Nuclear is a fairy tale told by lobbyists. Those working in nuclear and those trying to keep fossil fuels active as long as possible by inducing constant idiotic discussions.

Worldwide solar/wind/hydro made up ~86% all newly constructed energy production (and rising… those where numbers of 2023, I expect >90% for 2024 but haven’t seen newer data). Renewable deployment as well as battery storage is growing exponentially because no other method of production can actually compete with those low costs anymore.

Nuclear is an option for all the countries that already have massive capacities build (so basically France, that’s it). Or for those with a demand increasing so rapidly that they use all available options in parallel anayway (see: China, but even there nuclear is in regards to capacity a tiny fraction compared to renewables).

For every other country it’s basically a choice between starting to lower your emissions now and steadily over the next 1-2 decades via renewables or doing nothing for at least the same time period while nuclear power (that also needs all the costs upfronted now btw) is build. (PS: Nuclear also doesn’t work without long-term storage via produced gas btw… That’s the reason France is the other country in the EU beside Germany pushing for a scaled up green hydrogen market. In fact hydrogen production via electrolisation is the only reason their nuclear plans work economically, because that production gets better economically with a more constant power supply compared to a pure renewable setup - see RTE’s study about power production in 2050).

That’s the point. The backup needs to produce (close to) 100% of the demand 2% of the time.

And coal plants are incredibly bad at quickly reacting. It takes a day just from ignition to working temperature, several days to establish the transport chain constantly providing the huge amounts of fuel needed (bonus points for a lot of them being ship-based and possibly suffering from low water levels).

Also there is a lot of industry that will already need climate-neutral gas produced by green energy as their only valid way for electrification. And in the end it’s also a cost issue. If the industry already needs huge amounts of gas and the transport network anyway (of which a lot already exists - refitting natural gas networks for hydrogen has already started) the state doesn’t need to pay much than just the power plants. And they are comparably cheap (the exact opposite of nuclear where constrution is expensive but fuel and operation are cheap).

No, that’s a rather conservative estimate. My federal state alone has more than 20GW in total capacities. And the backup for the rare days when neither solar nor wind produce relevant amounts needs to be able to cover the demand.

The actual point is having those power plants yet in the end never using them aside from those few days a year. And then producing the gas for them climate-neutrally with reneawable overproduction from the remaining 98% of the year.

PS: That the positive thing about solar and wind prices nowadays. They are actually so low that other production methods simply can’t compete and won’t be used more than actually needed.

PPS: That also the actual economic reason why nuclear is a bad idea. You also need enough production capacities for a cold winter night without solar and wind… but then producing less the remaining time of the year doesn’t actually save you money because fuel is a miniscule part of nuclear costs. Have you never wondered why the two countries in the EU pushing for a properly scaled green hydrogen market are Germany and France? Because both models only work economically with peak-burners based on greenly produced gas.

No need to wonder. Axel Springer SE is nothing but a source for desinformation and agenda pushing (mainly right-wing, pro-US and pro-fossil-fuel actors, including their main shareholder KKR).

have held the door open for actual fascists long enough

So you somehow missed the last 3½ years?

…“after significant legal changes” on domestic and EU levels.

We seem to talk about vastly different things or from complete different technical perspectives here, so I will take a few steps back and simplify it:

I, the government, issue your ID (with all the usual stuff making if forgery-proof). On the front is all your personal info, on the back a big marker that you are a legal adult.

If you want to buy something age-limited you just show the backside of your ID. I as the government have all your data but don’t know where you use your ID, the guy checking your ID has no data because he can trust me that I checked your age and provided a forgery-proof ID personally for you.

That’s it. That’s the whole (simplified) process. And you can reacreate exactly this concept digitally with basic cryptographic methods for online use.

So were is the problem with such a model? (Yes, I know that this is NOT what they are planning. But that’s the whole point. It is possible, the governments are just not interested because they actually don’t want to protect oyur privacy and outsourcing other methods to private companies -that do it cheaply because they want your data- is more profitable.)

I was obviously not talking about random paper-based passports but the one ID that is already standard and required for every citizen. And that one -if you decide to give it away- is tied to you, has your identity and is not easily replaced. But requiring to submit all that information on a low level internet verification process is unneccessary, when just “yes, I have that card proving I have the proper age!” is perfectly functional for that purpose.

