Rather than comment here—other than to say that I found this article really interesting, and that I think it is rather early too put much store in estimates of levelized generating costs for a nuclear-fusion based power plant—on the "proposition" page that Claire set up here:
After listening to both parts of the podcast, reading all of the articles posted and thinking about this for a while I guess I would state from my perspective I guess I personally don't care if Germany for whatever reason specific to Germany dislikes nuclear or at there very least I am not personally losing sleep about it. Part of the reason I guess I could say I don't care is because there are other countries like France, the UK, etc who are continuing to move ahead with developing the technology. The thing though is I have learned in these very emotional values laden disputes the people who really dislike nuclear power in Germany are not going to be happy with stopping it just in Germany while the technology moves ahead across the Rhine in France. Thus I do have to think that giving the more radical and emotive elements what they want so to speak in Germany will just set us up for a large divisive and even more emotive cross border political conflict when they realize nuclear power continues to move ahead in other countries.
In a reverse way something similar could be described about parts of the French feminist movement that really really doesn't like the idea of sex work or prostitution in France but hasn't come to grips with fact that most of France's neighbor take of different position(in favor of legalization) and with technological changes such as the internet and high speed rail in effect the market for sex so to speak is a cross border one that France on it's own can do little about as long as countries like Spain, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, etc have taken a different policy position on the merits of sex work. Yet many French feminists have this almost irrational and emotional view of sex work and this belief that somehow the French govt on it's own can eliminate it(Sweden which is where French feminists get there inspiration is even worse in this regard).
**What I am referring to is whatever the laws are about prostitution in France sex workers in France can advertise on websites based in Germany or work for escort agencies in Geneva or Brussels, or commute cross border from the Netherlands all of which are jurisdictions where sex work is decriminalized and as a practical matter the French police and prosecutors neither have the time, ability, or even the legal means to do anything about this cross border regulatory arbitrage. I bring up sex work as it is one of the few issues I have run into that is even MORE emotionally charged than nuclear power.
I want to push back a bit on the landline and mobile phone analogies. While it is a true in some sense the developing world has "skipped" over the landline phone based phase of development and most people in the developed world no longer have a analog sole use landline phone per say most people especially if you live in major in city like Paris or really anyone living in all but the most rural areas of the developed world have a land-based so to speak broadband connecting whether that be via fiber optics or coax cable. In fact a great deal of investment has been made in the developed world in the past 20 years to replace the old analog twisted pair network developed for traditional wireline phone service in the 20th century with technologies like Fiber to the Home more suitable for wired broadband access. Another reason in part high speed wireless internet access to doesn't replace high speed wired internet access for so-called fixed or residential usage is even with all the advances in technology radio spectrum is still at a premium in places like Paris relative even to the cost of running fiber optic cable to everyone's flat in the city.
My second point or question with regards to distributed energy is how does this work for people like Claire who live in apartments or flats in cities. I am guess Claire doesn't have a penthouse so I am not sure how she can put in rooftop solar. All things being equal the highly centralized French electricity system actually works pretty well for people living in Paris. Yes most of the nuclear plants are quite a bit a way from Paris but the modern EDF power grid has all sorts of multiple redundant underground and overhead power lines in and around Paris that can re-route power from every which direction to every other direction basically. I think there is something like 15 different high voltage feeds into Paris from every geographic direction and EDF can power the whole city on something like just 3 or 4 of them(There are others that have more knowledge about the French electricity transmission system so I am probably going a bit out on the ledge in discussing my knowledge).
Thanks, Claire, for the heads-up on that. The content of my work on water resources development in Myanmar, especially the hydropower imbroglio —which had both led to and been aggravated by the 1st Feb Tatmadaw coup: fastidiously bloodless in its first weeks, but now lurching toward civil war— is vastly less technical than most of the other postings here in Energy Week. If you don't want to unpack and edit it into Substack, consider just putting up the links to our website.
