"They have a deeply idealist streak, which is in many ways laudable; they seek not just to protect the environment and the climate, but to champion human rights, minority rights, and build a more just society."
That's why they'll fail. Like all idealists, the European Greens have made the perfect the enemy of the good. Climate/energy policy has nothing to do with human rights, minority rights or a just society—whatever those conveniently imprecise terms may mean. Indeed, "saving the planet," to use a slogan popular among the Greens, would probably require human rights to be defined out of existence.
Idealism is fine when you're standing on the sidelines. But once you acquire power, idealism is the entry argument for the dictatorship of the proletariat—if I may be pardoned the Leninism.
This is indeed one of their greatest challenges - and one of the cardinal challenges of the Left ever since the French Revolution (or before), I'd argue.
I don't have an easy answer for that. I think all political parties or movements are more successful in some areas and leads in others, also at different times. They all have strengths and weaknesses. In many ways, the idealism of the Greens is both.
It allowed them to drive substantial change in the public debate over many decades. Nowadays, all parties are “green” to some extent. But I agree, it often complicates governing.
But we shouldn't count them out. Particularly the German Greens have learned a lot and are now in a position that's stronger than ever, balancing out their idealist streak and their pragmatic but also visionary ideas for society. They might well make a big change in coming years.
Thanks for your thoughts, in any case, I appreciate it!
I agree. You are already seeing this with the Greens supporting Biden's fairly self serving position on vaccine patents and objecting to Angela Merkel's position against waiving patents on vaccines something I was trying to bring attention to on Twitter yesterday with little success.
On the topic of carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), the term that people working in the field now seem to prefer because it covers non-tax mechanisms as well, readers interested in this issue might find this new paper, "CBAM for the EU: A policy proposal", of interest:
The paper was co-authored by Andrei Marcu, Michael Mehling and Aaron Cosbey. I've known Aaron for a couple of decades now, and I know of nobody who has thought more carefully about CBAMs. He understands both the environmental and trade issues, and has dedicated much of his efforts to finding a way to thread the needle between them. As a communicator on the instrument, he is peerless.
You can get a feel for the tenor of the report's findings from this quote:
"[A]] CBAM is a highly complex instrument, and each design element offers numerous options for implementation that entail multiple trade-offs for the environmental and economic benefits of the measure as well as its technical, legal and political viability. Similarly, the “Sectoral Deep Dive” report highlighted the considerable heterogeneity across relevant sectors in terms of domestic and international production and trading patterns, the drivers of carbon cost and emissions leakage, and the pathways towards deep decarbonization. Not only has this analysis underscored that a CBAM, on its own, cannot offer a comprehensive and uniform solution to address the concerns of all sectors about emissions leakage, but it has also revealed the delicate balancing act required to mitigate the identified trade-offs."
Folks: just to let you know that for some reason, Substack stopped sending me alerts that a comment had been posted, hence my relative inactivity of late. (Stupidly, I had simply assumed that you all had become bored with the topic.)
My comment is on energy policy effecting climate change. I want green energy to be successful, but advocates need to be disciplined and rigorous with regard to math. In the USA Today, many electric cars are powered by energy generated from coal. The numbers on electric car use need to acknowledge that. Of course these numbers can change next year or after as we transition to greener energy. In any serious argument, math will make or break you.
That's certainly right. But at the same time, public debate is rarely about the mathematics of these things. And they also change rapidly depending on technological change (and the demand for it) and a country's unique energy mix.
So in general, I agree, and Germany‘s ill-advised decision to shut off all its nuclear plants prematurely which were then replaced by dirty coal power is a prime example for good intentions gone very wrong very quickly.
But on the other hand, this is to be expected when epochal transformations take place. We should aim to get things right. But we won't always. Reacting and adapting is important.
Benjamin thank you for the German example of good intent leading to bad outcome. Whether public debate is/not about math, I get your point in reference to explicit math. I want to add that any stated fact even in the absence of numbers - is based upon a mathematical relationship between object A and B. I write so as to encourage all to seek an underlying mathematical foundation to strengthen statements in an argument. “Math in foundation” is not the only viable strategy- but is simply one that I prefer to use. One need not discover the actual numbers to validate each statement, but simply acknowledge their presence as a relative “X is more, Y is less at location A” as bookmark for future validation tasks.
I think that environmental NGOs working on transport are up front about the differences in emissions of EVs depending on what fuels are used to recharge the batteries. One of my favorite of such groups is the Brussels-based Transport & Environment, which I got to know back in the mid-2000s because they were one of the few environmental NGOs to oppose crops-based biofuels. Here's a link to a recent study they produced:
"Electric cars outperform diesels and petrols in all scenarios, even on carbon intensive grids such as Poland, where they are about 30% better than conventional cars. In the best case scenario (an EV running on clean electricity with a battery produced with clean electricity), EVs are already about five times cleaner than conventional equivalents."
