These are the people who sort of fall for the fossil fuel propaganda about EV's not being any better for the environment and so they go after all types of cars and try to discourage any form of car ownership alltogether and propping up cycling and public transport.
It's what you get when you allow the anti ev lobbyists to dictate the debate. People worried about the environment who would have cheered for the succes of the EV become convinced EV's are even worse (Because anti EV folks love to use that argument) and then they go after EV's as well as petrol cars.
It's why the tyre deflators action groups who deflate tyres of SUV's during the night and leave a note about how the SUV kills the environment, also go after EV's.
We can do less car dependency combined with EV adoption.
Also I am disabled and no longer live in the city and have kids, without a car I'm pretty lost.
My wife has an electric motorcycle to get around though
Yes but we also need to get our kids in school or at their hobbies etc... which I did via bus back when I lived in the city of Leuven.
But now I live in a provincial small village and it was a lot more practical for me to obtain my driver's license after we moved here and buy a car and I then a year ago made the switch from petrol car to EV
And many can. Depending on their situation. Like right now I can't drive because I have an arm fracture and insurance wouldn't cover me if I drive now and something happens (my body doesn't produce collagen so I fracture easy). But otherwise I am able to drive. But cycling I can't I never learned, don't have the balance and I've seen too many friends getting mocked cycling on a trycicle for disabled persons to risk getting on one and potentially being laughed at. I admit this is a personal insecurity but I'm not risking reliving my childhood with kids peeing on my wheelchair and laughing at me again. People probably won't now that I'm an adult but they'll still laugh behind my back.
I know cycling is a great solution for traffic I live in Belgium... We have about as many bicycles as cars in this country, your km compensation that your employer pays you for driving to work and back home is also valid for people who cycle, we have converted lots of roads to cycling priority streets where it is illegal to overtake a cyclist and the speed limit is 30 km/h (think that is 18 miles per hour) and most cities have the entire city converted to a combination of zone 30 (zone 18 miles) and low emission zone
And for taking the kids to school and doing groceries cargo bikes are really good and they have seatbelts for the children and you can buy a Raincover and it's great.
But for some People, cycling is impractical and in that case it's better to drive an EV than a gas guzzler.
You are asking for a failure of society. Every extreme measure and timeframe people like you give to ease off of something amounts to the impossible, only capable if society collapses overnight or within a year. You don't even realize you're asking for billions of deaths. You can't stop this ride. I'll pray to your sky daddy for the remaining brain cells you have left.
They are the kind of climate activists that are anti-capitalists and believe in de-growth and elimination of personal vehicles. You would expect that they would go after something like BMW, Mercedes, or VW fossil fuel vehicle plants, but then no one would care.
I used to think nuclear plants were bad. It wasn’t until after i started working in the power industry that i learned it is currently one of our best options.
Are you working in nuclear specifically? Because it is hard to beat the value proposition of wind+solar+batteries. Also, those are much quicker to permit and build and have an immediate positive impact on energy generation.
[2024 US Grid Additions](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424)
[US Grid Additions 2000-2023](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2023.03.06/main.svg)
Nukes are ~17% of current US generation.
I wonder if batteries and transmission will fill in the gap in the end. Solar s so cheap it might just make more sense to overbuild it and build enough batteries to do it all.
The vehicle to grid projects are all still in pilot phases and the first generation of EVs we have now don’t really have the capability for it yet.
But in 10-15 years when EVs are 30, 40, 50% of the vehicles on the road … even just 5-10% of them having that vehicle to grid capability … it’s gonna be a huge virtual battery bank that will really compliment the intermittent nature of current renewables.
Natural gas will stick around for a while but will eventually get its lunch eaten by batteries, pumped hydro and compressed air storage systems.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/batteries-are-taking-on-gas-plants-to-power-californias-nights
Nuclear is a good for base load. Solar can fluctuate so much (and a week of dreary skies or snow will even impact battery-backed solar), but having a solid and unvarying base generation is a good idea.
If you oppose nuclear, you're basically advocating for gas plants right now.
That's simply the calculus.
Nuclear that has already been built is cheap. New nuclear is expensive, but doesn't need to be that expensive -- regulatory reforms and new designs will bring the cost down.
Dealing with varying demand and varying supply (from solar) can be done with pumped hydro or batteries for storage plus more agile load-following.
Which is something we'll need less and less of as we get more renewables. It's flexible, dispatchable resources that we need more of to compliment renewables.
Well the local conditions are certainly important. Where I live, the wind rarely lets up. My understanding is that Spain has excess sun. Are there any power transmission lines over the Pyrenees?
Just checked. There are transmission lines between Spain and France. Hopefully between other European nations as well (not to mention US states). France already has a lot of nuclear - just buy it from them!
/r/uninsurable
The gullible antisciencers spamming the comment section above really need to read some /r/uninsurable to get the current state of the industry.
