Europe would be better served by doing, what France did in 1974.
"As a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, on 6 March 1974 Prime Minister Pierre Messmer announced what became known as the 'Messmer Plan', a hugely ambitious nuclear power program aimed at generating most of France's electricity from nuclear power. At the time of the oil crisis most of France's electricity came from foreign oil. "
"Work on the first three plants, at Tricastin, Gravelines, and Dampierre, started the same year and France installed 56 reactors over the next 15 years."
How do you measure health effects of different sources of electric energy?
If you compare deaths per TWh, then nuclear power is much, much safer then coal energy.
One source of this media. Media loves to write and talk about nuclear incidents and really blow this out of proportion to real health hazards. For decades, newsrooms have operated under the premise that 'if it bleeds it leads'. If something happen infrequently and could have big impact on many people it makes more interesting news story.
Flight industry has similar public perception problem. Transport statistic shows that travel by airplane is safer the car, yet much more people fear flying then driving. A deadly airplane crash is reported in all newspapers, the daily deaths from the car crashes are not even mentioned.
Popular tv-series "The Simpsons" (three eyed fish, green radioactive goo), movies Spiderman (if I get bitten by a radioactive spider), Hulk (gamma rays make you super strong), China Syndrome, the german movie "Die Volke", etc., doesn't help much with education about nuclear power.
Deaths from burning coal don't get much attention in the media, because the happen continuously each year, over decades.
> Europe would be better served by doing, what France did in 1974.
This is 2026. Doing things in 1974 isn't an option because time's arrow points the wrong way.
If you want Europe to do things now that it should have done in 1974 you'd need to explain how it'll stall on all the consequences for years. France, which you held up as a model says it can build a nuclear generator in about 5-6 years, but none of these optimistic projections came true this century, more typically the plant takes 10-15 years and it can be more.
So, suppose they start today likely they'll say the generator goes online in 2032. How does that help with the crisis Trump caused this month ? Worse, come 2032 the date is likely to be 2040 instead.
Now, renewables go a lot faster. For solar it's genuinely possible to get paperwork done in January and be selling electricity made with those panels by summer. It's not easy, plenty of projects will be delayed out a 1-2 years, particularly if local government don't want the project, but with a following wind it can really be the same year. Wind is slower, but still you will almost certainly build it and switch it on in five years, the optimistic guess France never hits for its nuclear plants.
Going up from what date exactly? Construction start is when you already have all plans approved, permitted and financed, so 4 years from construction start is far from "putting up a plant in 5 years". So, some examples for 5 years all in?
There is a trick, you can multiple build simultaneously. Or better with a slight delay, so that construction crews (which do separate phases of construction) can move between projects and use experience gained in one build in another build.
Nuclear construction requires highly skilled workers doing very high quality work. One of the biggest problems with nuclear construction in U.S. and Europe is that last significant builds have been done around 1985, companies doing nuclear construction closed or moved to other products, or moved to maintenance, upgrades of power plants.
> There is a trick, you can multiple build simultaneously.
That trick does not work for smaller countries which can't afford/don't need to build a big number of reactors. Or you have to outsource to a foreign builder which does not seem to be a best idea in today's world.
Anyway, the original claim was "You can put up a plant in 5 years without erroneous regulation". It's simply not possible to do that. If you depend on continuous availability of highly skilled workers, you also have to account for their (initial and continuous) training. In addition you also have to maintain the staff which does the planning and permitting.
The way the EU forces the electricity market to operate makes them completely unprofitable. Renewables are always given priority in the market, which results in other power plants operating at a capacity factor of 30-40%. Since nuclear power plants are mostly capital expenditure-intensive, this makes the electricity they produce absurdly expensive.
Because the way how the EU electricity market operates first to supply electric power are the power plants with the lowest operating costs. This are usually renewables and nuclear power plants. Both are capital expensive and cheap in operating costs.
Usually the capacity factor of European nuclear reactors is higher than 60%.
That’s just a consequence of how they bid. The marginal cost for a renewable plant is zero. It’s non-zero for nuclear power.
