Which obviously wasn’t the point at all, I mean who am I kidding?
Since yesterday, money invested in nuclear power and natural gas is deemed a “green energy investment”.
In other words, people or corporations who want to invest their money in green energy, now also have the option to send money towards nuclear and natural gas.
This is of course one of the most openly lobbied bullshit in recent history, regarding the climate crisis, and anyone screaming greenwashing is completely correct. But this isn’t the actual subject of this rant.
The aggravating bullshit is the fact that almost any commentary about this idiocy is only focused on the nuclear part. No media outlet talks about the natural gas part.
It seems to me that the entirety of media and ministry have forgotten that the climate crisis is being fired up by CO2 emissions. And while nuclear power has a lot of negative points (I mean I’m not particularly fond of it, honestly) it doesn’t produce a lot of CO2 in the power generation process (not talking about the LCA of a nuclear power plant here. And gas CHPP’s also have a CO2 footprint per se).
So in essence we already failed. Fearmongering is king and apparently the only tool in the belt of either, the media or the ministry. This decision wasn’t just a “[slap in the face to cattenom-adversaries](https://www.rtl.lu/news/europa/a/1856441.html)”. It was slowly peeling of the skin off any living breathing person while smiling at the huge pile of cash they just made.
While including nuclear into this “deal” is certainly questionable, who the actual fuck thought it was a good idea to include a fossil fuel? I mean besides the lobbying corporations and the idiots-in-charge lining their pockets with this?
While nuclear power produces questionable waste for which there is no real plan for the future, gas does the fucking same. We have no plan for end-of-life storage of nuclear waste. We have no plan for over-budget CO2-Emissions either.
We have a sincere anxiety of the so-called “Super-GAU” (a word which in itself is idiotic already) when a nuclear plant goes haywire. We also should have severe anxiety of the creeping death looming around the corner in the form of a kaleidoscope of misery and destruction, powered by, among others, fucking fossil fuels.
Are we as a society really this dumb? Of course not. We are just governed by fearmongering news articles, and politicians working in election cycles. And we’re at the mercy of corporations.
13 comments
Nuclear I can understand, it’s low-carbon like wind or solar. But natural gas now that’s some bullshit. When you take into account all the methane that leaks from pipelines, it’s environmentally as friendly as coal…
Finally somebody is stating it. I’m really tired about this subject, because nobody wants to hear about the CO2 emmissions of nuclear power. They all immidiately jump to other problems of nuclear power (which of course exist, but are not a criteria here). Thank you!
Sorry dude but your take is not fully informed.First of, yes to crappy corporations making cash. That SUCKS ass, with a straw. I agree. Unfoortunately I don’t think we have time to overthrow the capitalistic wolrd order, built something better and mitigate climate change without half of Africa dying and the rest migrating with even more desperation. Any solution we will come up with will suck, badly, but no solution will suck even worse.Secondly, gas is a fossil fuel, yes and not the fuel of the future, but a transition fuel. That means that there is already an existing infrastructure and tech that will make it easier t transiton away from coal and oil. Gas emits roughly 50% less CO2 than coal (source down here). And yes, there are methane leaks and the energy industry is full of cheap, greedy pieces of trash and we need more oversight and strickter regulations. But the science is clear, gas is helpfull to reduce our emissions. Raging against it is definitely an ideological take. I whish we could live in a eco-communist Utopia powered by wind and solar, with free range catttle, government by Greta Thunberg and all that. I do, it sounds great. But it won’t happen. I much rather prefer a future where we can all live, with relative low CO2 increases and mild climate change, and yes, big gas and nuclear make a ton of money, to no future. Also, yes, gas lobbyists will try to get their product to be considered green even after the need for it is over, yes there will be profiteering and slimy business people corruppting our slimy politicians, BUT, gas helps, at least in the short – medium term.
source:[https://group.met.com/fyouture/natural-gas-vs-coal/66](https://group.met.com/fyouture/natural-gas-vs-coal/66)
>While including nuclear into this “deal” is certainly questionable, who the actual fuck thought it was a good idea to include a fossil fuel? I mean besides the lobbying corporations and the idiots-in-charge lining their pockets with this?
What did you expect? It’s a political solution (Nuclear for France and gas for Germany). Without either one, they wouldn’t have found a landing.
The funniest shit in all of this is that the Luxembourg government complains mainly about the inclusion of nuclear power. Not a word on the inclusion of gas…
This is probably the coolest post for me in this sub, cheers.
I really struggle to see how tf gas can be labelled as green in the eu taxonomy but I could see how it could be part of a transition plan, which is not the case as things stand. Nuclear may be green from a co2 perspective but it’s clearly not sustainable. Plus it would take decades to bring new powerplants online and by that time we will have scaled solar to a much bigger extent so it’s also useless to pursue that road. The whole eu taxonomy is a big fat f pile of crap. We should just measure the co2 output and rank these sources accordingly.
