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Notes -
Reopen Mountain Pass?
That’s what I am conflicted about. Sure, there is no fundamental reasons why the west/US couldn’t mine and extract its own lithium, so that it’s not dependent on China. But, would it actually be able to do it in practice? Would the overcome the political, NIMBY, environmental, ecological etc opposition? Can they actually get necessary know how and workforce to build what is needed?
Consider the current energy crisis in Europe. Seems like the obvious answer would be to just go all in on nuclear fission. Is this what is happening? No, European countries seem like to be more into trying to survive winter, expanding LNG terminals, and hoping that there is enough LNG capacity in future. Will there be? Can they depend on their US ally providing all of it? No, US is still not pushing hard into expanding fossils, instead we still go all in on ESG.
Seems to me that even if it is clear what needs to be done, the ability to actually pull it off is no longer there, there is no leader to pull the Realpolitik off and align everyone towards the goal. Instead, we get the standard multitude of interest groups that just makes everything impossible to build, as usual.
Even the greens have at least stopped digging when it comes to the nuclear power hole.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/world/europe/german-greens-suspend-nuclear-opposition-ahead-of-winter-power-threat-20221017-p5bq9s.html
I think it's one thing to build new power plants and another to start mining an existing mine again.
Germany is not even able to keep their existing power plants open during energy crisis in the face of opposition from the greens. I don’t think reopening a mine closed for more than a decade is going to be any easier.
They, in fact, are able to keep their existing nuclear plants open.
https://apnews.com/article/business-germany-olaf-scholz-christian-lindner-cda1fd82ab1be344ee60ecd67a10f15a
Barely. As the other post mentioned, it's only until April, but, more importantly, it's only three locations for which no new fuel will be purchased. That means that in January at the latest all three plants will have to greatly reduce their power output in order to be able to run all the way into April, at least according to the company maintaining operations.
It should also be mentioned that this decision was only reached after months of discussion. As late as two days ago it seemed plausible that the original end date (the new year) would stay simply because the parties in the governing coalition couldn't agree on this. It has only happened now because the chancellor used a special and very rarely used provision in German law that allows him to shutdown any debate within the (executive branch of the) government on its course of action.
Meh, FWIW, I think most of the Greens just resisted publicly to appease their base, but didn't really. Habeck has been running around arranging gas deals with UAE and Qatar, and Baerbock has been shipping weapons to the Ukraine, both of which would have been unthinkable for Green's just a year ago. He has scolded the public for wanting unrealistic energy solutions.
Apparently the issue was resolved in four minutes when the cabinet met; hardly the sign of firm opposition.
Perhaps I'm too optimistic, and the anti-nuclear segments are too strong, but I think the Greens have grown up somewhat, due to actually having power and having to deal with a crisis.
Also, the country is facing up to the fact that it's likely to be a tough winter -- many townships in Bavaria are putting out disaster preparedness advisories, warning of potential power and water outages.
Eh, really? I've been under the impression that the Greens are the "American lapdog" party first and foremost for far longer than that. They've been called the "olive greens" (as in the colour of military uniforms) in certain circles all the way since a Green minister of foreign affairs (Joschka Fischer) made us go to Afghanistan in 2001. If the US government went as far as saying explicitly that Germany must leave its NPPs open (which I imagine would happen if they lost faith in Germany's ability to continue manufacturing support for Ukraine otherwise), I'm sure the Greens would quickly find a way to square the ideological circle there.
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Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: "Is there any reason at all why I shouldn't have your head off right now?" To which he replied: "Oh, King, live forever! Know that I, the mullah Nasrudin, am the greatest teacher in your kingdom, and it would surely be a waste to kill such a great teacher. So skilled am I that I could even teach your favorite horse to sing, given a year to work on it." The king was amused, and said: "Very well then, you move into the stable immediately, and if the horse isn't singing a year from now, we'll think of something interesting to do with you."
As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: "Now that was really stupid. You know you can't teach that horse to sing, no matter how long you try." Nasrudin's response: "Not at all. I have a year now that I didn't have before. And a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die.
"And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing."
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Nice, that gives me some hope for the future of Western civilization.
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...until April...
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