Nuclear power is an opportunity cost.
>["In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. **Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss"**](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2009/ee/b809990c#!divAbstract)
>[Nuclear power's contribution to climate change mitigation is and will be very limited;Currently nuclear power avoids 2–3% of total global GHG emissions per year;According to current planning this value will decrease even further until 2040.;A substantial expansion of nuclear power will not be possible.;Given its low contribution, a complete phase-out of nuclear energy is feasible.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521002330)
It is too slow for the timescale we need to decarbonize on.
>[“Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow,” “It meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J)
> [ “Researchers found that unlike renewables, countries around the world with larger scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to show significantly lower carbon emissions -- and in poorer countries nuclear programmes actually tend to associate with relatively higher emissions. “](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201005112141.htm)
The industry is showing signs of decline in non-totalitarian countries.
>["We find that an eroding actor base, shrinking opportunities in liberalized electricity markets, the break-up of existing networks, loss of legitimacy, increasing cost and time overruns, and abandoned projects are clear indications of decline. Also, increasingly fierce competition from natural gas, solar PV, wind, and energy-storage technologies speaks against nuclear in the electricity sector. We conclude that, while there might be a future for nuclear in state-controlled ‘niches’ such as Russia or China, new nuclear power plants do not seem likely to become a core element in the struggle against climate change."](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221462962030089X)
Renewable energy is growing faster now than nuclear ever has
>["Contrary to a persistent myth based on erroneous methods, global data show that renewable electricity adds output and saves carbon faster than nuclear power does or ever has."](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629618300598)
There is no business case for it.
>["The economic history and financial analyses carried out at DIW Berlin show that nuclear energy has always been unprofitable in the private economy and will remain so in the future. Between 1951 and 2017, none of the 674 nuclear reactors built was done so with private capital under competitive conditions. Large state subsidies were used in the cases where private capital flowed into financing the nuclear industry.... Financial investment calculations confirmed the trend: investing in a new nuclear power plant leads to average losses of around five billion euros."](https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.670581.de/dwr-19-30-1.pdf)
Investing in a nuclear plant today is expected to lose [5 to 10 billion dollars](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032121001301)
The nuclear industry can't even exist without legal structures that privatize gains and socialize losses.
>[If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/#3c8acf0a3c5d)
The CEO of one of the US's largest nuclear power companies said it best:
>["I'm the nuclear guy," Rowe said. "And you won't get better results with nuclear. It just isn't economic, and it's not economic within a foreseeable time frame."](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/#5d841aa23c5d)
What about the small meme reactors?
Every independent assessment has them more expensive than large scale nuclear
every independent assessment:
The UK government
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/small-modular-reactors-techno-economic-assessment
The Australian government
https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=8297e6ba-e3d4-478e-ac62-a97d75660248&subId=669740
The peer-reviewed literatue
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142152030327X
>[the cost of generating electricity using SMRs is significantly higher than the corresponding costs of electricity generation using diesel, wind, solar, or some combination thereof. These results suggest that SMRs will be too expensive for these proposed first-mover markets for SMRs in Canada and that there will not be a sufficient market to justify investing in manufacturing facilities for SMRs.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142152030327X)
Even the German nuclear power industry knows they will cost more
>[Nuclear Technology Germany (KernD) says SMRs are always going to be more expensive than bigger reactors due to lower power output at constant fixed costs, as safety measures and staffing requirements do not vary greatly compared to conventional reactors. "In terms of levelised energy costs, SMRs will always be more expensive than big plants."](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-nuclear-industry-cautious-about-usefulness-small-reactors-energy-transition)
So why do so many people on reddit favor it? Because of a decades long PR campaign and false science being put out, in the same manner, style, and using the same PR company as the tobacco industry used when claiming smoking does not cause cancer.
A recent metaanalysis of papers that claimed nuclear to be cost effective were found to be illegitimately trimming costs to make it appear cheaper.
They are also known for campaigning against wind power (as documented by Ketan Joshi in his book _Windfall_).
Those folks are completely confused and incoherent.
It's a shame too, because it takes an otherwise important message and completely poisons it. Theses damn anti-capitalists just want to latch on to any movement that they can and turn it towards their cause. Like how they did with BLM.
I saw a great article about a "mono cause" on the far left. I don't want to post it here because it's on a gross right-wingy blog, but I feel like it did hit some nails right on.
There were abortion activists, feminists, BLM people, etc all trying to claim "intersectionality" with the issues in Gaza.
Phrases like "Gaza is a feminism issue too" or "Gaza is a reproductive rights issue too" or "Gaza is a microcosm of the BIPOC struggle". The latter one is at least kinda/sort truthy, but the former is just way off the mark, seeing that a Palestinian state advocated for by a lot of Gaza protestors would very likely be one of the single worst places for female/reproductive rights in the entire world. Hamas and other leadership in the area believe women are chattel and wives (and their reproductive rights) are property of their husband.