But nuclear power don’t want to shut down since that both increases wear and tear and makes them unable to capture revenue when the prices become higher again.
So they bid negative expecting to eat the losses and let more flexible plant shut down first.
Hydropower and solar have much lower operating costs.
All thermal power plants experience wear and tear and have to be regularly repaired and maintained. Nuclear power plants can load-follow (within technical limits), but as the operating costs (maintance, repair, staffing, fuel) are much lower then capital costs it makes economic sense to run them at full power.
Solar is cheap, but does not produce during night and much less during winter or under cloud cover. So you have to include costs of other power sources and energy storage.
Hasn't Germany and the UK been investing in renewables for years now? They must be feeling pretty happy about that decision right now unlike oil obsessed countries like the US.
A quarter of a century ago, the first quarter of 2001, Britain used 39 TWh of coal electrical generation, 36 TWh of gas and 21 TWh of nuclear.
Today we're lot more energy efficient†, and the renewables made more than 25 TWh, but nuclear is now less than 10 TWh, we of course no longer burn coal, which leaves 30 TWh of gas still and we have a lot more imports (because we have a lot more interconnect, which is also a form of energy security)
† For example back then we mostly used incandescent light bulbs! And a lot of people still used CRT televisions back then!
For electricity generation, the UK is currently generating 50% via renewables. It goes up and down each day of course, storage is not a solved problem yet.
Yes, but it is not enough. It helps a lot when sunny, and weekend mid-day gross market prices for electricity hover just above zero, but there's not enough batteries, flexibility, and other renewables to avoid price spikes in the morning and evening peak, when hydro and gas plants are still covering a lot.
That’s because the price is set by the highest marginal producer
Most of the UKs recent renewables are on a fixed price supply basis and when the market prices goes over this the excess is eventually fed back into reducing consumer bills
Ah yes the standard "<excuse>...just be patient, any day now it'll get cheaper" response we've been hearing for years
I'm NOT against renewables. I'm NOT pro fossil fuels. I'm against the dishonesty in the discussion. Stop claiming direct reduction in bills if that's not going to happen [0]
Yeah, if you're buying a new car, electric makes sense if at all possible. But a lot of people are not buying new cars, because new cars are not cheap. There's a saying that a new car loses half of its value the moment it's driven away from the dealership.
But I agree, operational costs of an EV can be much lower, if you can charge at home rates.
We're looking for a new car. I'd love to go electrical, but there are a few problems:
1) I have no garage and no parking space next to my home. I can't charge it.
2) We have no trustworthy garage for repairs. It turns out the garage regulations require a separate space for electrical forcsafety, and nobody has room to expand.
Apart from that, electricity in Belgium is expensive. I did the math on swapping our gas heater for a heat pump, but I'd pay more for energy even of the amount of watts is so much lower.
Define affordable. A €40k Seal is anything but affordable. Eastern Europe (and I don't put Slovenia in this case here, they are much closer to Western Europe in every sense) will not mass change to EVs suddenly when everyone is shopping for 10 years old diesels from Western Europe for maximum €10k
New cars have questionable affordability for most people. Particularly when you factor in dubious design choices and expensive marketing. Cars and driving are expensive. If that was a barrier there wouldn't be many people on the road.
Also, the Electric polo is supposed to be released at around 25k Euros. Given the lower running costs that seems like a good deal relative to legacy designs. For all those people will to spend 40k on a car you could put the money into solar panels instead.
Thanks for the nerd snipe! I just found the Citroen e-C3, for a couple thousand more than the Spring. Both look fine. They should just be station wagons, but this is our timeline.
Yeah a lot of noise in there. Zooming in on the COVID price spike and then recovery trying to suggest it was renewables - nice try.
Fact is if you zoom out 20 years Spain's prices have trended up. Your link just proves my point that while there has been an increase in the blend, it hasn't reduced prices.
> Decoupled: how Spain cut the link between gas and power prices using renewables
> Spain has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, largely owing to the country’s strong solar and wind growth which reduced the influence of expensive coal and gas power on the electricity market.
