No-one ever characterises cheap rate electricity at night that is common with nuclear as "please don't use power during the day because we don't have enough".
It's a strange double standard. As is the building of expensive pumped hydro storage for use with nuclear.
You never hear someone complain about Germany's nuclear exit and then pivot into "but at least they're doing well with renewables and they should do better and go faster on EVs and electrification of heat" which would make sense for someone who had a strange affection for nuclear tech, particularly those last two which work great with nuclear.
What you do see is people absolutely seething about leftists and environmentalists and renewables who only have one just barely socially acceptable outlet to attack Germany on.
But they attack them not because their decarbonisation is slow but because they were clear leaders in the tech that threatens fossil fuels around the globe.
Making it seem like a failure is a good way to slow down that transition in other countries too.
But they’re doing badly with ev’s and have pushed the EU to water down rules against ICE cars. Never mind that Germany has been pretty bad for people who want to bike instead of needing a car.
They keep putting their nuclear switch on date backwards (2040 now I think?) but renewables have been taking big chunks out of the problem and will continue to do so.
Curtailing renewbles due to grid constraints is usually a perfectly rational decision. New generation, new storage, new demand and new grid connections don't always happen on the same schedule.
Now, banning onshore wind in England for a decade when it was the cheapest source of energy available. That's just plain stupid (or a corrupt gift to your mates in gas companies).
And yet, despite multiple attempts by those on the political right to slow it down, they've powered ahead with reducing coal and gas usage.
Some of those critics focus on nuclear
(Like AfD: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/populist-afd-sand-gears...) and some of those pretend to be angry about the slowness of Germanys transition but it doesn't really add up to anyone who pays attention to the local facts. It's just a meme to get people angry at the left and/or environmentalists, while the right openly and continually sabotage progress.
Opposition to nuclear is 90% a "left" wing problem. Blaming the boogeyman "right" is silly in general, as left-right is a thought-terminating scale, but really silly in this case where it actually is pretty clear-cut.
Greenpeace did great work on the peace front, but wrecked 50 years of carbon progress on the nuclear power front.
Yes, he gets full power to do this without Congress meddling as long as there is an emergency. Or he lies, in an inconsistent and unconvincing manner, about there being an emergency and everyone just accepts it.
A confounder I don't see mentioned in these comparisons is that turning AC/heat on when you arrive in a home means you are above/below the target temperature for X amount of time until it returns to your target temp. And the simplest way to save energy is to do exactly that, run it at a slightly less comfortable temp.
It does feel like the franticness is picking up at the moment.
It's like a guy who views the world through Twitter and the output of his algorithm has gotten more arbitrary and shrill...
Like painting the border fence, wtf?
Hard to really get a good feel for his comments, but his public statements in front of cameras also seem more awkward and straight up confused as well.
The border fence isn't working, so now they are grasping for things to try and salvage it. Paint it black so it heats up, I don't know what they are going to do at night or on cloudy days.
Imagine a 12 year old who thinks they know everything. Their attention span can be measured in seconds and every time they they see something shiny they go into a daze or on a tangent. This is the Presidency of the USA at the moment. He lacks any coherent thought or strategy. Even those he has placed in powerful positions are in over their heads (Tulsi, Hegseth, etc).
I see China as a threat and in no way side with them but, my take is he can threaten China as much as he wants, yeah they've got problems but they also can respond. Can you imagine if they stopped selling the chemicals required for the pharma industry to India and others? Half the US would drop dead in about 6 months. If I were them, I would encourage his 200% tariff that Americans would end up paying for. Lets see how it works out for Trump.
We are on the cusp of the tariffs already in place starting to bite, for wealthy people it won't matter, but for the middle class and poor it is going to suck.
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