EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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An insane mind: Aug 11, 2018

I thought they meant contingent as in group of people and just mistyped...

# ? Aug 20, 2022 17:18

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# ? May 29, 2024 17:51

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Owling Howl posted:

There's a certain continent that have co-opted the climate agenda but their actual motivation is opposition to our economic system generally and industrialism and urbanism specifically. The ideological core are types that are opposed to large scale wind/solar projects but advocate for small local democratic renewables on smallholder plots in a sort of pseudo-primitivist agrarianism. Smash the system so we are free to live on a hobby farm in harmony with nature but also we still have electricity, electronics, cars etc.

It's a fringe movement obviously but I think some opposition to nuclear manifests from that mindset as an indefinable queasy feeling that it is just somehow wrong.

Also "We get to keep anyone out of our communities that doesn't look like us". They're really just regular suburbanites but even more divorced from the society that allows them to choose that lifestyle.

An insane mind posted:

I thought they meant contingent as in group of people and just mistyped...

That doesn't seem right, couldn't possibly be it.

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

If nuclear is meant to be the only electrical grid source that consists of big hunks of spinning metal to soak up load spikes and dips (which is the only way we can meaningfully regulate the electric grid, as renewable energy sources aren't capable of doing that), it's gonna require a substantial increase in the number of nuclear power plants - all of which will generate their own waste that we can only stockpile or bury and hope for the best.

The alternative is pumping what is essentially a planetary poison into the atmosphere and hoping for the best, while we're already slowly dying to it.

# ? Aug 20, 2022 17:22

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Yeah the nuclear waste that's scary you can fit in a big shed and very easily detect if something or someone is trying to have it not in the big shed. The nuclear waste that you can't is more equivalent to "eating one banana every day" or "living in a stone or brick building for a year" rather than anything scary.

All the giant stone mountain vaults are solutions to nimby/political problems rather than scientific ones. If it has an image problem, you need to work to change the image.

https://twitter.com/0ddette/status/1284518784049582083

(Also waste from batteries and solar panel production are harder to detect and deal with than nuclear waste, but both are way less in damage and volume than coal and oil waste, and the only time people tend to bring up those wastes is when they want to keep burning coal and oil.)

# ? Aug 20, 2022 19:19

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Randarkman posted:

Yeah, maybe stop it with that "bury and hope for the best" spiel. Because it's part of the whole thing of blowing the issue out of proportions and scare-mongering about radiation as some kind of magical insurmountable health hazard. Burying it is a good solution if you don't want to try to repurpose it. It's not just hoping for the best against a force we are powerless against.

Burying it is making it someone elses problem, as it'll be dangerous for far longer than humanity has been anything but nomadic, and we have absolutely no hope of communicating that danger to the people who'll come after us if they're not aware of how dangerous ionizing radiation can be if not handled properly.

I'm not knocking ionizing radiation, as IMRT plays a non-significant role in why I'm even still here (along with chemotherapy and surgery), but there's a reason why it was dose-fractioned as 2Gray across 30 weekdays, and not 60Gray all at once - the latter is a barely sublethal dose.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Also "We get to keep anyone out of our communities that doesn't look like us". They're really just regular suburbanites but even more divorced from the society that allows them to choose that lifestyle.

That doesn't seem right, couldn't possibly be it.

The alternative is pumping what is essentially a planetary poison into the atmosphere and hoping for the best, while we're already slowly dying to it.

Please note that I haven't said that any of the problems are impossible to solve, just that we need to acknowledge that they exist and that we need to work on solutions while we work on getting more nuclear power.

# ? Aug 20, 2022 19:47

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Coal fly ash is more radioactive than general nuclear waste and doesn't get any special treatment.

The good news is you don't need any big convoluted systems of warning future generations if you keep burning coal. :v:

# ? Aug 20, 2022 19:57

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

Burying it is making it someone elses problem, as it'll be dangerous for far longer than humanity has been anything but nomadic, and we have absolutely no hope of communicating that danger to the people who'll come after us if they're not aware of how dangerous ionizing radiation can be if not handled properly.

I'm not knocking ionizing radiation, as IMRT plays a non-significant role in why I'm even still here (along with chemotherapy and surgery), but there's a reason why it was dose-fractioned as 2Gray across 30 weekdays, and not 60Gray all at once - the latter is a barely sublethal dose.