Europe simply does not have enough known oil reserves to put a dent in current prices even if it exploited them all.
There may still be good arguments to do so anyway, such as it being less carbon intensive than importing oil, but there is absolutely no magic lever we can pull that would fix this problem that we're just not pulling due to renewables legislation.
Britain could start extracting oil from its European fields instead of just buying the same oil and gas from Denmark. Sanctions could be lifted on Russian oil. Duties could be dropped. There are levers.
Eh, the war in Ukraine has kind of proven that the Europeans are not all that capable of action. There has been an enormous incentive to have been getting rid of oil dependency for 4 years now.
That America is incredibly generous with resources in a conflict has no possible bearing on the security of their continent?
I don't see Europe sending billions of its taxpayer dollars to resolve conflicts in Africa and Asia. (It barely manages to do so for a conflict right next door!)
There was a delegation of Asian (I think?) leaders in Europe a few years ago, and when Europe pressured them to take action re Ukraine-Russia, they politely pointed out that when a war breaks out in Europe they are told it's an existential global crisis, and when a conflict breaks out in Asia or Africa, Europe just sort of yawns and issues a sleepy statement calling for international law to be respected (which is European for 'thoughts and prayers').
Personally, I care about Ukraine and want them to prevail. But the myopia and arrogance of Europeans on this is astonishing. If this were a conflict in Asia or Africa, Europe would never have given even a fraction of the support that America has given Ukraine. Not a million years. And then, having failed to provide for their own security, having profiteered from Russian oil and gas for decades, and having secured vast amounts of support from the rest of the world when faced with the consequences of their own failures, European leaders have the audacity to suggest they're not getting enough? That the rest of the world is failing them? How much money, exactly, is the average rice farmer in Asia supposed to owe for Europe's security? And why do much wealthier Europeans never seem to owe him back anything in return?
I am all for Europe establishing a bit more autonomy in regards to energy and defense, but let's not forgot there is a very real reason things are the way the are. Europe had a long history of warfare and the post-WWII was specifically designed to try and reign that in. And as the U.S. is finding out, you can have a largely pacifist population, but it only takes one motivated individual to seize the reigns of power and kick off ill advised military adventures. So I think there is a rather convincing argument to be made that sometimes it is better to just not have those capabilities in the first place.
> That America is incredibly generous with resources in a conflict has no possible bearing on the security of their continent?
America is generous with Americans money being funneled to the defense companies! This is all 100% middle class money, with the wealthy paying zero or negative taxes.
Do they, though? They seem to very consistently vote against foreign entanglements, before their own leaders betray them, pressed into action by foreign allies advocating their own narrow regional interests (Europe on Russia, Israel on Iran, etc).
Not clear to me why some working mum in Idaho is obliged to pay for Hungary's security when even the Hungarians refuse to do so, but hey, enjoy this meme while it lasts. The US won't remain the world's policeman for too much longer, and we're all in for a much darker world without them.
Uh huh, sure, America profits handsomely from paying trillions of dollars to defend its deadbeat dependencies because... uh... something something capitalism?
The unnecessary expense of trillions of dollars being, of course, just so famously and fabulously profitable. I assume this is the same strand of 4D-chess-level thinking that posits that landlords like keeping rental properties vacant because they somehow make more money that way.
What is 4D-chess thinking, is believing that the USA is giving handouts to the world and that you would be somehow even richer if it wouldn't.
It's an age old epic: tell the privileged that "actually, you're being exploited of your hard work and innate intelligence". It let's you sleep at night.
The US considers it in their strategic interest to maintain peace around the world. We are vicarious beneficiaries of that logic.
The same way that a farmer considers it in his pecuniary interest to grow and sell vegetables, and we are vicarious beneficiaries in that we have access to affordable food we can eat.