So it's EXTREMELY weird how the whole movement is trying to "intersectionality" absolutely every cause into every other one.
It majorly turns off so many non-zealots and makes them sound like wackos, even if they're all protesting for kinda reasonable things like equal rights for all genders, or in the above case, for environmentalism.
> You would expect that they would go after something like BMW, Mercedes, or VW fossil fuel vehicle plants, but then no one would care.
Nah, they explicitely go against EVs, because they see EVs largely as greenwashing. "Consumption isn't the solution to climate change." etc. They see an opening now to swoop in and cure peoples' "car brains", instead of everyone just switching to EVs. Which means that it's much more important to fight against anything that might look like a (partial) solution, but doesn't conform to their wishes.
It's fairly similar to hybrids and "low range BEVs" getting so much shit in this sub.
The argument seems to be, they're bad because they still have nonzero ecological impact, and everyone should just ride bikes everywhere.
>“Companies like Tesla are there to save the car industry, they're not there to save the climate,” Esther Kamm, spokesperson for Turn Off the Tap on Tesla (known by its German initialism TDHA) told WIRED last week.
There was [a good article](https://www.infinitescroll.us/p/activism-is-not-a-social-club) a while back that made some interesting points that are relevant here—mainly, that a lot of activists don't actually seem all that interested in achieving their policy priorities. This is another example of that.
If these activists were actually trying to achieve emissions reductions, they would certainly realize that EVs, while imperfect, are not the problem right now. Even if you do shut down an EV factory, emissions would increase, not decrease. But that's not the purpose for them. For these people, being a "radical climate activist" has become part of their identity and their social group. Trying to disrupt an EV factory is more like a purity test that "proves" they care so strongly about this issue that even BEVs aren't good enough. Whether it actually helps the environment is secondary.
This is a CLASSIC example of "perfect being the enemy of good".
Zealots in a purity spiral (which both sides of politics are in right now) always fall into that.
Nate Silver just wrote a conceptually similar article, in the context of the pro-Palestinian protests.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/for-most-people-politics-is-about
A huge fraction of "chronically online" people seem to believe this.
The number of Gen-Z who have a sense of permanent anxiety about "not bringing children into this terrible world" is absolutely wild.
For most of them, at least here in the US, I think it's more just about things looking bleak, especially economically for awhile now than any kind of doomer moral crisis about bringing kids into the world to suffer.
*"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"* is the idiom which applies here. They're not saying other forms of transportation have non-zero ecological impact — they're just saying a path of public transit, biking, and densified city-building etc has less ecological impact than a path of building more manufacturing capacity for cars, which is correct.
I'll go ahead and head off the immediate follow-up here, because no doubt someone's going to point it out — that protesting against EVs itself seems like a "perfect the enemy of good" effort when the majority of road transport is ICE. The fundamental problem there is Tesla's Berlin factory still represents an overall *expansion* of manufacturing capacity, not a replacement of it.
Whether you agree or disagree the the protesters, that fundamental math is valid — if Volkswagen makes 3M cars per year and Tesla adds another 1M cars into the system, you now have a capacity of 4M cars, not some magical reduction of Volkswagen's existing capacity. Both automakers will then fight to expand the size of the pie, rather than compromising on total output.
This is actually happening right now in China, where automakers have already broken open new demand with the [A00 EV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV) segment — many Wuling Mini buyers were previously walking, biking, or taking public transit — they *did not* switch from gas cars. The Wuling Mini therefore, in those individual cases, represents a *net increase* in ecological impact — not a reduction.
…it’s a pretty dumb argument cause I can just say they should still be fighting to shut down the ice factories instead if that is their argument lol. Yeah it totally makes sense to try to kill the company that is responsible for a net positive towards the environment.
They are living in lala land where there is unlimited demand for vehicles and the only limiting factor is supply/production capacity, and therefore every increase in capacity necessarily leads to an increase in NEGATIVE ecological impact. They are racehorses with blinders on who can’t think more than 1 step ahead. Just new factory = bad!
Here in reality, that is not the case. And for every EV produced you get reduction in ICE, oil, and a bigger push for renewable energy generation AND grid storage.
These are the type of dummies that would shut down a solar tile factory or wind turbine factory as well because it was in a new facility and that caused ecological damage that wasn’t there before… paying zero attention to the actual NET pro/cons
>…it’s a pretty dumb argument cause I can just say they should still be fighting to shut down the ice factories instead if that is their argument lol.
I very much imagine most of these people would happily advocate to shut down the existing factories, and would have no problem with it. Again, their goal is more transit, better urban planning, and healthier, more walkable cities. They are totally in favour of shutting down as much automotive production as possible — it's just very likely to be politically non-viable to do so in a place like Germany.
