It's Zubrin versus the Greens in this Battle of the Superfighters episode of the Cosmopolicast. Plus, Down with the Sun: Why the world needs nuclear power.
I’m not sure this is the “debate forum” or just the comments section for this latest article on Nuclear Energy. Nevertheless, I’ll post my comments here.
First, I am a proponent of nuclear energy. The demand for reliable electricity will only increase as more and more electric vehicles come on line.
Second, I concur that fossil fuel carbon emissions should decrease for the many reasons that have been outlined over the last several days. The industrial revolution has (with little doubt) sped up the natural occurring warming cycle the earth has been experiencing over the last 15,000 years. We must do what we can, and be smart about it, not reactionary.
Third, solar and wind and hydro all have their place; however, the need for batteries and their components to provide electrical storage and continuity, make the total positive environmental effect suspect, and in need of rigorous scientific study. (Personally from my experience living off the grid, wind and solar always require an on site fossil fuel generator to fill in the energy gaps).
Finally, I spent over two years working on a permanent nuclear waste repository site back during the Reagan administration. Many areas around the country were being scientifically evaluated for safety and practicality. All the proposed locations were geographically isolated, and far from human population centers. The specific site I worked on was the subterranean salt formations in the Panhandle of Texas. Huge mine shafts were drilled and as well as many smaller exploratory cores. Although, it was an interesting study and much data gathered, it soon became apparent that any decision about a permanent waste site would be based on politics not science. I left the project before it’s completion but continued to follow its progress through friends and reports in the media.
Eventually, the funding dried up and the most distant, isolated, location was chosen in Nevada. Nevertheless, Senator Harry Reid used his power and influence to have President Obama cancel the project.
Conclusion, everybody wants electricity but no one wants the plant, waste products, wind and/or solar farms in their backyard. I’ve concluded nuclear power is our best chance out of this energy matrix. But until endless regulatory and environmental battles can be modulated and curtailed, I am disheartened, and increasingly cynical, that any real progress will be made.
In the end, we really are in control of nothing. But we must try. Why? Because that’s what we do with this large evolved brain. We can’t help it. A large asteroid could strike the earth and wipe us all out. This generally accepted theory as to one of the earths great extinction events was only in its infancy during my undergraduate days. The prevailing wisdom at the time was gradual environmental and evolutionary change. Now it seems that rapid change can, and does, occur after perhaps millennia of relative quiet. (Lots of minus points I know).
I love the Cosmoglob, largely because the articles are for me, a slow reader, multi-day synthesis events. A welcome respite from the hit and run pablum of the "main stream media".
I love the Cosmoglob, largely because the articles are for me, a slow reader, multi-day synthesis events. A welcome respite from the hit and run pablum of the "main stream media".
In recent months, Israel sabotaged a “nuclear site” in Iran for reasons related to Israel’s safety. The term “nuclear site” is what I find when searching the major media. Is “site” a facility that generates electricity via nuclear power or is “site” a place where weapons are created? It turns out that in the case of Iran, “site” is the latter. “Iran’s nuclear program” - another term. Again, the same question- program for energy creation or weapon creation? The media needs to become more precise in wording so the public does not become confused.
This comment is intended for Robert Zubrin, as in his enthusiasm he seems to be painting with too large a brush. Informally, I've heard it called the Nutpicking Fallacy. It's the practice of condemning large groups by choosing convenient quotes and positions from their mix, to display notions that aren't representative of the entire group.
I can find Christians who think slavery is moral, as they believe it is permitted by God. I can find congregations that will largely support that position. This is in the modern context, not just the American South in 1850. I can even find scripture that supports owning people as property, passing them to your children, and your right to beat them (just not to death). It would still be wrong of me to say, "Christians support slavery."
It's possible to be concerned about population pressures without being a eugenicist. It's also possible to believe that humans are capable of both creation AND destruction, it's not an either/or proposition. I know very few people who I think would abandon their humanity in the pursuit of environmental preservation, and I don't believe that attitude is representative of typical conservation intent.
