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Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th

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Simon:
The problem is that the general population are not qualified or competent to take technical decisions. So if you want to hold a referendum on how energy is produced there should have been some caveats. So apparently nuclear is not nice, did they also agree that coal is not nice?. So lets say people who have no business in the energy industry get to decide how it should operate. Should these people not be made responsible for those decisions?

I would assume that the logic is:

1) nuclear bad
2) coal bad
3) gas not good
4) buying gas from a war mongering nation - unacceptable.

Given those assumed circumstances to be reasonable and what people voted on do those that want nuclear shut down now accept to live without the electricity they did not want generated.

It's all well and good people getting to make a decision, but they should also be responsible in the face of the consequences.

It's a bit like our MD, we tell him that engineering need 4 weeks to develop the project, he comes back from the customer and tells us they want it in 2, why are we supposed to try the impossible?

Now that the energy system has just been rendered even more polluting than it was do those people who voted for this care? or do they live in a bubble unburst by the fact that the problems they created are now someone elses?

nctnico:
The best approach is the one I use for customers as well: Don't build what they want, but build what they need. In the end politics works the same if you look closely.

Neutrion:

--- Quote from: Simon on April 20, 2023, 05:58:20 pm ---The problem is that the general population are not qualified or competent to take technical decisions. So if you want to hold a referendum on how energy is produced there should have been some caveats. So apparently nuclear is not nice, did they also agree that coal is not nice?. So lets say people who have no business in the energy industry get to decide how it should operate. Should these people not be made responsible for those decisions?

I would assume that the logic is:

1) nuclear bad
2) coal bad
3) gas not good
4) buying gas from a war mongering nation - unacceptable.

Given those assumed circumstances to be reasonable and what people voted on do those that want nuclear shut down now accept to live without the electricity they did not want generated.

It's all well and good people getting to make a decision, but they should also be responsible in the face of the consequences.

It's a bit like our MD, we tell him that engineering need 4 weeks to develop the project, he comes back from the customer and tells us they want it in 2, why are we supposed to try the impossible?

Now that the energy system has just been rendered even more polluting than it was do those people who voted for this care? or do they live in a bubble unburst by the fact that the problems they created are now someone elses?

--- End quote ---
And are the general politicians competent enough to make such decision? Usually a buch of lawyers, sometimes not even that.
What happens is, that a small number of "experts" (unaccountable) sits down with the politician
and tell them what they think.
Now if we accept that, than acually we could give up the whole concept of democracy because also
in dictatorships things work quiet similarly. Don't think that the dictators never ask anyone!
The dictator always knows best what is good for the public, and is working towards that goal,
and the dumb population of course don't know shit but the great leaders.


And of course you can wote down the politician, but does anybody ever know what the actual reason among
dozens of decisions was, which caused a party to loose an election?

And there IS an example of democracy, and it is working quiet well, much better than most of the pseudo
democracies in every aspect. I don't see there nonsense decisions.
Edit: How does it work? The same experts and many more tell the public their oppinion, and just like the politicians the people are making up their mind.
And I bet if people would have a say about big issues in Europe in the last 10 years we would be much better off.

"4) buying gas from a war mongering nation - unacceptable."
I have to add here that the Iraq war was causing more death than the Ukrainian so far, but it is OK to buy from the US now or energy (oil) from Britain. So in a few years this is not going be an issue I suppose. There wasn't even a sigle sanction back than. And this why now some people wonder sometimes about the high moral ground of some countries.
But to be on a bit: Blowing up the gas pipes was not  a german decision, the gas from there would have been enough to substitute the nuclear plants. Only the stop of the NS2 usage was a political decision, and stopping the oil import but that is not used to generate electricity.



"It's all well and good people getting to make a decision, but they should also be responsible in the face of the consequences."

And does now anybody faces the consequences in the current systems? Any politician ever had to pay back billions when he made a wrong decision? No. Maybe loosing job, and having an extreme high income level after it. Basically no consequences.
Look at the case with Dizzy Lizzy! How much is she paying back or having any consequences of her decision? Nothing.

"Given those assumed circumstances to be reasonable and what people voted on do those that want nuclear shut down now accept to live without the electricity they did not want generated."
They didn't even vote 12 years ago, but now there is an emergency situation. And we don't know what the public wants, but the stupid decision was made by the expert politicians. NOT by the people.
(As far as I know even the oppinion polls are telling that the population would liked to keep the remaining NPP for a while, but they werr not asked.)


But democracy is not about making the best decision(what is the best decision, how do you measure it?), but to decide to do what the public wants. It has its faults, but it still works better than anything else.  And the consequences is always beared by the common people collectively called society both in democracies, and in dictatorships as well.


--- Quote from: nctnico on April 20, 2023, 09:19:03 pm ---The best approach is the one I use for customers as well: Don't build what they want, but build what they need. In the end politics works the same if you look closely.

--- End quote ---
I am quiet sure that most dictators are thinking doing the same. Not sure if the dumb uninformed non-expert russians would be asked, the war would still going on.

Simon:
my point is that Joe Bloggs does not have a clue what he is actually making a decision on, to the point that he thinks the decision is helping him when it could be harming him and his fellow countrymen. My point is that there is one result of this, the energy system will produce more greenhouse gas emissions, this hurts everyone and is not necessarily cheaper so it is a loose loose choice. Now there is a way to redress this. If less power is required then there is less need for carbon emitting generators to be used and the price also drops due to lower demand. So those who voted to turn off the power should go without power! Then they might take a serious interest in how this woks and start to understand the realities.

switchabl:

--- Quote from: Simon on April 21, 2023, 03:41:17 pm ---My point is that there is one result of this, the energy system will produce more greenhouse gas emissions, this hurts everyone and is not necessarily cheaper so it is a loose loose choice.

--- End quote ---

Call me a cynic but I strongly suspect that politically the one result of keeping nuclear power would have been less PV and wind, not less coal and an energy system with broadly the same CO2 emissions (potentially at somewhat lower prices). In Germany, coal is not just about energy, it is about mining jobs (and voters).

(And to be fair the energy sector is actually on track to meet reduction goals, at least for now.)

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