GER politics thread

[Catfish]

Now I am afraid of him. He is so tough.

You should. For other reasons though

[Skybird]

Surprise. In Munich, Bavaria, the Greens and the SPD are moving to extend the running time of Bavarian nuclear powerplant Isar-2. So far its just a regional group, not a national move of the whole parties, and many, the majority of the Greens and in the SPD still want to prferer coal and brown coal to nuclear power. But in past days, a few Green voices launched test balloons already with statements that could be interpreted as... well...

The success in Munich still depends on Habeck, however. He wants another powergrid stresstest being run to see whether or not there would be sufficient electrical power in the winter without the three nuclear powerplants. The third such test. since the war began.



Poland meanhwile mentioned it "wants" to lease the three remaining german reactors. Of course that is unrealistic and they know it, but they mercilessly put the finger in the obvious wound of German idiocy over this issue.



This May, Germany has burned more gas for creating power than in any May since world war 2. 3 nuclear powerplants still make up for 6% of the total power production in Germany, and if these get shut down, there is no replacement for these 6% from renewables. Only coal and browncoal. The latter getting reactivated currently.



Any other environment-killing solution - just no zero-emission nuclear power! Its evil! It kills!



Fact is nuclear energy has costed practically as few lives as renewables (accidents of construction workers and the likes), and that means: far less than coal, brown coal, gas or oil (deseases caused by emissions). And that calculation includes the victims of Chernobyl and Fukushima. The kill rate of fossil energy production ranks hundreds and thousands of times above that of nuclear power..



A German spoeciality: being afraid of the wrong things, while not being afraid of the things one should be afraid of. The Germans excel in this discipline, due to to their as I call it so often: hysterical romanticism.

[Catfish]

They said weeks ago they consider to let the remaining nuclear "switched on" to produce electric energy and make up for gas loss, so not really surprising. There is no other solution.

What surprises me is Habeck and Baerbock, what makes me angry is Scholz.

at 8:56 ff. she's talking tacheles

[Skybird]

Habeck said aearly on he would look into extending nuclear runnign times. and sicne then he had put both feet on the breaks, even deceived the public over what the industry said (and th idnsutry said they could get nucl,ear fuel as early as within 6 months and not form Russia, and that they said already in the first half of Aporil: no word on that by Habeck, he indee cclkaiemd extaclty hte opposite, that the "experts" said it wouldf nto be diable and managable and for this and for that and a million othe rreaosns extenbding the runnign time were ot possible).



Don't fall for Habeck! He sells failure as success and fishes off people's sympathy by posing only. Its all facade only, in the end he is just as left-lenaign as the whole Green party and GAL always has been: so left that one could call it Marxism indeed.



And Baerbock? Has nothign to seel, and has no means of power, she plays for a weka team that is depenbding and still claims to be superior, but as so often before, Russia and its vulnerability to sanctions, financial erosion and economic collapse has been massively overestimated. The sam ehapepned 2014/2015, and on various minor occaisons before. Baerbpock wants to repalkce relaism with moralism, and in that she is a Valkyrie, but a Valkyrie of words only - she has no sowr,d no spear, no shield, no armour and no horse. And when I see what she wnats beyond the ukraine war, I am thankful that her hands are bound and she cannot do what she started in the elections for and claimed she wanted to do. Her political goals and ideas for how to reeducate society and turn it into a far more left one, are as toxic as the Greens social visions always have been.



To me the Greens are not better than any other party. They all should not exist. I gave the Weizsäcker quote before, and I repeat it: "The political parties have made the state their prey." How discouragingly true! In all Western countries. Germany, Italy, the UK, the US... Everywhere. I only wait for the situation in the US turning into a hot civil - and racial - war. Its absolutely a realistic scenario, imo.

[Skybird]

FOCUS:


Germany is in a self-inflicted energy crisis. The blame falls on all federal governments since the proclamation of the energy turnaround under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his Green Party deputy Joschka Fischer. All of them have cemented Germany's structural dependence on fossil fuels. After all, the main goal of Germany's energy transition was not only to promote renewable energies, but also to phase out nuclear power.