People like you see conspiracies where there is actually nothing but fortuitous alignments of interest. Like all conspiracy theories, it's merely ignorance of the basic incentives that make the world work, leading to hare-brained theories that sound dramatic but make no sense, couched in an air of being super special in your ability to see how the world 'really' works, unlike all those normie sheep. Yadda yadda. Juvenile and boring.
But hey, the US is almost certainly going to retreat from the world after the unpopular missteps of the current administration, so we'll get to see with our own eyes whether that produces a more or less peaceful world. Won't that be a fun and costly experiment.
You're making a textbook strawman argument. While I get the dislike for conspiracy nutjobs, I did not make any such statements or implications. I merely have stated two facts:
1. The USA has put up military infrastructure around the world by its own volition.
2. The USA is the richest country in the world.
> The same way that a farmer considers it in his pecuniary interest to grow and sell vegetables, and we are vicarious beneficiaries in that we have access to affordable food we can eat.
So what is the handout here, exactly? Your argument is an oxymoron.
> While I get the dislike for conspiracy nutjobs, I did not make any such statements or implications
Fair! Withdrawn.
> So what is the handout here, exactly? Your argument is an oxymoron.
I'm not sure how it's an oxymoron. I don't believe I called anything a handout. The fact that others have let themselves become dependent on your behaviour does not make your behaviour a handout to others. The US has made a strategic calculation that defending Europe is of security interest to the US, which has caused it to undertake vast expense on that continent between 1945 and now.
It is an open question whether the US was actually correct in that calculation. Perhaps it was a costly mistake with minimal security benefits for the US but positive externalities for others. Or perhaps it was initially correct, but ceased to be so after the end of the Cold War. Either way, the US may conclude that a continuing presence in Europe no longer serves its security interests going forward. In that case the confluence of interests will simply have ended.
The fact that Europe did not take the many decades it had to prepare for this moment is quite unfortunate, but not really something the US is responsible for. The US has done nothing but encourage Europeans to step up their security efforts for over fifty years. Ultimately it is Europe that faces the consequences of its own decisions, not the US or the rest of the world.
I realise the word 'eurocentrism' is not in vogue, but it is so very apt. If Europe managed to see itself as a region like any other, the way the rest of the world sees it, it may find it easier to understand why the rest of the world does not feel responsible for underwriting the cost of Europe's defense. Why is it America's job to fund the defense of Europe? Why it is not the reverse? Or perhaps Europe should be funding the defense of Southeast Asia? It's certainly got the money. There are far more people in SE Asia than in the EU. They are no less deserving of safety and security than anyone in Europe.
Of course, the reason this doesn't happen is that people cannot just expect free security umbrellas from countries on the other side of the planet. Except Europeans, that is, who for some reason not only do expect this, but also act absolutely outraged when anyone queries this assumption.
Well I got the sentiment from "the Idaho mum paying for Hungary's security". Which I think is a direct segue from "world police", that is, framing America's military deployment around the world as serving no self-interest.
I do agree that there is a possibility that some defence deployment agreements may not longer be desirable for America, and that they are in no way obligated to perpetually defend Europe. NATO had specific goals, which could be considered fulfilled even, long ago.
So for example regarding the Ukraine invasion, there is (or has been lol) an expectation of support from America, both because of some vague NATO-proxy implication or simply due to historical ties. And the Idaho mum not wanting to pay for some far away war is valid, but... we must add two things into this equation. One, an implicit and practical part of the agreement has historically been that the protected allies spend a large amount of their budget on American suppliers. And two, that at least in the past, this was a huge deterrence against any communist-like regime changes that have directly ejected any American neo-colonialism wealth extractions.
Perhaps, today allies are spending less, and the threat of communism has more or less collapsed. So America might be much better off without paying for foreign security. But all this really was never in place out of some noble spirit of world peace, that's all I'm saying.
PD.: a hundred percent agree on Europe being too slow and incapable of reacting to any of this, and embarassing itself. As a European, I hope we can slowly get out of the whining and towards some kind of proper self-defence pact, as many member states actually do have very capable militaries, just individually and not coordinated. I'm not saying, as advanced or experienced as the USA, but if you'd make a "top list" we wouldn't be helpless near the middle or bottom.