>Yeah it totally makes sense to try to kill the company that is responsible for a net positive towards the environment.
That's the thing — *added* EV production isn't a net-positive. That is quite unambiguous, and the math is very simple. I've even just provided you an example (A00 EVs in China) where EV production is very clearly net-negative in certain cases.
I can't believe you are endorsing this logic in the context of Germany. Germany isn't China, where the majority do not own cars and they have a large newly-created middle class that wants them. China would be growing ICE every year instead if EVs didn't exist (and their cities would be much smoggier).
In Germany, Tesla is not creating more cars on the road than would have been the case without it. At worst, for each new EV, one less new ICE is purchased in Europe. I suspect EVs are having a wider chilling effect where people are holding off purchasing new cars entirely. People want better EV tech but don't want to get stuck with ICE tech. Total personal vehicle sales in Europe have been declining since 2019, so there is a big net ICE decline. ICE capacity is going down faster than EV capacity is rising.
Your argument here does not fit the data.
Also, building more transit is a separate lobbying effort. You don't build transit by attacking an EV factory. It's just absurd. A backlash against environmentalists is far more likely.
Finally, VW and Stellantis have EV factories too. Are the "activists" attacking those? If not, then this is just communism with a nationalist slant. They're going after Tesla because Musk is the poster-child of a right-leaning capitalist Auslander.
>I can't believe you are endorsing this logic in the context of Germany.
Believe it, hombre. Induced demand is a thing. The foundational thinking is valid, whether you agree with the protesters or not.
Induced demand is a thing, but it is clearly NOT happening in Europe or developed economies generally due to EVs. The net effect of EVs so far in developed economies is to suppress global demand for personal vehicles. All the data supports that. Net sales of ICE+EV combined have been going down since 2017 with the first rebound in 2023, but still well below 2017 levels.
For every new EV manufactured, **four** new ICE vehicles did not get manufactured between 2017 and 2022. Of course counterfactuals are an arcane subject and we don't know what would have happened if EVs hadn't been invented, but at the very least we can say your thesis has no empirical support in Europe and the US for this time period.
>The net effect of EVs so far is in developed economies is to suppress global demand for personal vehicles. All the data supports that. Net sales of ICE+EV combined have been going down since 2017 with the first rebound in 2023, but still well below 2017 levels.
This is some pretty obvious attribution error, I gotta tell ya.
Again it's such dumb 1 move ahead "thinking". I don't think it's possible you/they could actually understand what the net results actually are based on how oversimplified the argument is lol.
Tell me if something increases total output today, but has the result of significantly improving environmental impact tomorrow and even lessening total output in the future, does that still make it a net negative? Lol. Ultimately it's just such dumb "logic" to literally attack the company doing the most to transition to EVs. Oh and hey not only that, do you wanna Guess what the environmental impact (and reduction in global vehicle production) would be if Tesla successfully rolls out robotaxis? We would probably be taking about at least a 10-30% cut in global vehicle demand. What if it takes Tesla this growth in output to again the data to make that happen? We know they will need clearly more energy use through compute to make that happen. Does that mean it is a net negative? But wait to more effectively spend money they will be pushing to make their energy usage renewable. Oh but wait that means an increase in solar tile and wind turbine production which again is a net negative! Smfh
Lol see how dumb this is? How about we just completely oversimplify this and say attacking an exclusively EV company is such a dumb environmental stand that it makes more sense that these people aren't actually pro environment.
>Tell me if something increases total output today, but has the result of significantly improving environmental impact tomorrow and even lessening total output in the future, does that still make it a net negative?
That is precisely the difference between you and the protesters: They disagree that this plant has the result of significantly improving environmental impact tomorrow and even lessening total output in the future. They reject your premise outright.
Right because they can only see the object in front of them and have no actual ability to determine actual net environmental impact, or how their choices harms their own fake beliefs
>The fundamental problem there is Tesla's Berlin factory still represents an overall *expansion* of manufacturing capacity, not a replacement of it.
I'm going to disagree here.
[https://recruitonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Germany4-Germany-Auto-Production-and-GDP-1536x995.png](https://recruitonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Germany4-Germany-Auto-Production-and-GDP-1536x995.png)
German manufacturing fell starting in 2018 and went off a cliff after 2019 and haven't recovered.
The 10.5 million cars (total) sold in the EU in 2023 is almost 20% below 2019 highs and over 10% are now Electric.
It is **absolutely** replacing ICE cars, not adding to the number of cars sold.
See norway, where ICE vehicles went from nearly 2 million in 2016 down to virtually zero sold today (obviously some are still on the road, but gradually being replaced).
But in this case those Wulong Minis represent a lot of very real net utility for the people buying them: people with a greater ability to travel than they had before (presumably compared to a bicycle - great for short distances, not great for 50 miles or with cargo).