This meant that climate-friendly nuclear energy failed as a backup for the increasingly dominant but weather-dependent renewables. No one thought about storage technologies. Coal and Russian natural gas did the job.

The Ampelkoalition (=traffic light government, due to the three colours of the parties, Skybird) didn't change that either. Gas as a backup for renewables formed the backbone of its climate strategy until the Ukraine war. That no longer works. Now Robert Habeck, who wanted to become a climate minister, is mobilizing old coal-fired power plants in his distress. But he won't let go of the nuclear phase-out. For years, nuclear fear was the Greens' most powerful mobilization tool. So close to the historic victory over German nuclear power, they don't want to admit that this path may have been wrong.

This creates self-contradictions. We don't have a power problem, the government says, but recommends that companies buy emergency generators. Every kilowatt-hour of electricity is haggled over to save gas-fired generation - but 33 billion kilowatt-hours of nuclear power that our last nuclear plants can produce per year are supposedly irrelevant.

The failure of reactors in France is bemoaned as a destabilizing factor - but the highly reliable purring German plants, 4200 megawatts of secure generating capacity, are to be shut down in the middle of winter. But the availability of this power could make the difference between stability and grid collapse.

Only a revolutionary act can help out of this danger: Away with the nuclear phase-out. "Nuclear fear - No thanks! " This act would have two advantages: Energy security and credibility. We would have more electricity in the grid - and politicians could convincingly link the climate goal with security of supply instead of playing them off against each other. After all, nuclear power has the same carbon footprint as wind power - but runs as reliably as coal.

Six German nuclear power plants are theoretically still operational because they have operating licenses, and three of them are on the grid. The first thing the federal government would have to do is sit down with the operators and take a technical inventory: How much electricity could the operating reactors, and possibly the revitalized ones, contribute? Have any interventions been made in the plants shut down in 2021 that would stand in the way of restarting them? How can we prepare plants and personnel to resume power operations? The government could commission its own expert body, the Reactor Safety Commission, which it has so far left to its own devices, to provide technical support.

At the same time, it would have to introduce a bill to amend the Atomic Energy Act in the Bundestag. This would allow the nuclear power plants to regain or extend their authorization to operate. In parallel, the power companies could already order new fuel elements. For the transition, the plants would have to make do with stretch operation and newly assembled reactor cores from existing fuel assemblies until the summer of 2023. Industry sources say that in an emergency, new fuel assemblies could be delivered in less than a year.

At the same time, the line ministries should proclaim the most important message: Evidence instead of nuclear fear! The Reactor Safety Commission certifies that our plants are not threatened by a Fukushima thanks to their robust protection against weather extremes and power outages. They are also immune to crashes of large commercial aircraft.

At the operating nuclear power plants, there have been no compromises in safety because of the phase-out date, with mandatory testing and maintenance being performed as usual. In plants shut down in 2021, these testing cycles would have to be resumed, unless they are still in operation anyway. The "periodic safety review" to be made up in some plants is a higher-level analysis procedure. It is performed during operation to gain additional insight into plant safety, but does not necessitate a plant shutdown.

The energy emergency dictates: It is now high time to initiate the lifetime extension. It should extend into the mid-2030s to give operators and workforces planning security. After all, the lack of secure and at the same time climate-friendly power plant capacity will be the dominant issue of the energy transition for years to come.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Three active and three additional powerplants that could be reactivated. German govenrment, get your stupid hea dout of your lower back. The industry told Habeck already in early April they could get new nculear fuel, and not for Russia, before end of the year. Habeck lies about it to the German public since then, claiming it could only be gotten from Russia, and would take until next spring to get any. He lies.

The whole German bailout from nuclear energy was a hilarious stupid idea from all beginning on. Not a shot just in the foot - more a shot through the head.