And to police my own criticism, I'll say that the written article seems marginally more fair in its finger pointing. My response was to the podcast, which I had finally gotten the chance to listen to.
Though I can bring only a layman's perspective to Mr. Zubrin's argument in favor of nuclear power, I find it persuasive. As for his indictment of the Green movement, charging it with being fundamentally anti-human—it's spot on.
No one who's been paying attention to the evolution of postmodern progressivism and leftism can possibly have missed their fascination with race suicide. If that judgement seems harsh, recall Mr. Zubrin's irrefutable point that the policies favored by Green ideologues would visit catastrophe on the most vulnerable human populations. Surely the Greens realize this—but their ideology, in which the whole human race is given the role of the bourgeoisie in Marxist-Leninist ideology, reduces that fact to a footnote. If genocide will "save the planet," well, so be it.
The same hatred of humanity infects fourth-wave feminism, taking the form of a jihad against motherhood and family. Nowadays hardly anyone would criticize a woman who decides not to bear children. But should a member of the Sisterhood become a mother, then describe it as a positive, life-affirming event, the knives come out. Rather obviously, the vision of Woman, untrammeled by childbearing, motherhood, family ties, a free artist of herself, is sheer fantasy. And it's anti-human as well, in its contempt for human nature.
One could argue that such things are not seriously meant, that their proponents would flinch from the brink. It may be so—but even so, anti-humanism is a toxic doctrine. Mr. Zubrin makes a convincing case that Green ideology in power would have disastrous global effects, while in the meantime it deforms the whole debate over climate and energy. I believe that the same can be said of its effects in other areas. Consider, for instance, the lunacy of reviling the nuclear family even as the breakdown of the family generates social pathologies at a steady clip.
Of course the debate over climate change and energy policy must focus on science, technology, political factors. But its cultural component deserves much closer scrutiny. Bad things are going on in that area.
Honestly, that surprised me. I see it in use with alarming frequency and assumed it would make the top 100.
And I'll admit guilt to providing a cheeky response there, but I've always been shocked by the way people tend to speak about women (and men, to a lesser extent) who decide they don't want to raise children. Not wanting to take on the mind blowing responsibility of raising new humans seems reasonable. And one can hold value in the flourishing of humanity without propagating ones genes. Perhaps it's just my allergy to phrases like "rather obviously" that roused my suspicions of the statements to follow.
Well, I have no problem with people who decide they don't want to be parents. My problem is with radical feminists who excoriate women who embrace motherhood. And they do so in vicious terms, as if a woman leaving the corporate world to be a mom is committing an act of treason to the Sisterhood.
Not everything is obvious but some things are, i.e. the radical feminist conception of Woman is rather obviously a fantasy. In witness whereof, now that feminism has achieved all of its objectives—women, especially feminists, are more discontented and miserable than ever. What a bummer it's been for them to discover, contra feminist doctrine, that they actually can't have it all. (Men could have told them that.)
I think we can agree there. The fringes of feminism are really exceptional at pissing the rest of feminism off. It's too bad they get so much air time, pro and con, but reasonable positions aren't going to get many clicks.
Something I will add in partial disagreement is that about 20 years ago the Green Party were big proponents of decriminalizing and legalizing prostitution and sex work in Germany which is much more of a classical liberal position someone like myself would take than an Andrea Dworkinite feminist type position.
On the other hand, one could argue that decriminalizing prostitution and sex work is tantamount to dehumanizing those engaged in such commerce. Is that really describable as a liberal principle?
Germanic classical liberals i.e. those in places like the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria where prostitution and sex work is 100 percent legal would all take that position in favor of decriminalization and against what you might call traditional "American" sexual mores. It is pretty well known that Ludwig Erhard was a patron of prostitutes during his time in politics and even back then prostitution was somewhat legal and largely acceptable(the legal changes in the 1990s the Greens in part pushed for were not as significant as one might assume compared to the prior status quo).