Please note that I haven't said that any of the problems are impossible to solve, just that we need to acknowledge that they exist and that we need to work on solutions while we work on getting more nuclear power.

Literally who gives a poo poo? If some post-apocalyptic tribe has some their members explore a "tomb" and they end up dying horribly, then so what? We're talking time scales of thousands of years, the deaths/year is gonna be insanely low compared to actual current problems that people don't give a poo poo about. Coal is a thousand times more lethal than nuclear power, a hundred times less than gas, and it's actually killing people who can't avoid it by creeping around in lifeless caverns.

# ? Aug 20, 2022 20:19

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

It's a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. The proponents of the status quo have repeatedly proved that they can't even be bothered to plan 10 years in advance, whereas nuclear has to prove 10,000 years.

Maybe if a bunch of illiterate nomads find that waste and art storage facility in a couple of millennia they'll come to the conclusion that Dutch art is cursed.

# ? Aug 20, 2022 20:29

An insane mind: Aug 11, 2018

Guavanaut posted:

It's a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. The proponents of the status quo have repeatedly proved that they can't even be bothered to plan 10 years in advance, whereas nuclear has to prove 10,000 years.

Maybe if a bunch of illiterate nomads find that waste and art storage facility in a couple of millennia they'll come to the conclusion that Dutch art is cursed.

B-but Guavanaut...everything Dutch is cursed.

# ? Aug 20, 2022 21:05

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Literally who gives a poo poo? If some post-apocalyptic tribe has some their members explore a "tomb" and they end up dying horribly, then so what? We're talking time scales of thousands of years, the deaths/year is gonna be insanely low compared to actual current problems that people don't give a poo poo about. Coal is a thousand times more lethal than nuclear power, a hundred times less than gas, and it's actually killing people who can't avoid it by creeping around in lifeless caverns.

Again, I never said we shouldn't have nuclear power, or that we should keep coal and gas. Please try to read what I write.
My point is simply that humanity, as a species, can work on more than one issue at a time.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 09:13

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

Again, I never said we shouldn't have nuclear power, or that we should keep coal and gas. Please try to read what I write.
My point is simply that humanity, as a species, can work on more than one issue at a time.

No, you are perpetuating the notion that burying long-lived nuclear waste (which is small in total volume) is somehow a desperate non-solution to the "problem of nuclear waste", that it's just hoping for the best or making it someone else's problem, because it's this thing we don't have any notion of how to handle properly. gently caress off. The physics of radiation and how radioactivity works is actually remarkably well understood by modern science and has been so for basically a century at the very least, as are the health hazards of ionizing radiation. If you want to remove or store away lots of radioactive material, then burying and/or submerging it, and encasing it in rock or concrete is a good solution.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 09:39

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Randarkman posted:

No, you are perpetuating the notion that burying long-lived nuclear waste (which is small in total volume) is somehow a desperate non-solution to the "problem of nuclear waste", that it's just hoping for the best or making it someone else's problem, because it's this thing we don't have any notion of how to handle properly. gently caress off. The physics of radiation and how radioactivity works is actually remarkably well understood by modern science and has been so for basically a century at the very least, as are the health hazards of ionizing radiation. If you want to remove or store away lots of radioactive material, then burying and/or submerging it, and encasing it in rock or concrete is a good solution.

Good job reading.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 09:45

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

Good job reading.

Yes, that's what you're saying.

You're saying we should "work on solutions" dismissing the fact that we pretty much have a perfectly workable solution that's not being implemented because of NIMBY bullshit and insistence on 10 000 year perfectionism.

Randarkman fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Aug 21, 2022

# ? Aug 21, 2022 09:46

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

Again, I never said we shouldn't have nuclear power, or that we should keep coal and gas. Please try to read what I write.
My point is simply that humanity, as a species, can work on more than one issue at a time.

