Let's see if I didn't mangle the editing. If I did, it won't be the last time.
(i.e. Germany; France has done quite well with nuclear power)
I don't know where this fairy tale comes out from again and again. France has higher electricity prices and has to import energy. Mostly from Germany (admittedly from our coal power plants, partly fired by Russian coal).
I believe France had some temporary issues with some reactors and some maintenance outages. Otherwise, I've heard the opposite. I don't live in Germany, but I have the idea that there are some folks there who have excellent PR selling preferred their preferred energy sources to the people which sometimes are not the most pragmatic. Nuclear power produces power 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. (unless there are maintenance and repair outages)
https://www.enappsys.com/interconnectorreview/
Also 30% of Uranium used in EU comes from Russia. See a problem here? That stuff is even harder to get from somewhere else than coal, gas or oil.
Not to mention that renewable energies are cheaper than nuclear power by a factor of 2 or 3, and that does not include the cost of the nuclear waste or any insurance, since nobody insure an atomic power plant. The premium would be so high that even after doubling current subventions it would never have a chance to recoup the costs.
I think the cheapness is caused by the experience in building nuke plants being lost over the years. In addition, there are tremendous bureaucratic obstacles. If nuclear were allowed to flower like other forms of energy, the cost would come down. The economy of scale seems to work for everything else. Technological innovation seems to work for everything else. Look at electronics. Look at food production. Look at the history of manufacturing automobiles. Automobiles were a toy for the rich at one time.
The thing I see many times is that the cost of intermittent wind and solar energy is compared to the cost of the huge "dinosaur" plants. Even the cost of those should be less after the first few are built. There are many types of nuclear plants that are touted as being cheaper and smaller. However, unfortunately, these are only on the drawing boards. I fear that there are just too many people out there that wish to stifle these new options and never give them a chance. It's a little like the luddites of years past smashing textile machinery. They just don't want it to exist.
Australia mines a lot of Uranium. I read a short article that they recently found some ore deposits in Wyoming. Canada mines Uranium. It has the world's largest deposits. Spent fuel can be reprocessed for reactors. Newer reactors on the drawing board can use Thorium and there is 3 to 4X as much of that in the world as Uranium. There's plenty of uranium in the world. Unlike fossil fuels,it is an extremely dense form of energy production. You don't need a whole lot.
What the last conservative government did do wrong was murdering the green energy increase because it threatened the oligopoly of the 4 big energy companies, who ignored renewables until about 2010.
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This is probably true. There is some evidence out there that at least the big oil companies are not too keen on having their industry displaced by newer cleaner forms of energy. The exception is the natural gas industry because they back up wind and solar energy at the times when they do not produce due to the inconsistency of Mother Nature.
I think you all underestimated the how far Russia is from controlling any bigger area. They have what, 1 soldier per kmē? And that is counting all the logistic staff etc.
Either you control a few points and let the enemy run around wherever they want in wide stretches of land, or you spread them so thin that any 2-month-ago-civilist with his granddad's Kalashnikov can kill all occupation forces in a village with a bit of luck and patience.
Russia doesn't intend to occupy. They also can't. And now they know they also can't control Ukraine politically. So it will be obliterated, the same as when Putin poisons journalists.
One of the previous posts has said that Russia wants genocide. Russia won't have to worry about the population if they greatly thin the herd. They have also exported people. Russia has a long history of slave prison camps. Their country is not very productive. To produce you need land, labor and capital. They've got the land and may have productive Ukraine back. Exporting people gives them labor in Siberia where they may need it. The sales of gas to help when intermittent solar and wind are unavailable is an excellent source of capital for them. I've read for a "Conventional" invasion, the soldier to civilian ratio is one to 50.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2004/05/09/a-proven-formula-for-how-many-troops-we-need/5c6dbfc9-33f8-4648-bd07-40d244a1daa4/40 million in Ukraine / 50 = 800,000 Basically, all of Russia's army.
Topic: Ukraine (Read 582527 times)