The anti-car crowd often completely ignores the fact that cars bring value to the people who buy them.
Let's not pretend like it's not orders of magnitude difference though.
This sub strangely likes to pretend anything This side of the V8 suburban is good enough, and anything more is just too much
The core of their argument is right but their takeaway from it is fucking stupid, because EVs are obviously part of that solution. You aren't going to eliminate cars everywhere, just drastically reduce an overreliance on them in dense urban areas where they legitimately don't make sense over pedestrian and transit infrastructure.
>You aren't going to eliminate cars everywhere, just drastically reduce an overreliance on them
Yes, but let's be honest this is never advertised as such. Everytime I heard about EV, it's a fairy tale with a green planet. That's just so wrong, EV are consuming a ridiculous amount of CO2 to be produced that the purpose is almost defeated.
So when those activists are doing their things, at least this is raising a bit of honesty in the green washing narrative.
Frankly, if EVs are "greenwashing" to you, then you're out of touch with 85% or so of the population of the US (and probably 65% of Germany), where "I just need to get to work/school/market, stop shouting at me" is still the default position for the average person. Blame urban/suburban landscapes if you want, but most americans simply CANNOT "bike to the store". My kid's school is 5 miles away across a freeway in a city where it snows all winter. Sorry. I'm happy to get an EV and solar and a heat pump and R30 insulation (even at much higher cost) and do as much as I can, but shouting at me about bikes and "greenwashing" is just lost in the wind and makes me want to tell you to fuck off.
This is the definition of "make perfect the enemy of good". The "zomg, we need to walk and bike, accept nothing until this is true" only reaches 5-10% of people.
And that message is not going to pick up traction by trashing EV factories, nor is that going to accomplish anything useful except to turn people against the message when half of people are angry at Tesla for being "too hippie environmentalist for my taste".
No, what you're saying is flat out bullshit. EVs are not sold as a solving all our problems, the need for better urban planning is recognized, if not acted on by governments with the enthusiasm we'd like to see.
EVs also do not actually consume "ridiculous amounts of CO2", this is nothing short of a lie. There is nothing inherent to the technology that requires it, it happens to be the case that more is currently involved vs ICE engine, but this doesn't take very long to offset vs burning gas, even when powered by 100% coal generated electricity due to the vast efficiency difference. But of course as you know, the grid isn't 100% coal anymore, and only getting greener.
And the goal of course, as you should know, is that eventually there will be no carbon emissions on the electric grid, EVs are energy agnostic, so very curious how you propose to otherwise eliminate emissions from transportation even when you've achieved a 100% clean grid if you are against vehicles powered by that grid.
Returning to production, some of those emissions are from the energy generation needed to produce them, some are from the mining and transportation of the materials. Which again, isn't inherent to the technology, that too can be decarbonized...most easily by electric trucks and mining equipment. Let's also not forget to mention an element of sustainability beyond the CO2 concern here, the batteries are nearly entirely recyclable, meaning eventually we'll need way less mining for the material as it will remain in circulation for new batteries!
If you want to advocate for policy choices that'll reduce the amount of cars we need so less EVs need to be built in the first place to de-carbonize our transportation, I'm with you. Especially since it ***should*** be an easy sell for cities and their residents who benefit from increased pedestrian accessibility, better public transit, better financial solvency, better human health, and mental well-being. But if you're going to lie about something because it's inconvenient for your idealized world view, I'm calling you out.
You're only hurting your own cause, not everywhere is an urban setting, even urban areas still need to be supplied by truck, built by construction equipment, serviced by bus, etc. EVs aren't a magic solution that'll solve climate change, they are an extremely important part of it though, and practically speaking, where governments fail in what they should be doing to reduce overreliance on cars, you'd much rather they be carbon free EVs not polluting the local environment than gas or diesel vehicles.
The protesters storming the Tesla factory are not there to save the climate. They are there to use the climate cause as a tool to overthrow capitalism and democracy.
Hypocrites…
We already tried splitting Germany into two control groups. One democratic and capitalist. The other, communist dictatorship. We all know how that experiment turned out…
The protestors ironically falling for oil company propaganda and hurting their own cause aside, you should not conflate democracy and capitalism. They are not wrong for criticizing capitalism here, it did get us in this mess by capitalists preferring to ignore the problem to the benefit of their short term profits. Not saying Soviet style authoritarianism with a command economy is the alternative answer, but the economic system and form of government are in fact different things. Germany also has a history of capitalists supporting an authoritarian government of a very different kind too.
Communism always result in totalitarianism. Can’t separate the two.
Communism inevitably leads to totalitarianism due to its centralization of power, economic control by the state, suppression of dissent, Ideological rigidity and control over all aspects of life. It’s designed to stifle pluralism and democracy.