As Randarkman says, there's no reason to work on the issue because it has already been solved. To say that we "can work on more than one issue at a time" is giving credence to the idea that there is an issue in the first place, when there simply isn't. Saying we have a "nuclear waste issue" is like saying we have a "getting across oceans issue" because ships sometimes sink.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 10:29

His Divine Shadow: Aug 7, 2000; I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

This bullshit nclear waste tangent does show the huge problem to overcome. Nuclear waste is so ingrained in peoples minds as somehow extra special and bad and requires guarantees for tens of thousands of years. When it's absofuckinglutely not a big deal at all compared to all the other poo poo we gladly just put anywhere and don't have any solutions for what to do in 10,000 years with, despite the fact that those things will be just as dangerous then as today. Oh we'll just spread it out evenly in the atmosphere, oh just dont grow anything on that poison land (that's a 10k year guarantee that there). Oh I guess the mercury will be fine there on the lake bottom for all eternity and nobody will ever accidentially get their hands on it. etc etc etc.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 12:14

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Yes, let's hang me for saying that we should just poison the environment, because that's exactly what I said.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 12:15

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

Yes, let's hang me for saying that we should just poison the environment, because that's exactly what I said.

Given that this is the debate and discussion forum, maybe you could elucidate your point further and/or respond to criticisms of your previous points, instead of simply stating you are under attack?

# ? Aug 21, 2022 12:48

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Rappaport posted:

Given that this is the debate and discussion forum, maybe you could elucidate your point further and/or respond to criticisms of your previous points, instead of simply stating you are under attack?

I thought I had, but here's the rough order of operations:

Build nuclear power plants to cover the dips and spikes of load on the electric grid that's currently covered mostly by coal and gas.
Shut down coal and gas plants.
Keep expanding wind, water, and thermal (geo and solar) energy production.
Find a scalable solution so that we don't polute Earth further.

The fourth point being on the list to demonstrate that we've learned from and know better than our forebears, given how they didn't attempt to avoid polution before it got them (and subsequently us) into big problems.

BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Aug 21, 2022

# ? Aug 21, 2022 13:25

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

The problems of nuclear waste really are absolutely miniscule and irrelevant compared to the problems of literally every other kind of waste.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 13:48

Pope Hilarius II: Nov 10, 2008

The bigger problem with nuclear is that it takes a long-rear end time to build nuclear power plants and that (maybe barring France) no current European country has enough experts alive who have experience building them.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 15:06

SlowBloke: Aug 14, 2017

Wasn't more than 60% of nuclear waste bullshit like used suits, with a level of radioactivity so low they could be thrown in a furnace and produce less airborne radioactivity than the average coal power plant?

# ? Aug 21, 2022 15:11

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

If only we'd been building and developing technology rather than protesting it for the last 40 years.

Practically, it might be too late to start building now, but it's funny that cost keeps getting used as an excuse too, because I came across this chart.

It seems like nuclear was cheaper or comparable to all other sources until about 2012. I wonder why we haven't been building more back then.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 15:14

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

mobby_6kl posted:

It seems like nuclear was cheaper or comparable to all other sources until about 2012. I wonder why we haven't been building more back then.

the one guy that knows how to build them is on consultant rates and charges like $2b per trip out to the site

edit the chart is interesting to me because of the cost of solar. i remember an episode of inspector gadget that must have originally aired in 1985 that mentioned consumer-level solar panels to put on residential housing like it was a normal and common thing to do. just how expensive was that in 1985?

i say swears online fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Aug 21, 2022

# ? Aug 21, 2022 15:40

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

i say swears online posted:

the one guy that knows how to build them is on consultant rates and charges like $2b per trip out to the site

edit the chart is interesting to me because of the cost of solar. i remember an episode of inspector gadget that must have originally aired in 1985 that mentioned consumer-level solar panels to put on residential housing like it was a normal and common thing to do. just how expensive was that in 1985?

The White House used to have solar panels, Reagan had them removed.

The anti-green backlash of the 80s was real.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 17:26

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

the Green opposition to nuclear energy is one of the last relics of the Greens' old pacifist commitments

back in the day, nuclear disarmament seemed like a somewhat realistic proposition, but it would involve shutting down all nuclear plants and stopping the development of nuclear technology. unlike nuclear power, nuclear weapons really are insanely dangerous, and they are linked quite intimately with the general use of fission for energy production. since the Greens were to a large extent motivated by a rejection of the "modernist" society-building projects which they perceived as having strong totalitarian and anti-ecological tendencies (so everything from fascism through communism via corporatist social-democracy and gaullism was tainted by this technocratic-positivst mentality), they came to the conclusion that the only way forward was selective technological stagnation. the nuclear plants were as much a symbol of this ideology which was threatening to destroy the world in both the near (nuclear exchange) and the long term (the environmentalist cause was not obscure even back in the sixties-seventies, though the scope was).