I do think there is a divide between the US and especially "Germanic" Europe in understanding classical liberalism. In the US classical liberalism is associated with the pre FDR pre New Deal Republican Presidents like Hoover, Coolidge, Taft, Harding etc. In Germanic Europe classical liberals of parties like the German FDP, Dutch D66(probably the most pro sex work party in Europe), the Dutch VVD party, the Mont Pelerin society etc. would argue that classical Liberals never really had political power until after World War II and pre war rightist like the Nazi's, Mussolini, Luddendorf, Kaiser Wilheim were NOT at all classical liberals. Going even further I suspect Germanic classical liberals would argue that Hoover, Coolidge, and Harding were not classical liberals as they would define themselves either see, Hoover's support of alcohol prohibition, high tariffs/anti free-trade, and the early anti "white" slave trade laws like the Mann Act.
Back to Ludwig Erhard. One reason people like Erhard were popular among the US occupation authorities during the post-war re-building of Germany is they never had any political power prior in German history under either the national socialist regime, the Kaiser or Weimar. They were also figures that can be identified also as somewhat right leaning and both vehemently anti Nazi and anti communist(Opposing the statist command economy of Nazi Germany)
**One reason on the other hand prostitution has been historically opposed in France is it's association with Vichy and the German occupation
Something I do want push back on Ronald about is in my opinion it is not totally a domestic political decision for a country like Germany to decide it doesn't want any nuclear power based on a domestic political decision but yet wants to remain a member of the EU and NATO in "good standing" all the while as it increases gas imports from Russia to make up for the lost nuclear capacity.
Another comment I want to make is the new Vogtle Nuclear Plant finishing construction in the US this year is coming in at roughly half the cost of the Flamanville and Hinckley Point plants in France and the UK(And delivering almost twice the energy as Flamanville). Now the renewable community and it's supporters like Adam I suspect would say that Vogtle is STILL too expensive but my the question I would through back to Adam, Casey and Ben is what cost premium if any is acceptable for nuclear over solar.
Thirdly for all the talk of fusion fixing all of our problems I suspect if fusion became a reality it would face many of the same public relations and political problems as fission based nuclear. power
I don't dispute that domestic policy decisions have international consequences. The same could be said for any country. We live in an interconnected world.
Here's an example of an energy policy pushed by the United States that had big adverse consequences for the rest of the world. During the mid-2000s, the Bush Administration and Congress decided that biofuels were THE answer to rising oil prices and climate change, and put in place various blending mandates and subsidies. These policies raised corn and soybean prices (an intended effect), which also affected prices for other grains and oilseeds, and land-use change elsewhere (an unintended, though predictable, indirect effect). Those food-price increases in turn have been credited as being a factor in the unrest that led to the so-called Arab Spring. The EU's policies in this area also led to a huge increase in the amount of domestic oilseed production being diverted to making biodiesel (often at the expense of food crops), and ultimately greater demand for palm oil, produced mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia, which in turn fed deforestation in those countries.
As for Germany, is the rationale for Nord Stream 2 mainly to make up for lost nuclear capacity, or to replace expected declines in supplies from the North Sea and the Netherlands' Groningen field? Those declines are a fact. Meanwhile, the trend in power generation in Germany has been declining production from both hard coal and lignite, particularly since 2018, as well as from nuclear power plants. Gross power production from renewable energy plants doubled in the 10 years between 2011 and 2020.
Production from gas-fired plants peaked in the years 2008-2010, and then declined over several years, rose sharply between 2015 and 2016, but has been increasing more slowly since then. Will Germany use more gas for power generation in the future? Probably, though to the extent it does will be driven not just by declining output from nuclear power plants but also by coal, and by how much it doesn't make up by generation by renewable-energy sources.
