of electrcity supply shortfalls, , euphemistically termed 'load-shedding'. This has resulted in a delay in the planned shuttering of coal-fired power stations (80% of our electrcity comes from coal), and new interest in nuclear. South Africa has one French-designed nuclear power station (Koeberg in the Western Cape) that has been running well since 1984. The country also made sigificant progress on its home-grown SMR, the PBMR project, and we have a pilot plant that successfully produced pebble fuel. The project was closed around 2008 for financial reasons as well as lawfare by the local anti-nuke activists. There is talk of trying to revive the PBMR project, but this is unlikely to happen. The skilled PBMR ex-peronnel are now scattered around the globe, with some leading experts with X-Energy in the USA. A large contingent of South Africans worked on the new nuclear plant in the UAE. ' Climate catastrophe' rules the media waves in South Africa and contrarian views get no mention at all. Keep up your good work. John Ledger.
Some say that Greenpeace was an influence operation by the Soviet Union.
Amnesty International certainly was.
"if the country had kept its existing nuclear plants operational and invested in new reactors, the estimated cost would have been only €36 billion, significantly less than the Energiewende policy.”
For months I've been saying if we spent all the subsidy money on nuclear instead of unrenewable unreliables, we'd have plenty of money for new nuclear power plants and we'd have plenty of energy no matter how cold it gets in the winter.
Greenpeace and others dont disclose their sources of income.
One can only suppose that they get plenty of money from Russia and China as Greenpeace's aim is to wreck the economies of the West via promoting so called renewables to generate electricity. What is happening in Germany and Australia are good examples as capital is deserting these countries at a rapid pace and moving to the US where opportunities abound under the new president.
The article is good and reasonable. But it was impossible for Germany to do other than it did. This is for two main reasons.
1. Germans had been terrorized about the word "nuclear" for more than three decades. A divided Germany was on the front line of the military confrontation between NATO and the USSR and Warsaw Pact. Should an open war have broken out, that conflict would use nuclear weapons by both sides. Along with the military confrontation, no relevant German authorities ever made any significant efforts to make any distinction between civilian power production use and military use of nuclear technology.
2. The USSR made a systematic effort to destroy Germany's nuclear power program. This was because the Soviet Union was dependent upon imports from western nations. With its enormous military budget, about 30% of GDP, the Soviet Union was going bankrupt. It produced nothing that any western economies valued. Except for two things: petroleum and natural gas.
The Soviet Union had proximity to a large demand for oil and gas in Germany. However, that was conditional upon Germany terminating its nuclear power program. To do this, then-KGB head Yuri Andropov instituted a program of Soviet support for left-wing German political parties like the Greens and SPD. It also provided support for environmental NGOs.
This program was highly successful and produced a number of results.
1. Germany's NPP program was terminated after the completion of Emsland.
2. Russia became the dominant oil and gas supplier to Germany. This was accelerated by the 1974 and 1979 oil crises.
3. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was promoted to a senior management position within Gazprom.
4. Yuri Andropov was selected to succeed Leonid Brezhnev as the head of the Soviet Union in 1982 as a reward for his success.