The no brain solution is to electrify everything and switch legacy infrastructure to renewables, just like China does. Gas usage is down in the EU anyway.
Long-term, that's the smart and also necessary move. But it can't be done overnight, and the transition has its significant challenges. I hope they don't mess it up it and will address these problems rationally - but given how most EU leaders have acted over these past few years, I remain painfully unconvinced that they will.
I guess it is, but solar can only be part of the answer: You need a solid plan (and all the infrastructure that implementing this plan involves) for when the sun does not shine, because in the more northern parts of Europe especially, energy consumption is highest during seasons in which sunlight is (relatively) scarce.
Also, "the grid" cannot absorb any amount of solar energy - so if you choose to address (at least parts) of the above challenge with a photovoltaic build-out that results in massive excess capacity during summer, there needs to be a plan (and again, its implementation) to handle that.
Excess capacity (literally free power) is only a problem because we mandate that electricity generation can only be done as a business that has to earn profit margins.
Because of economics, this means it makes sense as a business to sell power that requires a purchased input commodity, and doesn't make as much sense as a business to build enough solar to sell power during darker months. This is absurd, backwards, and is hampering our ability to deploy clean and affordable power.
National Governments should be massively overbuilding solar and just handing out the resulting power. It's really difficult to mismanage a solar farm.
Maybe instead of a deregulated generation market, we should focus on a barely regulated power storage market.
Not to sound like an ass but that's your typical HNer hot take on a topic they don't know anything about (which is 99% of topics outside of tech).
I know that I don't know jack shit about the topic, but I can already tell you that if you do what you describe you'll quickly learn about why grids have frequencies, what generate these frequencies, and what happens when they drift.
No, that's not what an "inverter" does, not most inverters at least, you need grid forming inverters and batteries for that... which is my whole point, you don't just take them out of the crate and plug them in the grid, that only works if most of the grid is powered by legacy plants stabilising it.
Do you describe nuclear power plants as "just putting two rocks next to each other and plugging them in the grid"
You don't need a grid forming inverter to re-synchronize with the grid, you only need a grid forming inverter if you need a complete cold start or to support a grid island.
In the context of our discussion, adding more capacity, that's exactly what's needed here. We're not replacing 100% of energy sources with solar, we are replacing energy sources with _renewables_ which is hydro, solar, wind, arguably nuclear as well.
Even extending your argument to "well we need to only have solar" then you need a grid forming inverter with batteries. That's not a massive increase in complexity or time and supports the "just tie them to the grid" statement.
Trying to use the analogy of a nuclear power plant, which requires 10-15 years (including permitting), is ridiculous. A solar plant is 2-5 (including permitting) - by comparison.
China still uses a massive amount of coal, and has a lot of southern idle land. Germany has been doing what you say for the last 15 years, it didn't seem to work out so well.
Germany invested a lot money and still burns coal, imports a lot of natural gas for electricity production, has higher electricty prices then France and higher emmisions then France.
"The energy transition will require considerable added investment. Estimates of the total amount of annual investment vary from 15 to 40 billion euros, or 0.5 to 1.2 percent of Germany’s current gross domestic product (GDP) of around 3,200 billion euros."
No brain because there is lack of survival instincts in such phrase?
Russia openly declares willingness to destroy europe, your lifestyle, way of thinking etc. They claim they are better. Sure , sponsoring this country is no brainer lol.
Germany already financed biggest war in europe since WWII by flooding russia with oil money. Is that not enough?
Amount of money EU spent to tame the fire of war could easily cover building 20-30 nuclear plants across the europe to solve the heat/cooling problem once and forever.
The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars the First, Second, and Cold Wars has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united, they're the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn't happen. - This is a direct quote by George Friedman. This[1] is a good read to entertain the idea more.
That's fantasy. Germany tried very hard to civilize russia through trade over few past decades. Everybody tried. Turned out russia is just to stupid for any kind of advancement. Did not learn a thing. Everybody else did though.
>Russia openly declares willingness to destroy europe
There is not a scintilla of evidence for this.
They're trying to keep the same violent and aggressive American dominated military alliance that is currently and actively trying to destroy Iran far away from their most vulnerable border.
They also tried to pursue the diplomatic route multiple times before invading and after invading and were always rebuffed.
They started the largest war in Europe since 1945 and I fervently hope that Putin will pay for that in a way similar to Hitler.
That entire war is a massive, futile attempt to revive their glorious imperial days by annexing lands that they consider their alienated property. Fuck them and their bombs and their disgusting oscillations between paranoia and megalomania.
Contemporary Russia has fewer people than Pakistan and a smaller economy than Italy. It has no business playing a "mighty superpower" role anymore, but it ignored that reality (Putin is very much a person of the past, as is his inner circle of post-Soviet siloviks in their 60s and 70s) ... and it is learning the hard way.
The best possible outcome of this war from Kremlin's point of view is that they will become a de-facto resource colony for China, somewhat benevolently managed by actually competent people.
I'd encourage you to watch John Mearshimer's address to the European parliament because he addresses your narrative of imperial expansion and comprehensively refutes it, with clear, easy to understand evidence:
Ha, you speak about the war between Russia and the US and friends
You are correct. Perhaps deal with all these people in the same way ? It starts with Biden and ends with countless others, all of which are equally guilty, all of which are fuelling a war needlessly.