I expect also that Germany will continue to put a high priority on improving its energy efficiency, the effects of which can be seen in the first graph at the link above. In the decade from 2010-19, Germany's GDP increased by 14.3% in real terms (Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDDEU), while both its primary energy energy consumption and more specifically its electricity consumption declined.
Just a footnote: I wasn't sure if the cleanenergywire graph was showing real GDP growth, so I looked for other sources. The 14.3% real increase is in U.S. dollar terms. This graph confirms that in euro terms it was even higher: 16.4%.
Sadly, I suspect so. Perhaps not quite as many, but a lot of people who are committed to renewables (or simply anti nuclear or any sort) would find something to object to no doubt.
While I don't want to push the conversation in yet another direction I do also want to challenge this view that I am seeing from some of the Cosmopolitan Globalists like Toomas and Monique that somehow the German Green Party will usher in sometype of new golden age in transatlantic relations. I know this is partly a function of Toomas and Monique wanting to kill Nordstream 2 and the German Greens want to kill Nordstream 2 too but the reasons the Greens want to kill Nordstream 2 for are fundamentally different than Toomas and Monique are letting on to the followers. Perhaps we need to have a specific discussion about Nordstream 2 and EU-Russia gas trade as I was reminded by Ben and Adam on Twitter that this is supposed to be a Europe centric discussion something I did not know the Cosmopolitan Globalist was?
Yep, and Claire and Vivek have pointed that out in a great interview not long ago. I hope you and everyone is having a splendid day- absolutely gorgeous here in Siena- Just about to step out,take a walk on the Francigena Way and appreciate being at one with nature ;)
I haven't listened to the discussion, but Robert Zubrin's essay is great.
I’m not sure this is the “debate forum” or just the comments section for this latest article on Nuclear Energy. Nevertheless, I’ll post my comments here.
First, I am a proponent of nuclear energy. The demand for reliable electricity will only increase as more and more electric vehicles come on line.
Second, I concur that fossil fuel carbon emissions should decrease for the many reasons that have been outlined over the last several days. The industrial revolution has (with little doubt) sped up the natural occurring warming cycle the earth has been experiencing over the last 15,000 years. We must do what we can, and be smart about it, not reactionary.
Third, solar and wind and hydro all have their place; however, the need for batteries and their components to provide electrical storage and continuity, make the total positive environmental effect suspect, and in need of rigorous scientific study. (Personally from my experience living off the grid, wind and solar always require an on site fossil fuel generator to fill in the energy gaps).
Finally, I spent over two years working on a permanent nuclear waste repository site back during the Reagan administration. Many areas around the country were being scientifically evaluated for safety and practicality. All the proposed locations were geographically isolated, and far from human population centers. The specific site I worked on was the subterranean salt formations in the Panhandle of Texas. Huge mine shafts were drilled and as well as many smaller exploratory cores. Although, it was an interesting study and much data gathered, it soon became apparent that any decision about a permanent waste site would be based on politics not science. I left the project before it’s completion but continued to follow its progress through friends and reports in the media.
Eventually, the funding dried up and the most distant, isolated, location was chosen in Nevada. Nevertheless, Senator Harry Reid used his power and influence to have President Obama cancel the project.
Conclusion, everybody wants electricity but no one wants the plant, waste products, wind and/or solar farms in their backyard. I’ve concluded nuclear power is our best chance out of this energy matrix. But until endless regulatory and environmental battles can be modulated and curtailed, I am disheartened, and increasingly cynical, that any real progress will be made.
In the end, we really are in control of nothing. But we must try. Why? Because that’s what we do with this large evolved brain. We can’t help it. A large asteroid could strike the earth and wipe us all out. This generally accepted theory as to one of the earths great extinction events was only in its infancy during my undergraduate days. The prevailing wisdom at the time was gradual environmental and evolutionary change. Now it seems that rapid change can, and does, occur after perhaps millennia of relative quiet. (Lots of minus points I know).