Rather than comment here—other than to say that I found this article really interesting, and that I think it is rather early too put much store in estimates of levelized generating costs for a nuclear-fusion based power plant—on the "proposition" page that Claire set up here:
https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/proposition-cheap-fusion-power-will/comments
After listening to both parts of the podcast, reading all of the articles posted and thinking about this for a while I guess I would state from my perspective I guess I personally don't care if Germany for whatever reason specific to Germany dislikes nuclear or at there very least I am not personally losing sleep about it. Part of the reason I guess I could say I don't care is because there are other countries like France, the UK, etc who are continuing to move ahead with developing the technology. The thing though is I have learned in these very emotional values laden disputes the people who really dislike nuclear power in Germany are not going to be happy with stopping it just in Germany while the technology moves ahead across the Rhine in France. Thus I do have to think that giving the more radical and emotive elements what they want so to speak in Germany will just set us up for a large divisive and even more emotive cross border political conflict when they realize nuclear power continues to move ahead in other countries.
In a reverse way something similar could be described about parts of the French feminist movement that really really doesn't like the idea of sex work or prostitution in France but hasn't come to grips with fact that most of France's neighbor take of different position(in favor of legalization) and with technological changes such as the internet and high speed rail in effect the market for sex so to speak is a cross border one that France on it's own can do little about as long as countries like Spain, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, etc have taken a different policy position on the merits of sex work. Yet many French feminists have this almost irrational and emotional view of sex work and this belief that somehow the French govt on it's own can eliminate it(Sweden which is where French feminists get there inspiration is even worse in this regard).
**What I am referring to is whatever the laws are about prostitution in France sex workers in France can advertise on websites based in Germany or work for escort agencies in Geneva or Brussels, or commute cross border from the Netherlands all of which are jurisdictions where sex work is decriminalized and as a practical matter the French police and prosecutors neither have the time, ability, or even the legal means to do anything about this cross border regulatory arbitrage. I bring up sex work as it is one of the few issues I have run into that is even MORE emotionally charged than nuclear power.
I want to push back a bit on the landline and mobile phone analogies. While it is a true in some sense the developing world has "skipped" over the landline phone based phase of development and most people in the developed world no longer have a analog sole use landline phone per say most people especially if you live in major in city like Paris or really anyone living in all but the most rural areas of the developed world have a land-based so to speak broadband connecting whether that be via fiber optics or coax cable. In fact a great deal of investment has been made in the developed world in the past 20 years to replace the old analog twisted pair network developed for traditional wireline phone service in the 20th century with technologies like Fiber to the Home more suitable for wired broadband access. Another reason in part high speed wireless internet access to doesn't replace high speed wired internet access for so-called fixed or residential usage is even with all the advances in technology radio spectrum is still at a premium in places like Paris relative even to the cost of running fiber optic cable to everyone's flat in the city.
My second point or question with regards to distributed energy is how does this work for people like Claire who live in apartments or flats in cities. I am guess Claire doesn't have a penthouse so I am not sure how she can put in rooftop solar. All things being equal the highly centralized French electricity system actually works pretty well for people living in Paris. Yes most of the nuclear plants are quite a bit a way from Paris but the modern EDF power grid has all sorts of multiple redundant underground and overhead power lines in and around Paris that can re-route power from every which direction to every other direction basically. I think there is something like 15 different high voltage feeds into Paris from every geographic direction and EDF can power the whole city on something like just 3 or 4 of them(There are others that have more knowledge about the French electricity transmission system so I am probably going a bit out on the ledge in discussing my knowledge).
Thanks, Claire, for the heads-up on that. The content of my work on water resources development in Myanmar, especially the hydropower imbroglio —which had both led to and been aggravated by the 1st Feb Tatmadaw coup: fastidiously bloodless in its first weeks, but now lurching toward civil war— is vastly less technical than most of the other postings here in Energy Week. If you don't want to unpack and edit it into Substack, consider just putting up the links to our website.