after the fall of communism, the Greens embraced the technocratic mentality more than anyone; this is IMO simply because the scope for ideological divergence was extremely narrow for a long while, and as the immediacy of the Greens' original motivations sort of faded, they realigned to be a party for middle-class people concerned about climate change; effectively, the climate issue has given social liberalism a new lease of life, though not the parties which openly espouse social liberalism. as this demographic tends extremely technocratic and ameriphile, so too does the Green tendency move away from substantive pacifism and anti-positivism, but nuclear power remains a totem issue and overlaps nicely with home-owners' concerns about property values, so it remains. younger Greens again are perplexed about this, because they buy neither the original utopianism nor the property values rationale, and since the former has been defeated and the latter isn't something you just admit to publicly they're slowly gaining ground in a lot of parties.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 22:57

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

That fits in well with some of the worst (actual rather than theoretical) radiological incidents at Windscale and Kyshtym having nothing to do with nuclear power, and being entirely due to idiot rushed bomb making projects.

Having people shove spicy things into rushed structures to make a big bang went badly wrong a few times. Hopefully we can continue to completely detach power generation from that.

A lot of the thorium energy stuff is utopian or unworkable, but it at least made a good wedge between 'nuclear energy' and 'bomb factory', leaving only the nimby argument.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 23:06

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

there's an imo credible argument to be made that it's not practically possible to have large-scale fission plant at the same time as nuclear disarmament. in theory we can imagine some form of extra-rigorous arms control arrangement, but in the event of that kind of thing breaking down (such as is happening now wrt the invasion of ukraine) many countries will have breakout capacity in some form or the other, and a strong incentive to rearm as quickly as possible to have an operational nuclear deterrent. we either give up on nuclear disarmament or on nuclear energy. so e.g. the nuclearisation of west germany and japan coincided with the partial remilitarisation of those countries, a point not lost on oppositional figures.

of course, we now know that the main nuclear powers have absolutely no intention of working towards nuclear disarmament (and indeed that saying you will do so makes you basically a fringe lunatic), so while it's goddamned insane i think we can safely discard the goal of nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future.

# ? Aug 21, 2022 23:51

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-21/germany-to-prioritize-coal-trains-over-passenger-services-welt

quote:

Germany plans to give coal trains priority over passenger services on its rail network as it struggles with an energy crunch that�s threatening the economy, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported, citing a draft proposal.

Priority is normally given to passenger transport in Germany, and timetables are geared toward it. As a result there�s a risk of chaos on the rails from making the change, according to the draft.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/europes-natural-gas-crunch-sparks-global-battle-for-tankers-11661150781

quote:

Europe�s energy crisis has unleashed a global battle over natural-gas tankers, leading to a shortage of ships and further boosting the fuel�s record prices.

European countries ramped up their purchases of liquefied natural gas from the U.S., Qatar and other sources this year as Russia cut supplies to the continent. They are competing with peers in South Korea and Japan�where gas demand has surged during a heat wave�for a finite amount of supply ferried by a limited number of vessels.

The jostling has increased orders for new tankers transporting LNG�specialized ships the length of three football fields�as well as their price. Rates to charter existing tankers have jumped too, which has helped push gas prices to records in Europe and Asia.

...

Just one LNG tanker is available to be chartered for a single voyage in Asia two months or more from now, said Jason Feer, head of business intelligence at Poten & Partners, a shipbroker. None is available in the Atlantic Ocean.

�Everything out there is going to be snapped up,� said Toby Copson, head of trading and advisory at Shanghai-based Trident LNG. �Effectively you�ve got Europe and Asia bidding against each other and propping the market up.�
...

Amid the gas rush, daily charter rates for existing tankers that traders will take hold of between mid-September and mid-November have risen to $105,250 a day, up from about $64,000 now and about $47,000 a year ago for vessels heading from the U.S. to Europe, according to Spark Commodities.

Rates were above $100,000 a day in June, before dropping when a fire at an LNG export facility in the U.S. reduced exports and demand for boats. Analysts and traders expect them to rebound because trading companies have booked many more boats on a long-term basis to make sure they can ferry LNG, in turn reducing the pool of vessels immediately available.