Aux armes, citoyens !!!
I love the Cosmoglob, largely because the articles are for me, a slow reader, multi-day synthesis events. A welcome respite from the hit and run pablum of the "main stream media".
I love the Cosmoglob, largely because the articles are for me, a slow reader, multi-day synthesis events. A welcome respite from the hit and run pablum of the "main stream media".
We love you, too!
Aw, shucks. I dont known why comment posted twice. Blame IT! ;-)
In recent months, Israel sabotaged a “nuclear site” in Iran for reasons related to Israel’s safety. The term “nuclear site” is what I find when searching the major media. Is “site” a facility that generates electricity via nuclear power or is “site” a place where weapons are created? It turns out that in the case of Iran, “site” is the latter. “Iran’s nuclear program” - another term. Again, the same question- program for energy creation or weapon creation? The media needs to become more precise in wording so the public does not become confused.
This comment is intended for Robert Zubrin, as in his enthusiasm he seems to be painting with too large a brush. Informally, I've heard it called the Nutpicking Fallacy. It's the practice of condemning large groups by choosing convenient quotes and positions from their mix, to display notions that aren't representative of the entire group.
I can find Christians who think slavery is moral, as they believe it is permitted by God. I can find congregations that will largely support that position. This is in the modern context, not just the American South in 1850. I can even find scripture that supports owning people as property, passing them to your children, and your right to beat them (just not to death). It would still be wrong of me to say, "Christians support slavery."
It's possible to be concerned about population pressures without being a eugenicist. It's also possible to believe that humans are capable of both creation AND destruction, it's not an either/or proposition. I know very few people who I think would abandon their humanity in the pursuit of environmental preservation, and I don't believe that attitude is representative of typical conservation intent.
And to police my own criticism, I'll say that the written article seems marginally more fair in its finger pointing. My response was to the podcast, which I had finally gotten the chance to listen to.
Though I can bring only a layman's perspective to Mr. Zubrin's argument in favor of nuclear power, I find it persuasive. As for his indictment of the Green movement, charging it with being fundamentally anti-human—it's spot on.
No one who's been paying attention to the evolution of postmodern progressivism and leftism can possibly have missed their fascination with race suicide. If that judgement seems harsh, recall Mr. Zubrin's irrefutable point that the policies favored by Green ideologues would visit catastrophe on the most vulnerable human populations. Surely the Greens realize this—but their ideology, in which the whole human race is given the role of the bourgeoisie in Marxist-Leninist ideology, reduces that fact to a footnote. If genocide will "save the planet," well, so be it.
The same hatred of humanity infects fourth-wave feminism, taking the form of a jihad against motherhood and family. Nowadays hardly anyone would criticize a woman who decides not to bear children. But should a member of the Sisterhood become a mother, then describe it as a positive, life-affirming event, the knives come out. Rather obviously, the vision of Woman, untrammeled by childbearing, motherhood, family ties, a free artist of herself, is sheer fantasy. And it's anti-human as well, in its contempt for human nature.
One could argue that such things are not seriously meant, that their proponents would flinch from the brink. It may be so—but even so, anti-humanism is a toxic doctrine. Mr. Zubrin makes a convincing case that Green ideology in power would have disastrous global effects, while in the meantime it deforms the whole debate over climate and energy. I believe that the same can be said of its effects in other areas. Consider, for instance, the lunacy of reviling the nuclear family even as the breakdown of the family generates social pathologies at a steady clip.
Of course the debate over climate change and energy policy must focus on science, technology, political factors. But its cultural component deserves much closer scrutiny. Bad things are going on in that area.
I'm going to ask for a foul to be called on the play: use of the Naturalistic Fallacy.
The Naturalistic Fallacy seems not to appear on Claire’s master list...
Honestly, that surprised me. I see it in use with alarming frequency and assumed it would make the top 100.