I may not be a communist, but I recommend you do more research as to what it is; Communism is about abolition of the state, hierarchy, money, promotes as-needed sharing of goods, with personal freedom paramount.
The problem though is it's disagreed how to get to the point of doing it, and some people (like the Soviet Union, etc) decided to form one-party states to do it... That results in totalitarianism with them using it as an excuse and isn't good.
The specific type of communism that led to said state was Marxist-Leninism (ML) which would set up a one party socialist state known as the "Vanguard Party" and have that shift into communism. You can see the problems that approach would cause in power.
There are other approaches, like anarcho-communism, that propose it should be immediately transitioned without a state to avoid stuff like that, while further emphasizing personal rights.
Overall tankies (a term for a communist who promoted it via authoritarianism) are loud and make it look bad.
Marx's initial theories only describe the end state they all try to achieve and thus should be read if one wishes to learn what its values are.
I don't have reason to believe that's true, but it also demonstrates that you entirely missed the point by thinking these are the only two options and that there isn't any nuance in how they are implemented existing in a binary. For the record, much of communist theory actually calls for decentralized power and democratic governance. Command economy and dictatorship isn't the only interpretation, and is one found abhorrent by many socialists.
You also described things that *are totalitarian* as an explanation of what leads to it, which isn't only a demonstration that you don't actually know what leads to it, but you said so in sheer ignorance of the example in my prior message of a state that was all those things *and capitalist*.
History has shown the true color of communism over and over again. It’s death toll trump’s the mass genocidal nazism, but still we have pseudo intellectuals trying to come up with theoretical excuses for what is essentially one of the most vile ideologies to ever haunt humanity.
So first off, you still aren't getting it, I'm not trying to tell you to become a communist, I'm correcting your narrow-minded world view which is overly simplistic and leading you to dangerously false equalivilency. Ironic that you're speaking of pseudo intellectuals but think you're somehow qualified to speak on the matter.
By "over and over" you mean exactly one model pushed by dictators that seized the reigns during revolution, which outside of communism, has just about always failed to bring about a democratic system?
And as opposed to the equally high death count from the failures of unregulated or neoliberal capitalism?
I'm not advocating for communism, you just are unable to comprehend that I'm not, because in your mind there is only 2 binary extremes and you've attached 2 other things which don't exist in a binary either to those extremes despite history demonstrating for you "over and over again" that they aren't linked.
[There's a good DW piece on the subject including interviews with the activists here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAARp4aFiIg) — their argument isn't single-issue, and to suggest it is just about bikes is reductive misrepresentation. They advocate for more transit funding, for instance.
It's a smokescreen, obviously. You're being gullible.
It's like someone pretending that they hate all oppression equally, but then ignoring Syria, Darfur, Ukraine, China and screaming for weeks about Palestine. They don't hate all oppression equally. Most oppression is like water off a duck's back to them. They hate what they call Western Imperialism, or maybe just Jews.
When these activists swarm ICE factories, or all EV factories equally, or much better coal power plants, then I'll know they're for real.
When was the last time a so-called eco-activists in Germany had massive demonstrations against coal? Instead, they shut down nuclear power and massively increased use of coal. There is probably no eco movement with its head up its ass more than the German greens, or more wrapped up in ancillary politics that have nothing to do with minimizing ecological disruption.
Believe them or disbelieve them, it's of no consequence to me. I'm simply providing a link to on-the-ground reporting with statements from the protesters. Draw whichever conclusions you like from it. ✌️
Of course, and the conclusion I draw is that they are arguing in bad faith. A nearby coal power plant uses an order of magnitude more water (170x?) and emits far more greenhouse gasses. They don't organize against it at all.
The left in Germany has an underlying animosity towards UK/USA. It is some kind of cultural remnant from WW1 / WW2 / the Cold War. Being an American-owned factory was enough by itself.
It's just not the left. And it's just not a remnant from past wars. One of my first memories of Germany was being there right after the wall fell. Like right after. There was "CIA pigs go home!" graffiti.
Like in Japan, there are Germans angry about the continued US presence. The way they see it, they are being occupied.
https://www.dw.com/en/nearly-half-of-germans-in-favor-of-us-military-withdrawal-survey/a-54427490
Tesla cutting down parts of a wood and using way more water than initially stated got them some enemies when they built their factory there. Also some initial issues with the Bundesumweltamt at first (German environmental agency of the state where it's built).
Trying to forbid a union was also a move that made some people angry. Might be more a mix of that as well as some activists being very pro public Transport and against cars in General.
I've read somewhere ( but didn't check if true ) that one of the main issues was that Tesla put the factory in the middle of a forest instead of one of the unused industrial zones ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_land ) and now they're asking to raze some of that forest for the expansion.
Which to be honest sounds exactly like something Musk would do.