To avoid getting caught out in the future, traders are going on a buying spree for ships. Customers have shelled out $24.1 billion on orders for new LNG tankers�including orders for eight vessels in August�so far in 2022, according to Stephen Gordon, managing director at London-based shipping firm Clarkson. They have already blown past the full-year record of $15.6 billion from 2021.

Currently, 257 vessels are on the order book globally, according to consulting firm Rystad Energy. Shipmakers in South Korea, the world�s biggest producer of LNG tankers, don�t have free capacity for new orders until 2027, Rystad estimates.
...

Germany, which had for years been dependent on cheap Russian piped gas, doesn�t have a single LNG terminal. Now, Berlin is planning to have two such FSRUs ready by the end of the year, with several others following next year.

# ? Aug 22, 2022 17:52

Baudolino: Apr 1, 2010; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Its starting look like Europe will break before Russia. Maybe we get trough this winter but we are megafucked for next winter unless we can get enough LNG terminals online fast enough. Which also does not save us even if could be achieved if there are not enough tankers to carry the stuff.

I hope against hope that the latest bombing is a sign that the Moscow regime is starting to unravel internally. That may be our only hope.

# ? Aug 22, 2022 23:15

Blut: Sep 11, 2009; if someone is in the bottom 10%~ of a guillotine

Baudolino posted:

Its starting look like Europe will break before Russia. Maybe we get trough this winter but we are megafucked for next winter unless we can get enough LNG terminals online fast enough. Which also does not save us even if could be achieved if there are not enough tankers to carry the stuff.

I hope against hope that the latest bombing is a sign that the Moscow regime is starting to unravel internally. That may be our only hope.

Winter 2023/24 won't be as big an issue, by then enough alternative solutions will have come online. There are plenty in the pipeline, as the rather appropriate saying goes.

This winter is the much bigger issue but Europe's gas reserves are ticking up steadily and are actually at a higher point than planned for right now though. You can track them here:

https://agsi.gie.eu/

If those reserves are full by winter then that, combined with prices going through the roof having a demand reducing effect, should result in the continent muddling through unless there are any more unforeseen disasters.

As previously mentioned though poorer countries are going to get completely outbid for LNG by Europe/the rich countries in Northern Asia. The poor are going to get boned, as usual.

# ? Aug 23, 2022 13:33

Baudolino: Apr 1, 2010; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Well i hope you are rigth but this a big gamble that could still fail.

# ? Aug 23, 2022 18:52

Blut: Sep 11, 2009; if someone is in the bottom 10%~ of a guillotine

Its not really a 'gamble', theres no real moral alternative to supporting Ukraine and decoupling from Russia as rapidly as possible.

# ? Aug 23, 2022 19:19

GABA ghoul: Oct 29, 2011

If it was just about morality I would be really worried. Luckily it's also about pragmatic considerations. Russian fascist aggressions are not gonna stop if we abandon Ukraine so it would be just kicking the can down the road and having a similar crisis again 8 years later and now even closer to the center of Europe.

# ? Aug 23, 2022 20:27

Jon Pod Van Damm: Apr 6, 2009; THE POSSESSION OF WEALTH IS IN AND OF ITSELF A SIGN OF POOR VIRTUE. AS SUCH:
1 NEVER TRUST ANY RICH PERSON.
2 NEVER HIRE ANY RICH PERSON.
BY RULE 1, IT IS APPROPRIATE TO PRESUME THAT ALL DEGREES AND CREDENTIALS HELD BY A WEALTHY PERSON ARE FRAUDULENT. THIS JUSTIFIES RULE 2--RULE 1 NEEDS NO JUSTIFIC

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1562393027225817089

quote:

Macron Warns 'Sacrifices' Ahead After 'End Of Abundance'

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Wednesday that France faced "sacrifices" in a new era marked by climate change and instability caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine that signalled "the end of abundance".

The richer EU countries like Germany and France are better positioned to absorb the economic impacts of the sanctions and counter-sanctions. They can afford to be moral on this issue. Is it correct to say that the poorer EU countries will be less willing to go along with this suicide pact?

Will there be any Euro war bonds to help share the burden of the economic impact of the sanctions and counter-sanctions or will this issue split the EU on energy and foreign policy this winter?

People have a tendency to revolt when basic needs like access to warm shelter and food are not met. Could we see something like an Arab spring in Europe this winter?