And I'll admit guilt to providing a cheeky response there, but I've always been shocked by the way people tend to speak about women (and men, to a lesser extent) who decide they don't want to raise children. Not wanting to take on the mind blowing responsibility of raising new humans seems reasonable. And one can hold value in the flourishing of humanity without propagating ones genes. Perhaps it's just my allergy to phrases like "rather obviously" that roused my suspicions of the statements to follow.
Well, I have no problem with people who decide they don't want to be parents. My problem is with radical feminists who excoriate women who embrace motherhood. And they do so in vicious terms, as if a woman leaving the corporate world to be a mom is committing an act of treason to the Sisterhood.
Not everything is obvious but some things are, i.e. the radical feminist conception of Woman is rather obviously a fantasy. In witness whereof, now that feminism has achieved all of its objectives—women, especially feminists, are more discontented and miserable than ever. What a bummer it's been for them to discover, contra feminist doctrine, that they actually can't have it all. (Men could have told them that.)
I think we can agree there. The fringes of feminism are really exceptional at pissing the rest of feminism off. It's too bad they get so much air time, pro and con, but reasonable positions aren't going to get many clicks.
Don't forget: We're only scoring comments in the debate forums.
And dock me a few points for violating fallacy 114. That's a new one to me.
Something I will add in partial disagreement is that about 20 years ago the Green Party were big proponents of decriminalizing and legalizing prostitution and sex work in Germany which is much more of a classical liberal position someone like myself would take than an Andrea Dworkinite feminist type position.
On the other hand, one could argue that decriminalizing prostitution and sex work is tantamount to dehumanizing those engaged in such commerce. Is that really describable as a liberal principle?
Germanic classical liberals i.e. those in places like the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria where prostitution and sex work is 100 percent legal would all take that position in favor of decriminalization and against what you might call traditional "American" sexual mores. It is pretty well known that Ludwig Erhard was a patron of prostitutes during his time in politics and even back then prostitution was somewhat legal and largely acceptable(the legal changes in the 1990s the Greens in part pushed for were not as significant as one might assume compared to the prior status quo).
I do think there is a divide between the US and especially "Germanic" Europe in understanding classical liberalism. In the US classical liberalism is associated with the pre FDR pre New Deal Republican Presidents like Hoover, Coolidge, Taft, Harding etc. In Germanic Europe classical liberals of parties like the German FDP, Dutch D66(probably the most pro sex work party in Europe), the Dutch VVD party, the Mont Pelerin society etc. would argue that classical Liberals never really had political power until after World War II and pre war rightist like the Nazi's, Mussolini, Luddendorf, Kaiser Wilheim were NOT at all classical liberals. Going even further I suspect Germanic classical liberals would argue that Hoover, Coolidge, and Harding were not classical liberals as they would define themselves either see, Hoover's support of alcohol prohibition, high tariffs/anti free-trade, and the early anti "white" slave trade laws like the Mann Act.
Back to Ludwig Erhard. One reason people like Erhard were popular among the US occupation authorities during the post-war re-building of Germany is they never had any political power prior in German history under either the national socialist regime, the Kaiser or Weimar. They were also figures that can be identified also as somewhat right leaning and both vehemently anti Nazi and anti communist(Opposing the statist command economy of Nazi Germany)
**One reason on the other hand prostitution has been historically opposed in France is it's association with Vichy and the German occupation
Something I do want push back on Ronald about is in my opinion it is not totally a domestic political decision for a country like Germany to decide it doesn't want any nuclear power based on a domestic political decision but yet wants to remain a member of the EU and NATO in "good standing" all the while as it increases gas imports from Russia to make up for the lost nuclear capacity.
Another comment I want to make is the new Vogtle Nuclear Plant finishing construction in the US this year is coming in at roughly half the cost of the Flamanville and Hinckley Point plants in France and the UK(And delivering almost twice the energy as Flamanville). Now the renewable community and it's supporters like Adam I suspect would say that Vogtle is STILL too expensive but my the question I would through back to Adam, Casey and Ben is what cost premium if any is acceptable for nuclear over solar.