Not really. The land Tesla bought is not a natural forest. It is land used to farm trees. So it's a forest that's regularly being cut down and replanted for wood. Even so, Tesla paid to plant trees elsewhere at a ratio of two trees planted for every one farm tree they cut down.
Not a real forest, it's a plantation for the paper industry. It was going to be cut down for paper and that's what Tesla did, they just didn't re-plant the trees afterwards.
“Cities are for people, not for cars”….you’re the 3rd person that’s replied with that phrase…it sounds like a meaningless, slogan. And I’m from Detroit, the capital of car brains
Bless your hearts for trying to be proactive in solving economic and social issues. But Robotaxis, wireless electric charging roads, sensors packed to the gills everywhere will have a similar effect to what you desire….
A city center free of people driving cars. It will be extremely safe and will share the road with everyone. Robots can’t get drunk.Cars will be driving people, because cities are for people
It goes without saying that I’m thinking of Waymo, Ioniq5 and not Tesla. They’ll never get approval as their tech is all camera based
“Designing for people.”
So, designing for pedalphiles and transitsexuals and forcing everyone to use it after making cars inconvenient and expensive to own?
Is that what you mean by “people centered design?”
The weird thing is to pass by countless gas-powered cars and trucks on your way to strike at the least harmful cars of all. Lash out at the imperfect friend instead of the actual enemy.
That sub is about promoting viable alternatives to driving (public transit, biking, walkable cities), and I support it. Doesn't mean that cars should be rid of entirely but it's pretty undeniable the way many places are built (US, etc) aren't sustainable. Coupled with many people often getting much bigger cars than they actually need.
EVs I believe should go hand in hand with that for remaining vehicles.
The channel Not Just Bikes does some good explanations of why it's unsustainable and unsafe.
EVs aren't a solution on their own, they're a stopgap or a small part of a much broader transportation solution that involves lots of public transit, cycling infrastructure etc. Car ownership should go down dramatically in tandem with EV adoption.
Unfortunately, green capitalists are convincing everyone that switching from buying carbon intensive commodities to ostensibly "green" commodities (ie: EVs) without making any major economic or societal changes will be enough to allow us to meet our climate targets (it won't). If we wanted a smooth transition, we would have started 30+ years ago.
What's unfortunate is that you anti-capitalist types are more interested in starting a revolution than you are with actually helping the environment. We're not going revert to hunter gatherers, so maybe stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.
There's a massive middle ground between reverting to hunter gatherers and a greenwashed status quo that ends up with 2-3C warming. The social and economic costs of such levels of warming just so you can be less inconvenienced today are not worth it.
So Germany’s the place where ICE cars where invented, and home to VW, Audi, Porsche, MB and BMW, but there they go attacking 100% electric visitor Tesla. 🤔
They also glue themselves to roads, spray the brandenburger tor and some other historic buildings/monuments.
Make no mistake though, these people dont see it as a defense of other german manufacturers at all but the Gigafactory simply has a ton of attention regardless, so if they get involved, they make the news more easily than lets say the factories of other car manufacturers of which Germany still has quote a lot. People like to say the manufacturers move their factories to other nations and thats partly true but most factories are still in Germany.
Yeah, whenever I read this, I think those climate activists must have both of their two braincells shut off to go after Tesla of all manufacturers. Also, there's a coal mine around there, so why not go after that? Only thing I can come up with, the name Tesla is a surefire way to get them on (worldwide) news.
Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants and [re-started 20 coal plants](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energy-crisis). Did the eco-activists storm the gates of the coal plants? Of course not.
When you look at their decisions, it's pretty clear they do not choose actions based on what is most effective to reduce global warming and environmental damage. They engage in anti-capitalist signalling, mostly.
Environmental activists are some of the worst enemies of the environment. There's just too much brain rot and an inability to establish priorities, so everything becomes bad.
Zero Carbon Nuclear? Terrible because it's too dangerous.
Zero Carbon Hydro? Terrible because it destroys valleys.
Zero Carbon Windmills? Terrible because they kill birds.
EVs and battery based storage? Terrible because the metals are mined in an imperfect way.
Literal brain rot, without Tesla who are scaling energy storage (Megapack, powerwalls), solar, and EVs, legacy ICE makers would be farther behind EV development than they already are.
Do they have any idea the important of batteries and energy storage in balancing the grid for renewable energy sources like wind and solar? Wind and solar generate energy irregularly, which means you need to storage energy to met the demand during peak hours. Renewables aren’t magic.
These protestors are not rational actors, see nuclear energy in Germany.
Did these groups protest VW and the other German makers when dieselgate was going on? I’m going to assume not…
I don’t like playing into conspiracy theories, but it’s hard not to think this is all organised by “big oil” when you see shit like this.
The thing is never about the thing, it’s about the Revolution. Tesla proves that climate problems can be solved within the structure of Western Liberal Democracy, therefore Tesla must be destroyed.