There is no one-size-fits all solution for security. But for basic stuff like acccess to online stuff an anonymous solution based on your ID is perfectly workable. Nobody is preventing additional biometric checks for more important stuff, it’s the general things in day-to-day life we need to primarily protect from data kraken trying to profile us to make money.

I’m talking about things you can do technically.

Governments don’t plan completely idiotic ideas because they don’t know better but because their actual reason for choosing the system they chose is NOT creating a workable system that protects your privacy.

That’s the whole point. Articles like this aren’t completely wrong. The systems planned are indeed a risk to privacy rights. But we need to stop pretending that it’s an accident and the government simply don’t know better or there is no better solution at all. Actual solutions exist and we need to talk about the fact that those are ignored intentionally because a working system that protects your privacy is simply not the goal here.

Which is the reason I talked about the passport. It doesn’t have to be unique, just a flag cryptographically signed by the issueing government.

Yes, I can still give away my passport then so that someone can get into adult stuff on the internet… or I can open it for them. So that’s not exactly the use case I’m that actually about.

But that’s all missing the point. There is simply no interest in developing a proper system. Just like terrorism, or child-pornography, age verification is just another pretense to establish surveilance, weaken privacy rights and monetize us by outsourcing everything to private companies (purely concidently usually connected to AI and very interested in all data they can get theri greedy little hands on). We can discuss the technical issues for years, but the people actually planning that stuff won’t care because that’s not the actual agenda.

Obviously he’s a very conservative moron that would like to sweep everything under the rug and who already tried to paint parallels between criticism of the church and anti-jewish progroms.

In our wonderful click-bait and enrage-farming times, you would of course not see this as a story If he were sane or in any way representing the majority.

Just imagine your passport just has a separate set of information saved “This person is legally an adult” signed of by the government issueing them. No transfer of any other data neccessary. You don’t need to know their name, their age or anything else. And you don’t need some database to be queried. You just get the certified “I have the proper age to access this”-card build into their regular papers.

Your government… you know… the people that already have all your data and issue your passport… cannot include a flag (properly cryptographically signed by them) that tells a service “Yes, the guy that just inserted this valid passport is an adult. You don’t need to get any other info. We already checked for you.”, no other connection or transfer of data neccessary?

That’s my point. In the future you won’t see glued down batteries anymore, just like you won’t have company-owned repairshop monopolies. That’s already addressed. It will simply require some time until all members have put those new rules into national law. So why would they include reapirability in a new label system coming into effect much later.

You are correct in general but the issue with repairability is already addressed separately^(*) so it doesn’t make sense to make it a big point here.

^(*)See: Right to repair, the accessability of spare parts for end consumers in particular.

No, these rights work perfectly well with age verification systems in general. It’s the planned implementation that is bullshit. And that’s not a coincidence but intentional to -again- sell us surveilance through the back door.

(For reference: No one but the EU and member’s governments are more qualified to produce an actual, working age verification system in the form of “Yes, that person has the required age. No, you don’t need to know any other personal information because we already checked and certified it”. Because they already have the data base neccessary. But you can’t outsource such a system to private companies that actually want to get paid mainly in aquired data…)

Isn’t it funny how -no matter which country- all those right-wing nationalists publically pushing for isolationism, more independence and leaving international cooperations are always agreeing on advocating for Russian (and other authoritarian) interests somehow? I wonder who wrote the playbook they are all following…

More importantly here than being “dead in 10 years” is “breaking his word and contracts within weeks anyway”…

Clearly Germany is not doing enough to put a stop to the rising conservatism movement

What do you mean by they are not doing enough? They are basically doing nothing else to the point of not actually doing any constructive work anymore.

Every single party is heavily competing about who can move faster to the far-right and parrot nazi narratives louder to get those voters back. And if it totally surprisingly doesn’t work (who would have thought that alienating some voters while telling the others that nazi propaganda lies are totally okay as long as they are the ones telling them is the perfect campaign… for the AfD) they double down again and again. 🤡 🤮

I don’t understand the benefit of it tbh except for overhauling everything to look the same?

It’s not about looking the same but being produced by the same producer to the same standards in huge numbers.

Lack of economy of scale is the by far biggest drawback of European military production and makes them totally uncompetitive.