-----------

On a sidenote, I tried to buy more petroleum (for petroleum ovens) of cleaning grade 5 for my parents, their heating is still on gas. Grade 5, because that is so purified and cleaned that correctly burned it does not smell after an 3-5 minutes ignition phase anymore (telling by experience). The lower the grade, the nastier it smells. I cannot get any grade 5 petroleum in Germany anymore, and even internationally my suppliers that I used in the past have dried out, in Italy, Belgium - the traders there where I ordered cannisters of 20l in the past months said they have none anymore - and that the Germans have bought them all. Last autumn, getting electricty independent petroleum heaters like certain Zibro models (Japanese market leader) were easy to get, today it is an emptied market. The prices for low quality petroleum nevertheless have gone through the ceiling. Last year,. I bought grade 5 cannisters for at best just under 55 Euros. Today I would need to accept stink brew grade 4 and 3 costing twice that price.

[Skybird]

https://www.economist.com/europe/202...ing-in-a-dream

The story is old and takes many forms. A fairy-tale version, recorded two centuries ago by the Brothers Grimm, tells of a certain Karl Katz, a goatherd in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. One night a straying goat leads Katz deep into a cave. Tempted by strange men, he drinks a potion and falls asleep. On waking he finds that not hours, but years have passed. The world around him has changed.

[Skybird]

How true. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:


Germany's Perceived Poverty - Don't Worry, Politics Helps

In Germany, much hardship is homemade and imported, but the true causes of the loss of prosperity are ignored. About a country between perceived poverty and imagined wealth.

Germany is a rich country that affords itself a lot of poverty. This is the complaint between Kiel and Konstanz, which is being voiced all the louder as the gas emergency and elections draw nearer. And elections are always looming somewhere in the federal republic. And the CDU and CSU are no longer willing to be inferior to the SPD in the competition for the biggest spenders. Bavaria's Prime Minister Söder is now topping the SPD with a demand for a "winter housing allowance" for everyone. And all together they discovered the pensioners as needy, to whom one would have to transfer compellingly likewise an "energy lump sum" of 300 euro. For it there is wide agreement. No one is to be left out in the cold when the warm rain of money comes down.

Pensioners make up a third of the electorate

This is curious in that no senior generation is better off than the current one. Only about 3 percent of the 21 million pensioners are dependent on basic benefits. And this is despite the fact that private assets may not even be taken into account when calculating need. This income, such as interest, dividends or rent, also remains hidden from pension insurers. As a result, even the senior citizen who was registered as an assistant in the family business as a mini-jobber in order to be covered by social insurance at low cost is counted as a small pensioner even if she receives handsome earnings from an apartment building.

This not uncommon example illustrates that indigence in Germany is based less on facts than on ideology. 21 million pensioners make up almost a third of the electorate. So Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil (SPD) is gifting this group with the highest pension increase in 30 years: 5.35 percent in the West, 6.12 percent in the East. This will cost the pension funds 19 billion euros, with a further 2.6 billion for supplements in the event of reduced earning capacity. The pension at 63, another expensive election bait of the SPD, costs 36 billion euros per year. The trend is upward, because early retirement is popular despite deductions, which at the same time disproves complaints about the plight of pensioners.

At the same time, the media are virtually searching for needy people who can no longer afford rising energy and food prices. Even the Greens, for whom both could not be expensive enough for ecological re-education reasons, are joining in the paternalistic tying up of aid packages. The Green Minister of Agriculture Özdemir, who had complained about the "junk prices," especially for meat, before the invasion of Ukraine, is now worried about "empty refrigerators." Even the frowned-upon vacation trip is suddenly becoming an indicator of poverty. Yet the chaos at airports and long traffic jams testify to the opposite. Nor are the hungry bellies crowding the buffets of cruise ships, whose most loyal customers include the supposedly needy senior citizens.