I probably can't keep this debate up for too much longer, but know that I hear you. And I hope I was heard in return.
More broadly, I don't think any of us arguing in this thread are really all that far apart. Nothing would please me more than if Europe got its act together. (Hell, I'd love to see a federal Europe. But I'm not holding my breath for that one.)
You do realize that Russia is and will continue being an enemy of the US, right? Even now it's providing Iran with intel to kill US soldiers.
Russia is primarily a threat to Europe, but not only.
And what do you imagine will happen if Russia gets the gang back together? Ukraine, Belarus, Baltics, most of Eastern Europe. Do you think Soviet Union 2.0, now with more fascism, will be friendlier to the US?
I know Americans love to pretend they live on another planet, but now we have global trade, ICBMs and many more interesting ways to hurt humans on the other side of the world. We're no longer living in the 1800s.
All of this is framed in the way Europeans like to talk about power, which is as though it's a question of attitudes and feelings. It's much cheaper to pretend that beautiful laws against war can stop bullies, than it is to actually fund any kind of defense. Europe is in love with trying to substitute metaphysical sorcery for actual power, which Europe lacks and seems structurally incapable of building.
Do I expect Russia to be 'friendly' to the US? No, not particularly. Can Russia successfully project military force into the US? Of course not, this is a country with an economy comparable to Benelux and an army incapable of even reaching the Dniester. It has extremely limited means for global competition. The Chinese don't live in fear of whether Benelux is 'friendly' to them or not, and if the Beneluxers went insane and started trying to invade their neighbours, I'm sure China would treat it much the same way as Europe treats every war in Africa or Asia. Much 'concern', many pleas to follow international law.
The US is protected from Russia by geography and prowess. It just doesn't matter how Russia feels about the US, any more than it matters how Benelux feels about China. The US has been extraordinarily generous to Europe in shouldering a conflict that doesn't affect them at all.
Do I want Russia to take over Eastern Europe? I think I was pretty clear on this point before, I support Ukraine. Its cause is just. But the only people who can ensure Europe's security are Europeans, and all these constant fits about how America 'hates' Europe because it won't raise the allowance this week are ludicrous. The question isn't why the US won't raise the allowance, the question is why America is paying Europe an allowance at all. Europe is not the world's disability pensioner, Europe just doesn't want to pay for its own defense and would much prefer it became the world's problem. That's why someone living in Dallas is supposed to live in fear of invasion by a declining kleptocracy from the other side of the Earth - it helps Europeans save on defense spending.
If Europe wants to defend its interests from regional bullies like Russia, it needs to build some power of its own. Europe's allies are in complete support of Europe getting its act together.
> The Chinese don't live in fear of whether Benelux is 'friendly' to them or not, and if the Beneluxers went insane and started trying to invade their neighbours, I'm sure China would treat it much the same way as Europe treats every war in Africa or Asia. Much 'concern', many pleas to follow international law.
This is absurdly reductionist. Population matters (140 million vs 30 million). Location matters. Size matters. Industrial-military base matters. Legacy matters (there is a reason teams with a winning pedigree tend to win in tight spots). Nukes matter.
The US can't handle Iran. It couldn't handle Iraq. Afghanistan. Vietnam.
All of a sudden Russia is a total pushover handled through "prowess".
This kind of hubris is exactly why the American empire will end sometime this century.
And before you say it doesn't matter, look up what happens to global reserve currencies when they're no longer global reserve currencies. Go look up what happens with debt repayments in that case.
The American lifestyle will suffer some harsh adjustments at all levels, probably in a few decades, at most.
And FYI, Europe has already tripled its defense spending. I hope none of it gets spent on US tech of any kind.
Yeah, sure. Don't complain when the independence of countries like Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia is unceremoniously snuffed out the next day.
But I'm sure Europe will rise to the occasion. I'm sure the same European countries that gave us the phrase "Pourquoi mourir pour Dantzig?" will be ready to send their sons to die for Narva.