# ? Aug 24, 2022 13:54

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

ted hitler hunter posted:

People have a tendency to revolt when basic needs like access to warm shelter and food are not met. Could we see something like an Arab spring in Europe this winter?

maybe if by arab spring you specifically mean egypt's experience

# ? Aug 24, 2022 14:02

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Most of the poorer EU countries are the ones bordering russia so I think they'd be the most motivated to stick it to them. Other than Hungary obviously.

# ? Aug 24, 2022 14:12

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

mobby_6kl posted:

Most of the poorer EU countries are the ones bordering russia so I think they'd be the most motivated to stick it to them. Other than Hungary obviously.

The most obvious potential "misalignment" would be Greece, which seemed pretty Russophile in 2014 IIRC and also justifiably has it out for Germany, but both Greece and Spain have been somewhat spared due to having direct non-Russian gas pipe lines. Plus Greece might have changed its mind about Russia since then.

But yeah, the solution to the crisis most eastern EU members would favor seems closer to the permanently destroying Russia than deescalating to get cheaper gas.

# ? Aug 24, 2022 14:22

Blut: Sep 11, 2009; if someone is in the bottom 10%~ of a guillotine

A Buttery Pastry posted:

The most obvious potential "misalignment" would be Greece, which seemed pretty Russophile in 2014 IIRC and also justifiably has it out for Germany, but both Greece and Spain have been somewhat spared due to having direct non-Russian gas pipe lines. Plus Greece might have changed its mind about Russia since then.

But yeah, the solution to the crisis most eastern EU members would favor seems closer to the permanently destroying Russia than deescalating to get cheaper gas.

Moscow delenda est probably has a nice local translation in Polish and Lithuanian

# ? Aug 24, 2022 14:32

MassiveSky: Apr 5, 2022; by Hand Knit

Ghost Leviathan posted:

The problems of nuclear waste really are absolutely miniscule and irrelevant compared to the problems of literally every other kind of waste.

Hideo Kojima has a lot to answer for. As penance, he should be forced to make a good game for once.

# ? Aug 24, 2022 21:27

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

the issue is that expensive power really fucks the germans, who've carefully maintained a very strong export-oriented industrial economy for decades now, to the point where maintaining that economy has been at the centre of a lot of EU policy (including the hardline austerity back in the day). the longer this lasts, the more businesses are going to permanently close, and once closed they're not generally coming back. france is somewhat less exposed to this, but iirc the netherlands are sort of in the same boat as the germans. with the euro also looking very unstable, there is going to be a lot of pressure on the german export economy and with it the economic policy base of the EU

i doubt that they'll back away from supporting ukraine. openly capitulating to the russians like that would be insanely unpopular and may well send the SPD the way of the PS if they could even get it past the rrather belligerent Greens, and i don't see there being much chance of the CDU/CSU trying to attack them for the pro-ukrainian stance directly (they will of course attack them for the effect of businesses going bankrupt, but that is natural) which could offer them a chance to back off. i think that the first institutions to stop backing ukraine will be financial institutions which absolutely hate to make imprudent decisions and will be doubting that they'll see anything they give to ukraine paid back. this far, ukraine's been paying off debt with financial assistance and more debt, but as the EU starts feeling its own wallet pinch it may see it as throwing good money after bad (macron apparently had to basically strong-arm the commission into activating its second big tranche of ukraine funding; this will get increasingly difficult as time goes on). whether the US is going to pick up the tab at that point is not clear to me.

if the money stops flowing, ukraine will be unable to make payroll or to keep importing non-military stuff. civic morale may be high enough to prevent that from collapsing the front line, but it would be a huge blow and one which it's going to be extremely difficult to avoid imo

for now, the ukrainians are fighting a very competent defensive war; given funding and materiel, it looks like they can at least keep the front basically stable - but the longer this goes on, the more likely a serious recession for europe.

# ? Aug 24, 2022 22:44

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# ? May 29, 2024 17:51

Blut: Sep 11, 2009; if someone is in the bottom 10%~ of a guillotine

The Euro losing ~20% (and getting worse every day) of its value against the dollar, and all of the many many global currencies pegged to the dollar, is of absolutely massive benefit to the German export orientated economy though. Once again the Euro is serving to work primarily in their interests above everyone else on the continent.

# ? Aug 24, 2022 23:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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