I can't help myself but pointing out that France's low CO2 emission per capita are up to now a result of nuclear who the Greens especially in Germany and Austria especially vehemently oppose. On the other hand I don't doubt the Greens are capable of policy changes and policy successes over time, in fact I think some of the smarter Greens already understand privately the necessity of nuclear power for example. However, I think this shows the Greens still face a very uphill climb towards political success and could very well get bogged down in infighting and in fact go backwards policy and politics wise.
Tim, my problem with nuclear is emotional, not logical. Born in 1966, I lived in fear of nuclear war until I could pretend in 1989 that the danger simply disappeared. The green aspect of nuclear appeals to me along with passive safety measures where heat melts the handle on the lid that seals the danger. Not an expert, which means I do not know the terrorism risk at each stage of nuclear development.
Thanks for honesty saying this. Very few people have the courage to admit their opposition to something is based on emotion instead of logic. I do think one interesting fact about France is that while technically separate programs the idea of France having nuclear weapons has been something that has long been supported as giving France the "freedom" from the invasions it faced three times in less than 80 years(Franco Prussian, WWI, and WWII) and the emotional trauma that ensued from them especially World War II(There is a French TV show called the French Village about the WWII occupation that is getting a lot of interest in America from anti-Trump and never-Trump people like the Bulwark, Sarah Longwell, and Benjamin Wittes). Anyways it is a simply fact that for a long time France feared a physical invasion and having nuclear weapons were a means to prevent that and once the population is okay with nuclear weapons it is actually pretty easy to convince the population of the benefits of nuclear power.
This French documentary below goes into some of this history below featuring some of Claire's friends like Francois Heisbourg.
While Germany is not a nuclear weapons state itself it is also well known that for all the German Greens recent claims of devotion to Atlanticism it is also pretty well known the subject of nuclear weapons in NATO is an armed grenade that could tear the party apart the closer it gets to real political power.
Certainly, but as you say, the situation is very different from country to country. In Austria, opposition against nuclear power is opportune because, well, we've got a huge amount of hydropower which is just as reliable and cleaner, safer and cheaper. And with some efforts to build up wind and solar, we can soon be 100% renewable (at least for electricity).
But not all countries have this good geographical fortune. In fact, most don't. And then it's harder. But even so, the economics of renewables and batteries are changing so rapidly that many avenues are now opening up - for the Greens and other parties.
Hi Tim! Thanks for reading, and yeah, you’re right — France’s low emissions are partly due to nuclear (though not entirely, the EU as a whole has a lower CO2:GDP ratio than the US, including Germany even after its nuclear phase out. And that’s because of the far greater share of renewables)
I don’t think it makes sense at all to shutter existing nuclear plants if they’re going to be replaced by coal. But I think there’s a very good case to make that expensive new nuclear is not a good way to spend money when the cost of renewables is still plummeting so swiftly, and given the truly rapid advances in battery technology. France is spending €20 billion (and counting, it’s not complete and cost overruns keep increasing) on a single next-gen nuclear plant. That’s going to look silly in ten years when it becomes clear what €20 billion could have done if spent on a combo of renewables/battery storage (including vehicle-to-grid)/smart grids able to handle the shift from centralized energy production and distribution to lots of decentralized production and drawing from EVs as a big distributed battery.
I agree there are some uniquely bad issues with building new nuclear in Europe and the costs are generally high compared to other power sources. However, I was just looking up for example that the two new nuclear units under construction right now in the US(Vogtle) and expected to open later this year had a combined cost of about 8.5 Billion USD which is considerably less than Flamanville in France or Hinckley Point in the UK.
My overall view view I guess is I think solar and battery storage make a lot of sense but given the grave dangers of climate change I am unwilling to bet the farm entirely so to speak on a technology that has yet to prove itself. Thus I think you will see Biden's Department of Energy eager to keep existing nuclear plants from shutting down and also have at least one new build nuclear probably the Turkey Point Plant south of Miami under construction to keep at least some skilled workforce in new construction active after Vogtle finishes.
Another later comment I will make and this is something I have discussed with Ronald a bit is I do think some of the financing mechanism used in Europe, the UK, and historically in the US are out of whack and dramatically increase the cost of construction a new plant to some very unreasonable amounts.
"They have a deeply idealist streak, which is in many ways laudable; they seek not just to protect the environment and the climate, but to champion human rights, minority rights, and build a more just society."