Germany reaches its limits

Nor are the complaints of the charitable food banks about a lack of supplies coupled with growing demand for (almost) free food an indicator of growing poverty. On the one hand, these aid campaigns have stimulated demand themselves by increasing supply; on the other hand, it is worth taking a look at the clientele. German is hardly spoken in these social institutions: A not inconsiderable part of the "new poverty" now so loudly lamented is imported. But anyone who mentions this is immediately silenced in Germany as a "racist," "xenophobe" or even a "fascist. Figures, if they are collected at all, remain a secret. Even Friedrich Merz, who as CDU chairman is trying to project a liberal image, no longer repeats his statement that without immigration there would be "one million fewer Hartz IV recipients".

Although Germany is reaching its breaking point not only in terms of the railroads, the traffic light government wants to make immigration into the social systems even more attractive.

At the same time, the SPD and the Greens want to raise Germany's maximum taxation even further, [Germany is the highest taxing country in the world already now, Skybird]which means that the highly talented people in demand will give Germany an even wider berth in the future. This can also be seen in the 131,000 naturalizations last year, which rose by another 20 percent: It is mainly Syrians, Turks, Romanians and Poles who are receiving German passports. Not Swiss, Americans or citizens from other wealthy countries. This is where the talented Germans are drawn to. [Germany has since many years a massive brain drain that is kept a secret in politics and media, Skybird].


This universally propagated generous welcome culture is not only due to the claim to finally be the world champion of humanity. There is also a political calculation behind it: the more poverty can be proven with questionable statistics, the easier it is to redistribute from top to bottom. At the same time, the social market economy can be denounced as cold neoliberalism and the socialist planned economy can be pushed forward. In Munich, 3850 euros net for a four-person household is considered the "poverty risk threshold."

Reasons for the loss of prosperity

Of course, more and more people in Germany are also affected by a loss of prosperity. Rapidly rising costs for energy, housing and inflation are reducing disposable income even in the upper middle class. But in all this, people act as if Putin, epidemics (Corona) or greedy speculators (oil industry) were to blame. Not a misguided energy turnaround that shuts down nuclear and coal-fired power plants without replacement; not an ECB that engages in forbidden state financing with a flood of money and creates price bubbles; and not a sprawling welfare policy that creates an illusion of care for itself as a major sponsor of all perceived emergencies. In the last three years alone, Berlin has incurred an additional half a trillion euros in debt for this purpose. Adding all payment obligations, these now amount to 14.7 trillion euros, as financial scientists have calculated. The pension burdens for civil servants alone, who at an average of more than 3,000 euros a month are three times higher than social pensioners, add up to 2.7 trillion euros. And a deep recession is only just beginning.

Living beyond their means

That is why the second narrative is not true either: Germany is nowhere near as rich as it feels. The federal, state and local governments have been living beyond their means for years. From education to the federal railroad, much is in a sorry state. Despite constantly rising tax revenues. But these are primarily spent on social welfare, i.e. consumed instead of invested. Every fourth euro earned in Germany goes into social pots.

The idea of reordering priorities and limiting oneself to the essentials does not occur to anyone in the country that is still so fond of Ludwig Erhard. Instead: Don't worry, politics will help. State and local governments do not reconsider their stately spending programs, but only ever demand that the federal government help. This creates a culture of sacrifice in which every achievement creates new shortcomings, as can be seen in particular in the former GDR. It is never enough.

For example, the federal minister of social affairs, Heil, wants to reward non-work with significantly higher Hartz IV [a German social wellfare scheme, Skybird] rates, even though the economy is desperately looking for personnel. This contradiction is felt especially by voters of the former Labor Party. The upwardly mobile middle class knows that it is footing the bill for ever new aid programs from which it hardly benefits itself. Meanwhile, their savings are losing value due to inflation and a screwed-up energy policy. Only the Greens secretly see Germany's creeping deindustrialization as a success on the road to climate neutrality. Where it suits them, they turn to the devoted Christian Democrats.