Besides that, it’s all politics and money as you said in your post. And that’s absolutely disgusting.
Good post. Not to mention the huge political of bad actors cutting off gas supplies.
I can get behind nuclear as a transitional source of power until we have reached a point where we can meet our energy needs with alternatives.
Nuclear should at that point be phased out.
Germany in that sense is hilarious. They love painting themselves as super green while replacing their nuclear power plants with coal fired ones… That simply makes no sense, especially not when a huge amount of money had been already invested to build a nuclear power plant… So why not ride it out until it doesn’t meet safety standards anymore instead of shutting down well working ones.
For cattenom… Well Luxembourg had the option of having the power plant on our soil and therefore control over it… But NIMBY so it was displaced a few KM on French soil and voila… Luxembourg can claim it is nuclear free while bitching that it has no control over the safety standards over the cattenom power plant. Hilarious
I hope you guys are aware that wind turbines and solar panels have limited lifespan as well and taking care of the used components is huge problem that will rise dramatically in next few years, as plant after plant gets decommissioned. It’s just a different type of pollution. Over-dependency on these sources (that operate based on unpredictable weather) brought us to current energy crisis. Instead of saying NO to nuclear/gas sources, we should diversify the energy sector portfolio while slowly replacing the biggest sources of CO2 with better alternatives.
How is nuclear so popular in a luxembourgish sub? It threats the existence of this country. There is no solution to its waste problem. It takes decades to planify and built up. Most of the ressources have to be imported from third countries.
In the end its only about lobbying of some big companies (there are no significant small to middle sized nuclear companies). Its not a solution to the climate catastrophe as it will come way to late.
If we are interested in green energy, the technology exists, is way cheaper and way faster to install: wind and solar. How on earth should it be more complicated to install windturbines, solar panels and some kind of batteries than installing a huge nuclear plant. Who would actually prefer to live close to a nuclear plant than to a wind farm (i live next to a windfarm and it never ever bothered me). The main problem is that the big wind and solar companies are not as powerful on lobbying as big oil&gas or “le nucleaire”.
Considering Gas, it is quite similar with the advantage of being built up faster and the disadvantange of more CO2 emissions. Its poparity has the same root, big lobbying corporations want to keep their power. However, i never heard of a fukushima or tschernobyl catastrophe because of a gas plant (they still radiate but they cant produce a GAU). Hence nobody complains about the gas plants in diekrich and ettebruck in the same way than about the nuclear plant of cattenom.
Unlike nuclear power, natural gas undoubtedly releases CO2 when it is converted into electricity or heat. How can this form of energy lead to environmental benefits?
The Taxonomy Regulation sets out that substantial contribution to climate change mitigation can be achieved through, among other things, the avoidance or reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Article 10(2) complements this by phasing out greenhouse gas emissions, in particular emissions from solid fossil fuels – a requirement that has been taken into account in the technical screening criteria in the Complementary Delegated Act, along with the other requirements applicable to transitional activities. In the Commission’s modelling for Paris-aligned pathways, natural gas is projected to represent 22% of gross inland energy consumption in 2030, and 9% in 2050. Any natural gas in 2050 will have to be abated.
The technical screening criteria ensure that any new gas-based power/heat plant (or refurbished combined heat and power plant or heat/cool plant) is either below the technology-neutral 100g CO2/kWh life-cycle emission threshold (i.e. using Carbon Capture and Storage technologies) or meets a number of stringent conditions and obtains a construction permit by 2030. Importantly, the use of gas should act as a replacement of plants running on more polluting solid and liquid fossil fuels (e.g. coal). As regards the co-generation of heat and power and heating/cooling activities, for every new natural gas-fired plant to be built, a coal-fired plant with the same capacity has to be removed for the technical screening criteria to be complied with. Regarding the power generation, the capacity of the gas-fired plant cannot exceed the capacity of the coal-fired plant by more than 15%. Facilities have to integrate a rapid conversion towards renewables with a clear commitment for a full switch to renewables by 2035.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_22_712
Well said, “most openly lobbied bullshit in recent history”
As long as the problem of Waste is not 100% solved, nuclear energy is only in theory “green”.
I hate this timeline
We are past the point of no return anyway. In 5 years from now, after year after year of increasingly violent weather phenomenons, this will be reviewed with stricter regulations. Hopefully by that time, Germans will have an answer for their economy.
When drive with their SUV’s to demonstrate against IKEA and nuclear power plantes, than you know that you are in Luxembourg 😂
LSAP an the Green Party are still celebrating their win against the planned power station in Remich . Fuck you Muck , too much Globuli is obviously not good for the brain.