That's why they'll fail. Like all idealists, the European Greens have made the perfect the enemy of the good. Climate/energy policy has nothing to do with human rights, minority rights or a just society—whatever those conveniently imprecise terms may mean. Indeed, "saving the planet," to use a slogan popular among the Greens, would probably require human rights to be defined out of existence.
Idealism is fine when you're standing on the sidelines. But once you acquire power, idealism is the entry argument for the dictatorship of the proletariat—if I may be pardoned the Leninism.
This is indeed one of their greatest challenges - and one of the cardinal challenges of the Left ever since the French Revolution (or before), I'd argue.
I don't have an easy answer for that. I think all political parties or movements are more successful in some areas and leads in others, also at different times. They all have strengths and weaknesses. In many ways, the idealism of the Greens is both.
It allowed them to drive substantial change in the public debate over many decades. Nowadays, all parties are “green” to some extent. But I agree, it often complicates governing.
But we shouldn't count them out. Particularly the German Greens have learned a lot and are now in a position that's stronger than ever, balancing out their idealist streak and their pragmatic but also visionary ideas for society. They might well make a big change in coming years.
Thanks for your thoughts, in any case, I appreciate it!
I agree. You are already seeing this with the Greens supporting Biden's fairly self serving position on vaccine patents and objecting to Angela Merkel's position against waiving patents on vaccines something I was trying to bring attention to on Twitter yesterday with little success.
On the topic of carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), the term that people working in the field now seem to prefer because it covers non-tax mechanisms as well, readers interested in this issue might find this new paper, "CBAM for the EU: A policy proposal", of interest:
https://secureservercdn.net/160.153.137.163/z7r.689.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/20210421-Complete-v6-Final.pdf
The paper was co-authored by Andrei Marcu, Michael Mehling and Aaron Cosbey. I've known Aaron for a couple of decades now, and I know of nobody who has thought more carefully about CBAMs. He understands both the environmental and trade issues, and has dedicated much of his efforts to finding a way to thread the needle between them. As a communicator on the instrument, he is peerless.
You can get a feel for the tenor of the report's findings from this quote:
"[A]] CBAM is a highly complex instrument, and each design element offers numerous options for implementation that entail multiple trade-offs for the environmental and economic benefits of the measure as well as its technical, legal and political viability. Similarly, the “Sectoral Deep Dive” report highlighted the considerable heterogeneity across relevant sectors in terms of domestic and international production and trading patterns, the drivers of carbon cost and emissions leakage, and the pathways towards deep decarbonization. Not only has this analysis underscored that a CBAM, on its own, cannot offer a comprehensive and uniform solution to address the concerns of all sectors about emissions leakage, but it has also revealed the delicate balancing act required to mitigate the identified trade-offs."
Folks: just to let you know that for some reason, Substack stopped sending me alerts that a comment had been posted, hence my relative inactivity of late. (Stupidly, I had simply assumed that you all had become bored with the topic.)
My comment is on energy policy effecting climate change. I want green energy to be successful, but advocates need to be disciplined and rigorous with regard to math. In the USA Today, many electric cars are powered by energy generated from coal. The numbers on electric car use need to acknowledge that. Of course these numbers can change next year or after as we transition to greener energy. In any serious argument, math will make or break you.
That's certainly right. But at the same time, public debate is rarely about the mathematics of these things. And they also change rapidly depending on technological change (and the demand for it) and a country's unique energy mix.
So in general, I agree, and Germany‘s ill-advised decision to shut off all its nuclear plants prematurely which were then replaced by dirty coal power is a prime example for good intentions gone very wrong very quickly.
But on the other hand, this is to be expected when epochal transformations take place. We should aim to get things right. But we won't always. Reacting and adapting is important.
Benjamin thank you for the German example of good intent leading to bad outcome. Whether public debate is/not about math, I get your point in reference to explicit math. I want to add that any stated fact even in the absence of numbers - is based upon a mathematical relationship between object A and B. I write so as to encourage all to seek an underlying mathematical foundation to strengthen statements in an argument. “Math in foundation” is not the only viable strategy- but is simply one that I prefer to use. One need not discover the actual numbers to validate each statement, but simply acknowledge their presence as a relative “X is more, Y is less at location A” as bookmark for future validation tasks.
I think that environmental NGOs working on transport are up front about the differences in emissions of EVs depending on what fuels are used to recharge the batteries. One of my favorite of such groups is the Brussels-based Transport & Environment, which I got to know back in the mid-2000s because they were one of the few environmental NGOs to oppose crops-based biofuels. Here's a link to a recent study they produced:
https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/downloads/T%26E’s%20EV%20life%20cycle%20analysis%20LCA.pdf
And a quote:
"Electric cars outperform diesels and petrols in all scenarios, even on carbon intensive grids such as Poland, where they are about 30% better than conventional cars. In the best case scenario (an EV running on clean electricity with a battery produced with clean electricity), EVs are already about five times cleaner than conventional equivalents."
