and then in Germany right wing/neoliberal politicians run around, make smug faces and tell people: ooooh, we need e-fuels because those combustion engines, they are sooooo good, the chinese are envious and will just copy (yes. for tanks...).
During their reign:
- solar industry: gone (in the 2000s germany had everything, domestically produced)
- wind energy: gone (well, Siemens did it themselves too)
- existing domestic electronics production: gone (Siemens had highly automated facilities producing state of the art mainboards...)
- in the pandemic masks were bought in China for billions. All the while the automation companies newly taken over by their Chinese joint venture partner were happy to show people how they built those in their chinese factories...
They call it responsible, I call it Seppuku...
Oh and of course they now want to build nuclear plants after they've shown for the last 30years that we have reached a state of more dysfunctional oligarchy than the Soviet Union ever was (they changed their system! Here the mantra is "There Is No Alternative"). I congratulate the chinese oligarchy for somehow keeping an interest in the physical world and fleecing two continents of 1200 million people for all they built and some more while their people are infighting on idiotic frontlines.
> Oh and of course they now want to build nuclear plants after they've shown for the last 30years that we have reached a state of more dysfunctional oligarchy than the Soviet Union ever was
I can't express how much I hate this. In terms of technology and engineering, nuclear is now so mature that it should be used everywhere solar doesn't make sense. Yet, in terms of politics, society and governance, we are still stuck in the state of 1970s. Putting nuclear in their hands is just irresponsible
China is.going to have the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world, all within a decade or two. We can bitch and moan all we want about their governance system but when it counts they are always the ones doing the right thing while Western governments hold their dicks and piss into the wind.
You seem to imply this is a sign of a failing of the west. I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion based on your data point, they produce everything for everyone and they have 1.5 billion inhabitants. It doesn't exactly come as a surprise that they require a lot of energy. China already has the largest coal, solar, wind, hydro energy production in the world.
We had a giant first mover advantage and didn't just squander it but fell behind the Chinese by a full generation.
We should be living in a post-scarcity era for energy. Instead we are contending with $80 crude prices and a future of trying to build a grid out of itermittent sources a lots of storage. None of that would have been necessary had we not dropped the ball.
It's ridiculous to dump these failures on the right wings/neoliberals. The actual government (and past governments) should take responsibility for the dumpster fires.
During their reign:
- solar industry: gone (in the 2000s germany had everything, domestically produced)
- wind energy: gone (well, Siemens did it themselves too)
- existing domestic electronics production: gone (Siemens had highly automated facilities producing state of the art mainboards...)
- in the pandemic masks were bought in China for billions. All the while the automation companies newly taken over by their Chinese joint venture partner were happy to show people how they built those in their chinese factories...
They call it responsible, I call it Seppuku...
Oh and of course they now want to build nuclear plants after they've shown for the last 30years that we have reached a state of more dysfunctional oligarchy than the Soviet Union ever was (they changed their system! Here the mantra is "There Is No Alternative"). I congratulate the chinese oligarchy for somehow keeping an interest in the physical world and fleecing two continents of 1200 million people for all they built and some more while their people are infighting on idiotic frontlines.