I'm sure all this defense talk has produced European militaries capable of fighting a prolonged conflict. I'm sure all these societies that are not even willing to tolerate the increased cost of not buying Russian gas and oil, let alone financial support for Ukraine - I'm sure they'll be cheering the enormous expense of a direct shooting war with Russia.
The deep irony of all of this is that we're all actually agreed. The American empire will end, with NATO as its clear military dimension also ending, and you'll be on your own, as you've always wanted. Have fun.
I do think that the Baltics are Russia’s next target IF they ever conquer Ukraine. So far this is not happening. And just because NATO will not be there does not mean Russia will be able to conquer the Baltics. Baltics by themselves may be able to check Russia’s armed forces. Also Germany has a vested interest in keeping the Russians out of the Baltics as well -nobody wants Russia to be their neighbor.
What you wrote would make sense if Russian army would not be so woefully incompetent. Every day more Russians die in the Ukraine is a good day for European security.
The question is whether Europe is going to be capable of maintaining that level of defensive action on its own. I hope the answer is yes. Sadly, I'm left extremely sceptical from observing European politics.
BTW - after 4 years of war Russia got around 30,000 sq km [0] - this is less than the smallest Baltic state Estonia. So I think the Baltics will be fine by themselves - because of the crass Russian military incompetence.
With extensive US logistical support, yes. We're talking about a scenario where that factor is absent.
That's not to diminish the bravery of the Ukrainian people. They're heroes. But bravery doesn't suffice without materiel. I'm not convinced the rest of Europe has good supplies of either.
>> All of a sudden Russia is a total pushover handled through "prowess".
It is you who are being absurdly reductionist when you contort 'Russia is not capable of threatening the US' into 'the US can't successfully mount a land invasion of Russia', or whatever strawman you're trying to build here.
The US has no need or interest in invading Russia. It has no need or interest in defending Ukraine, for that matter, but they've done so because they're doing a grand and noble thing. It is wild that Europeans expect and demand that the US funds the cost of the Ukraine war, which is happening in Europe, while Europe itself is not even willing to agree to stop buying Russian gas and oil.
The original point stands - Russia is not capable of being a threat to the US, and in as far as Russia is capable of being a threat to Europe, this is primarily a European issue, not a global one. At the very least, Europe should shoulder the lion's share of defending its own continent, rather than demanding everyone else does it for them for free.
>> This kind of hubris is exactly why the American empire will end sometime this century.
>> The American lifestyle will suffer some harsh adjustments at all levels, probably in a few decades, at most.
Cool. Since I've been pretty open about the fact I'm not American, I don't see what any of this has to do with me. And I certainly don't see what any of this has to do with international security. Seems like you're just venting some hatred for Americans. It's quite telling how every time someone takes the US side on anything online, Europeans bring out the greatest hits parade of anti-American tropes, fresh off 2004-era Reddit.
Maybe the Americans could invest in their own social net if they weren't spending trillions of dollars to defend you. Cutting US military spending in half, much of which could come from vacating the US presence in Europe, would give the US hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on their own country. Their own society. Their own healthcare.
And maybe when Europe realises it can't pay for its absurdly dysfunctional welfare systems and its own security, it will have the same hard choices to make that the rest of the world have been making since the dawn of time! Big changes are coming for European lifestyles, much bigger than anything coming for the US.
What does the US security presence in Europe actually get the US? Mollycoddled adult children, complaining on the online platforms that the US built, using the global economy the US protects, from homes that the US defends, about how icky those Americans are.
>> And FYI, Europe has already tripled its defense spending. I hope none of it gets spent on US tech of any kind.
Yes yes, we've all heard much talking about the Zeitenwende. Talking is what Europe does best, after all. Maybe German soldiers can stop running around with broomsticks instead of guns now? [0] So Europe is fine and dandy now, right? No need to NATO to continue, judging from all the fighting words coming out of folks like Kaja Kallas?