I can't help myself but pointing out that France's low CO2 emission per capita are up to now a result of nuclear who the Greens especially in Germany and Austria especially vehemently oppose. On the other hand I don't doubt the Greens are capable of policy changes and policy successes over time, in fact I think some of the smarter Greens already understand privately the necessity of nuclear power for example. However, I think this shows the Greens still face a very uphill climb towards political success and could very well get bogged down in infighting and in fact go backwards policy and politics wise.
Tim, my problem with nuclear is emotional, not logical. Born in 1966, I lived in fear of nuclear war until I could pretend in 1989 that the danger simply disappeared. The green aspect of nuclear appeals to me along with passive safety measures where heat melts the handle on the lid that seals the danger. Not an expert, which means I do not know the terrorism risk at each stage of nuclear development.
Thanks for honesty saying this. Very few people have the courage to admit their opposition to something is based on emotion instead of logic. I do think one interesting fact about France is that while technically separate programs the idea of France having nuclear weapons has been something that has long been supported as giving France the "freedom" from the invasions it faced three times in less than 80 years(Franco Prussian, WWI, and WWII) and the emotional trauma that ensued from them especially World War II(There is a French TV show called the French Village about the WWII occupation that is getting a lot of interest in America from anti-Trump and never-Trump people like the Bulwark, Sarah Longwell, and Benjamin Wittes). Anyways it is a simply fact that for a long time France feared a physical invasion and having nuclear weapons were a means to prevent that and once the population is okay with nuclear weapons it is actually pretty easy to convince the population of the benefits of nuclear power.
This French documentary below goes into some of this history below featuring some of Claire's friends like Francois Heisbourg.
https://youtu.be/dcOT9pLSeUs
While Germany is not a nuclear weapons state itself it is also well known that for all the German Greens recent claims of devotion to Atlanticism it is also pretty well known the subject of nuclear weapons in NATO is an armed grenade that could tear the party apart the closer it gets to real political power.
Certainly, but as you say, the situation is very different from country to country. In Austria, opposition against nuclear power is opportune because, well, we've got a huge amount of hydropower which is just as reliable and cleaner, safer and cheaper. And with some efforts to build up wind and solar, we can soon be 100% renewable (at least for electricity).
But not all countries have this good geographical fortune. In fact, most don't. And then it's harder. But even so, the economics of renewables and batteries are changing so rapidly that many avenues are now opening up - for the Greens and other parties.
Hi Tim! Thanks for reading, and yeah, you’re right — France’s low emissions are partly due to nuclear (though not entirely, the EU as a whole has a lower CO2:GDP ratio than the US, including Germany even after its nuclear phase out. And that’s because of the far greater share of renewables)
I don’t think it makes sense at all to shutter existing nuclear plants if they’re going to be replaced by coal. But I think there’s a very good case to make that expensive new nuclear is not a good way to spend money when the cost of renewables is still plummeting so swiftly, and given the truly rapid advances in battery technology. France is spending €20 billion (and counting, it’s not complete and cost overruns keep increasing) on a single next-gen nuclear plant. That’s going to look silly in ten years when it becomes clear what €20 billion could have done if spent on a combo of renewables/battery storage (including vehicle-to-grid)/smart grids able to handle the shift from centralized energy production and distribution to lots of decentralized production and drawing from EVs as a big distributed battery.
I agree there are some uniquely bad issues with building new nuclear in Europe and the costs are generally high compared to other power sources. However, I was just looking up for example that the two new nuclear units under construction right now in the US(Vogtle) and expected to open later this year had a combined cost of about 8.5 Billion USD which is considerably less than Flamanville in France or Hinckley Point in the UK.
My overall view view I guess is I think solar and battery storage make a lot of sense but given the grave dangers of climate change I am unwilling to bet the farm entirely so to speak on a technology that has yet to prove itself. Thus I think you will see Biden's Department of Energy eager to keep existing nuclear plants from shutting down and also have at least one new build nuclear probably the Turkey Point Plant south of Miami under construction to keep at least some skilled workforce in new construction active after Vogtle finishes.
Another later comment I will make and this is something I have discussed with Ronald a bit is I do think some of the financing mechanism used in Europe, the UK, and historically in the US are out of whack and dramatically increase the cost of construction a new plant to some very unreasonable amounts.