Biden? the war started in 2014, with inclusion of not so secretive anymore of regular russian military. continued in 2015, etc. How is that Biden at all?
The only person who fuel this war is Putin. I used to be a russian citizen, I speak russian, i know the society, etc. This war is extremely unpopular in russia, but the only reason why it is still ongoing is one man.
It started with a group of terrorist snipers in the Hotel Ukraina who fired randomly into a crowd of civilians. None of them were ever prosecuted. The attempt to pin it on the Berkut failed miserably.
One of them was identified by a Ukrainian war hero as Andriy Parubiy, far right nut and future speaker of the rada. Several of them identified themselves as Georgian mercenaries who were hired by Andriy Parubiy.
The goal of the terror attack was clearly to overthrow a democratically elected president that was overwhelmingly popular in Crimea and the donbass and install a puppet who could be relied upon to do the bidding of the west.
This was successful, and is what kicked off the civil war.
Victoria Nuland's phone call where she "picked" the puppet on behalf of the US state department was leaked. You can listen to it.
That corruptionist was not "overwhelmingly popular". It was of the political party that is popular, not more not less.
It was all orchestrated by Russia. You can find tons of videos of russian hero's of that time, and they openly confirm now, that regular military was in Crimea, Donetsk , etc, since 2014. This is not some "leaked" phone. It's many interviews openly sitting on youtube and confirming with smiles their actions.
Putin self confirmed and bragging about "new territory". It's a classical Imperialistic war, old fart decided to restore their USSR greatness, and now they act. They did it in Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine. Sure, it's all NATO.
And yes, it did start like a proxy war by russia, to avoid severe sanctions. They funded and send troops to such called Donetsk republic etc.
It was such a great proxy war from the west that up until certain tine of the conflict they didn't dare to send even medical equipment, not to talk about any other weapons, to do not provoke russia.
You shouldn't. It was revealed later that Morgan Spurlock, the star of the movie, was also secretly drinking himself to death while he was making the documentary. Not to shame an addiction OR defend McDonalds too much here, but being a raging alcoholic and blaming your health problems on hamburgers and french fries on a massive public stage is/was extraordinarily irresponsible.
He also ate nothing but McDonald's - three meals a day, even if he was already "full". In one scene, he literally vomits, then continues eating the food.
Literally zero people do what Spurlock did in that film.
FWIW, there is some controversy around the “methodology” and honesty in that film. Not saying you should change your view of McDonald’s, but possibly of that movie.
There is interesting exact timing for (first attempt for sure) the noise of getting humans round trip around the moon, that space toilet discussion and the shitty situation with aircraft carriers in failed war with Iran.
US dollar derivative that will lower government tax collection in long term with all negative consequences...
Despite all talks around - financial blow up in next up to 3-6 months is inevitable so brace for impact
IMO US is heavily exporting its inflation by leveraging its world reserve currency status as other countries have to buy it's treasuries (petrodollar system legacy). No other country would be able to run 30+% budget deficits and sell long duration government bonds under 5%.
This will break, sooner or later.
When external buyers stop buying treasuries US will have to massively inflate its money supply, taking bondholders and a bunch of other groups to the cleaners. Such events have a lot of collateral damage, which may fit the definition of financial blow up. But I would place us much further away than 6-12 months, likely at 5-10 years. If there is a viable alternative to US treasuries, potentially sooner, but still not in 12 months. My 2c.
Interesting, almost inevitable (I think) and scary in more ways than one; but I agree, this is probably not going to happen tomorrow, nor in 2026.
In the shorter term...
NVIDIA is 8% of the US stock market.
88% of NVIDIA’s revenue comes from enterprise-scale GPUs primarily used for generative AI, and half of that is purchased by only 4 companies, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta.
By the end of 2025, these 4 companies will have spent over $560 billion in capital expenditures on AI in the last two years. Their AI revenues? Around $35 billion.
And then there's Tesla, which is 'worth' more than Ford, GM, VW and Toyota combined.
So, 6 out of the 7 largest companies in the US are in a strange position.
Only Apple, the laggard in AI, seems relatively safe to me.
This is already happening if you know where to look and it isn’t esoteric data. The share of retail in treasury buyers has been increasing for years. If the administration doesn’t reduce spending (it won’t since it can’t) yields will blow out, we had a taste of this a couple times in the past years. Watch 5.5% on the 10. Expect YCC. Possibly buy gold if you think of buying treasuries…
Yes. When I said 5-10 years it wasn't to say that the effects would start then. That was my WAG at the time when normal, mild methods like localized YCC stop working and we should expect significant system-level problems.
For investments, I think now "buying index" will stop working well and buying chosen quality, profitable companies will work much better. My 2c.
> For investments, I think now "buying index" will stop working well and buying chosen quality, profitable companies will work much better. My 2c.
Eh, that's what the index should be comprised of anyway, with some lags.
Or, to put it differently, nothing new: it was always much better, if you knew which companies will exceed expectations. After they do so consistently, they get included in the index eventually.
Gold was also inversely correlated to long term US interest rates, which no longer holds true. So, nations and large institutions already hold the opinion that inflation will be higher (>2%) for longer in the future. Maybe the target should be moved to ~3%, which is defacto the case.