Thirdly for all the talk of fusion fixing all of our problems I suspect if fusion became a reality it would face many of the same public relations and political problems as fission based nuclear. power
I don't dispute that domestic policy decisions have international consequences. The same could be said for any country. We live in an interconnected world.
Here's an example of an energy policy pushed by the United States that had big adverse consequences for the rest of the world. During the mid-2000s, the Bush Administration and Congress decided that biofuels were THE answer to rising oil prices and climate change, and put in place various blending mandates and subsidies. These policies raised corn and soybean prices (an intended effect), which also affected prices for other grains and oilseeds, and land-use change elsewhere (an unintended, though predictable, indirect effect). Those food-price increases in turn have been credited as being a factor in the unrest that led to the so-called Arab Spring. The EU's policies in this area also led to a huge increase in the amount of domestic oilseed production being diverted to making biodiesel (often at the expense of food crops), and ultimately greater demand for palm oil, produced mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia, which in turn fed deforestation in those countries.
As for Germany, is the rationale for Nord Stream 2 mainly to make up for lost nuclear capacity, or to replace expected declines in supplies from the North Sea and the Netherlands' Groningen field? Those declines are a fact. Meanwhile, the trend in power generation in Germany has been declining production from both hard coal and lignite, particularly since 2018, as well as from nuclear power plants. Gross power production from renewable energy plants doubled in the 10 years between 2011 and 2020.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
Production from gas-fired plants peaked in the years 2008-2010, and then declined over several years, rose sharply between 2015 and 2016, but has been increasing more slowly since then. Will Germany use more gas for power generation in the future? Probably, though to the extent it does will be driven not just by declining output from nuclear power plants but also by coal, and by how much it doesn't make up by generation by renewable-energy sources.
I expect also that Germany will continue to put a high priority on improving its energy efficiency, the effects of which can be seen in the first graph at the link above. In the decade from 2010-19, Germany's GDP increased by 14.3% in real terms (Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDDEU), while both its primary energy energy consumption and more specifically its electricity consumption declined.
Just a footnote: I wasn't sure if the cleanenergywire graph was showing real GDP growth, so I looked for other sources. The 14.3% real increase is in U.S. dollar terms. This graph confirms that in euro terms it was even higher: 16.4%.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLVMNACSCAB1GQDE
Sadly, I suspect so. Perhaps not quite as many, but a lot of people who are committed to renewables (or simply anti nuclear or any sort) would find something to object to no doubt.
While I don't want to push the conversation in yet another direction I do also want to challenge this view that I am seeing from some of the Cosmopolitan Globalists like Toomas and Monique that somehow the German Green Party will usher in sometype of new golden age in transatlantic relations. I know this is partly a function of Toomas and Monique wanting to kill Nordstream 2 and the German Greens want to kill Nordstream 2 too but the reasons the Greens want to kill Nordstream 2 for are fundamentally different than Toomas and Monique are letting on to the followers. Perhaps we need to have a specific discussion about Nordstream 2 and EU-Russia gas trade as I was reminded by Ben and Adam on Twitter that this is supposed to be a Europe centric discussion something I did not know the Cosmopolitan Globalist was?
My understanding (Claire, Vivek or Monique can clarify) isn't that the CG aims at being Europe-centric, just not U.S.-centric.
Then they should call it the CosmoEuropa.
They do seem to tolerate my Brash Yankee posting in the comments.
Let me introduce you to Vivek Y. Kelkar
Yep, and Claire and Vivek have pointed that out in a great interview not long ago. I hope you and everyone is having a splendid day- absolutely gorgeous here in Siena- Just about to step out,take a walk on the Francigena Way and appreciate being at one with nature ;)
Still highly variable, and cool, weather here in Paris. Enjoy nature while you still can! :-)