The SPD, on the other hand, is collapsing even in its own heartlands of the Ruhr region, which have been abandoned to poverty migration from southeastern Europe. The departure from Agenda 2010, with which former Chancellor Schröder, who had fallen out of favor because of his friendship with Putin, reformed the country, has not paid off for the SPD. And certainly not for Germany. Yet the Social Democrats would have to dare more Schröder in order to win back the middle class, which still believes in pay through performance. But courageous reformers have no voice in Germany.

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Germany is in steep decline, and the fall is irreversible, I am quite sure. And the cream on top of it: it is without need, and willed by ourselves. We want it so. We have nobody but oursleves to hold responsible for the mess.

That says a awesome lot of what you ever need to know about the Gemans.

[Catfish]

It is not so bad once a) the transformation to solar and other renewable energy has been achieved (not so soon i guess )
or b) energy sector is switched to nuclear energy (probably not done due to the greens, at least until they begin to hunger or freeze).

As soon as energy for industry and private households is being produced by nuclear power even the electric heating of houses would be possible and not too expensive. Like they do it in France.
And do not say electrical heating is not ecological feasible, after all all the greens want to switch all to electric cars. I guess the energy for all that just comes out of the wall plugs, nothing to worry about.

But then there is new tech like fusion, geothermal energy and so on..



for privates ..

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

It is not so bad once a) the transformation to solar and other renewable energy has been achieved (not so soon i guess )
or b) energy sector is switched to nuclear energy (probably not done due to the greens, at least until they begin to hunger or freeze).

As soon as energy for industry and private households is being produced by nuclear power even the electric heating of houses would be possible and not too expensive. Like they do it in France.
And do not say electrical heating is not ecological feasible, after all all the greens want to switch all to electric cars. I guess the energy for all that just comes out of the wall plugs, nothing to worry about.

https://www.focus.de/politik/deutsch...123767281.html


It looks as if the Greens are falling. Now we need to make it not just a temporary, but a lasting, and to-be-increased solution.



Wind and solar have the problem they are not capable to provide stability that is independent from weather and climate, and they are not Grundlastfähig, as we call it in German. Nuclear must be added. Instead the Greens so far want to reactivate charcoal, brown coal (!). How green is that?


One threat there is in nuclear energy, and that is cooling water. Many reactors in france currently are down due to lacking cueling water, their rivers already are too warm. I do nto know to what degree latest reatcor tehcnolgy exiosts that can redcue the need for cooling water, using other colling agents: liquid salt and such.



Elements for nuclear fuel must not come form Rosatom, RUS, but in fact can be delivered from the US, Canada, Australia, Africa - Germany could even produce its own.



We also have gas, and not even just little bits of it, that waits to get fracked. If done, we would be able to produce gas until far into he next century. I did not know that until recently, but now I learned about it.



Diese verdammte Technikfeindichkeit in Deutschland und bei den Grünen... But when it is abotu technology that can be abused for surveillance of citizens, remote controlling their households, and making their consummation habits transparent to the state, they suddenly are for it.


The last Germna company producing rotor blades for windmills, has shut down just days ago. Like solar panels, most of that stuff needed to build windmills now comes form China. For reasons I could not understand even when having a pistol held at my sleeve, they are quite accepting of the idea to move from dependency on Russia into deeper dependency from China. Woudlnt we be better off to stay with Russian gas then? I mean Russian language is easier to learn than Mandarin.


I hope for fusion energy. Until then, its nuclear energy for me - as the main source for energy. Wind and solar to me are additions, not the main players. Its insane to foolishly play around with your energy basics if you are a nation depending on high tech production and industry. Totally insane.

[Jimbuna]

German tanks are worst in Europe, because we believed in peace, - Berbok

In Germany, part of the reserves of its army, in particular tanks, are obsolete.

This was stated by the head of the German Foreign Ministry, Annalena Berbok, in an interview with Radio Liberty, Censor.NET informs.