This is such an incoherent, Internet-pilled perspective. "The US empire is bad and should end, but also the Americans must stay and protect me on the other side of the world forever, but also I don't need them at all and I am actually perfectly capable of defending myself, thank you very much, but also them leaving is a huge betrayal and must be prevented at all costs -"
Good God, which is it? Either the US overseas presence is good and should continue to protect Europe, or it's bad and the Americans can go home and you'll take care of yourself.
Ironically, I think we're actually agreed on your future prediction. The US 'empire', to use your words, will end soon. Problem solved, Yankee go home, you kids have fun. I sincerely hope Europe doesn't get itself invaded, but that will really be a matter for Europe to figure out.
The US is a net exporter of crude oil and is positioned to meet an oil crisis better than nearly anyone else. What do you think the US government expected from this?
I think civil servants and military planners in the US were aware of the threat of a global oil shock if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. This is a well-known enough scenario that the Battlefield games have maps on Kharg Island. Everyone knows it's Iran's greatest leverage. They even threaten to close the Strait regularly.
The administration would have been informed of the risks to the US, which are relatively minor in comparison since the US is a net exporter of crude, and ignored them. If the risks had been greater, they would not have ignored them, and would have at least had an actual plan to keep the Strait open. They might even have informed their close military allies using something other than Truth Social.
I am not arguing that they planned this, even though it should have been obvious that it would happen. I absolutely do believe they were warned it was a possibility and didn't care.
Being positioned to eat shit better than anyone else is still eating shit. Our economy isn't independent of the rest of the world.
Datacenter investment is currently a noticable fraction of US GDP. That's as globalized as it gets, we aren't even remotely self sufficient on that front. What happens to our economy if that segment crumbles overnight?
Germany has switched from one gas supplier to different gas suppliers.
The past Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck famously once sad:
“Nuclear power doesn’t help us there at all,” “We have a heating problem or an industry problem, but not an electricity problem – at least not generally throughout the country.”
The problem with getting rid of oil is that cars currently in use will be usable even when over 20 years old, replacing them with EVs is expensive, and the good enough and economically accessible EVs are only now starting to get to market.
It's really hard to quickly replace millions of vehicles.
In California my electricity to drive my Chevy Volt is more expensive than gasoline, if gasoline is less than $5 a gallon.
So for basically the last 100k miles I've owned it, electricity was more expensive.
The same goes for many plugin hybrids. Luxury EVs still win out because luxury sedans usually only get 25 mpg mixed max.
$0.44
A first gen Volt takes 10.3kwh. It also uses electricity to cool the batteries while charging. If you leave it plugged in one a hot day it will cool the battery just for health overall but I'll ignore that. Then, add in the losses on the charge conversions.
It easily takes 11kwh to charge a Volt. It'll go about 35 miles in the summer on that charge, and more like 28 in the winter.
It also gets 35 mpg on gasoline, while providing free heat in the winter from the gas engine heat, and for most of the last few years was doing this for $3.50-$4 a gallon.
There are people on Southern California/San Diego that pay more. Over there people say the Prius Prime is WAY cheaper to operate on gas because it gets 50mpg gasoline.
I've even heard people running their home off gasoline because it's cheaper but that would require an impressive gas generator to do long term.
That won't "solve" anything. Car prices will rise, many people can't afford the switch regardless, too much new EV demand could destabilize the grid in population centers, and throwing away vehicles that are already on the road by replacing them with newly manufactured ones is terrible from an emissions perspective.
This week, the first spodumene vein was blasted from the rock at the open-pit mine in western Finland, marking the occasion with a ceremonial event attended by invited guests and media.
Europe has massive lithium reserves in Germany, Serbia, Portugal and ukraine but perhaps more importantly it also has friendly relations with other countries with reserves
Economic viability depends on many things, lithium prices have been pretty volatile in the past, battery production in Europe as customers are just scaling up.
Everything depends on demand. Much of US shale oil hasn’t been economical to extract at times in the past decade. If oil drops below $60 most of the newer basins are not profit making. If oil demand (or OPEC) pushes oil below $35 the rest of US oil isn’t economical.