"We thought and believed that we would live in peace in Europe. And that's why in the past we spent less on our own military defense, you can talk a lot about that, but it's a fact and it's a reality. And that's why it's harder for us to supply from our own reserves , because there is 50-year-old equipment, we thought, for example, that we will never use tanks again," the minister said.

"I mean our military tanks, the worst you can imagine in Europe. It's been like that for the past decades, because Europe was built to live in peace. It's old-fashioned, and our stockpile of weapons now is not what it should be , with the exception of some air defense parts, which I said, so we can't supply everything from our own stocks. So that's the situation," Burbok added.

[Catfish]

^ yes it seems even the greens are waking up, better late than never. Ukraine will get more Gepards/'cheetahs and a deal about 100 PzH 2000 mobile artillery for Ukraine has been signed,; officially acknowledged by KMW. Building will take a while...

[Skybird]

Its unknown what they plan with the 100 to be build howitzers, whether they are for ukraind or not. No exprt öermission so far, they could as well be for the BW. The war in Ukraine teaches the relevance of artillery, and many existing PZHs are in an nonworking state. Also, it takes 2 to 4 years to build them.

[Catfish]

https://m.censor.net/en/news/3356907...uns_to_ukraine

[Skybird]

In past hpurs Ger,mna media indeed said the govenrment had given export permissions for 100 howtzers that should be produced. But the German economy minmstr yuntil now refuses to comemnt and says it neitehr cionfiorms nor denies the reports.- Yetserday ARD and ZDF said that at the time of broadcasting there were no permission for exports given. They also said to produce a PZH2000 from first bureaucratic hurdle-taking to deliver it would take 2- 4 years.



In other words: a typical delay manouver of the Olaf of Bubbles.



The Ukriane also has ordere drtoe than just one ISIS systems for air defence that Bubble-Olaf promised them - and then delayed its delivery to Decembre, give and take some time. The Ukraine wa sinvited to orde rmore directly at the Ger,mna industry, and these orders were placed already weeks ago. The idnustzry now compolaisn that the chnacellors office refuses any communication regarding export permissions on these additional orders - since weeks.



There are some reports however that slowly mroe and more politicians consider the delivery of German MBTs from industry reserves. I tend to think that this woud amke sense. If the Russians have big problems with the vulnerabilities of T-72s, then the Ukrainians must have thes eproblems, too. The T-72 has such deep-rooting design and quality issues that they cannot be corrected by updates as seen in recent 20 years. And I find it hard to believe that it takes months and months to train tankers on Leopard-1s and 2s. There are big difefrence sin taregbtting optics and sensor handling, yes, you can check these in SBP wonderfully, but still: its no black magic. I think in can be done in not more time than it takes to train them on the PZH2000. A German tank general, retired said some weeks ago that in his time they learned to drive and shoot with the Leopard-1 in 1-2 weeks. In SBP at least I found firing with the Leopard-1 slightly more dem,anding than with the Leopard 2A4, and easiest with the Leopard 2A5. Its about the handling of the targetting aids in the optics. Aiming/shooting with the Leopard-2 in SBP is easier than in the Abrams. What I want to say with this,. is just this: I have a hard time to believe those hesitating sceptics who claim it takes months and months to train crews used to the T-72 to drive and fight with the Leopards, I do not believe this. The nonly limiting factor I consider is that the drivers tzraditionally are the ones who also must serve as repair engioneers int he field, when the tanbk has mechnaicla issues or lost a track. To fix such things on the fly, that to learn indeed may take more time and experience.



But it is not the right time to be picky.



Before you laugh about my comparison to SBP: some NATO countries have built training centres around that software, and that software alone compelte with intero9cnnected classrom training and hardware cabins.

[Skybird]

They have some new videos illustrating some of the weapons that newly are used on the battlefield in the Ukraine, the same models or at least similiar weapon categories, like loitering ammunitions. New version 4.3 coming this summer.


https://www.youtube.com/c/eSimGamesDtl/videos