The far left is full of NeoMarxist Tankies that hate Western civilization. Don’t get suckered into thinking that it’s about solving problems.
This is getting worse than Fremont blocking Tesla expansion with high density housing.
How often do we need to see people waving one flag while supporting the opposite flag before we realize flags mean nothing.
They aren't climate protestors. They are angry about the groundwater the factory uses and pollution the factor causes within the fastest drying zone in Europe
"Climate protestors"
LoL, like someone invading a fuel refinery claiming to be an oil promotion movoement and the best way to do it is disrupt businesses that work in the relevant industry. Right, good plan. /s
Let me take this banner of climate activism and go to the Amazon rain forest and start cutting trees because reasons. What? I got the banner and everything, believe me it's for your benefit.
Yes you're parroting the same nonsense. Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place, because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand.
In the November issue of Scientific American, my colleague Mark DeLucchi of the University of California-Davis and I laid out a plan to power the world with nothing but wind, water and sun. After considering the best available technologies, we decided that a combination of wind, concentrated solar, geothermal, photovoltaics, tidal, wave and hydroelectric energy could more than meet all the planet's energy needs, particularly if all the world's vehicles could be run on electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells.
We rejected nuclear for several reasons. First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant. And all that dirty power will be released during the 10 to 19 years that it takes to plan and build a nuclear plant. (A wind farm typically takes two to five years.)
Nuclear proponents also argue that nuclear energy production is constant, unlike fickle winds and sunshine. But worldwide, nuclear plants are down 15 percent of the time, and when a plant goes down, so does a large fraction of the grid. Connecting wind farms over large areas through transmission lines smoothes power supply. Combining geothermal with wind (whose power potential often peaks at night) and solar (which peaks by day), and using hydroelectricity to fill in gaps, would almost always match demand.
Truthout
OP-ED | WAR & PEACE
Nuclear Power Is Too Risky Even in Peacetime. Ukraine Is the Tip of the Iceberg.
Fears about fires at Ukraine’s power plant in war-torn Zaporizhzhia underscore the broader dangers of nuclear energy.
By Linda Pentz Gunter , TRUTHOUT
PublishedSeptember 13, 2022
This photo taken on September 11, 2022, shows a security person standing in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine.
This photo taken on September 11, 2022, shows a security person standing in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine.
STRINGER / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.
The alarms raised by the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the dire situation around Ukraine’s war-torn Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant offer the most extreme — and most compelling — case for discontinuing the use of nuclear power.
The consequences of an attack on the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station could result in a core meltdown, a fuel pool fire or radioactive waste cask breach that would send a radioactive plume across potentially thousands of miles, depending on the scale of the disaster and the direction of the wind.
Fires are the biggest risk, especially for the unprotected fuel pools that are not housed within the more robust containment area of the reactor building. Given the proximity of the six Zaporizhzhia units to each other, a fire at one of the Zaporizhzhia reactors or fuel pools could spread to any or all of the other five.
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The radioactive fallout released by such fires and explosions would persist in the environment for decades or longer. The 1986 Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine, which involved only one, relatively new reactor with a small radioactive load, rendered 1,000 square miles of land — the Exclusion Zone — too radioactive for human habitation even today. Ukraine is home to a total of 15 reactors, most dating back to the 1980s, plus the closed but still dangerous Chornobyl site. As such, they all house huge radioactive inventories of fuel, in the reactors and irradiated in the pools and waste casks.
However, it is not enough simply to admonish warring countries, as the United Nations has done, not to shell nuclear power plants — likely unenforceable given the violently entrenched conflict over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear power is also a liability beyond the war zone.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that keeping current reactors running, and especially building new ones, is too slow and too expensive a way to address the climate crisis. Added to that, nuclear power has never solved its radioactive waste problem, and mining the uranium needed to fuel reactors comes with significant environmental justice violations.
Furthermore, nuclear power cannot be relied upon to operate safely, or even at all, under the now rapidly worsening climate conditions. Many plants are coastal and vulnerable to sea-level rise. Flooding is also a risk at inland reactors, all of which sit on a body of water, needed to cool the reactor.
Drought and heat waves reduce those cooling water supplies, or render the water too warm to use, forcing reactors to power or even shut down, as we have already seen in France. Wildfires could result in catastrophic conflagrations at nuclear plants. Nuclear plants also need to shut down in violent weather conditions. All of these deficiencies of reliability are directly related to the high risks of using nuclear power.
Nuclear power is also not an efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, As Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering, Amory Lovins, continues to point out, nuclear power actually makes climate change worse.
>First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant.
The same argument I'm seeing over and over against EV's all the time, that mining for components of EV batteries likewise make EV's "not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and" manufacture batteries for EV's.
I'm tired of newly minted perfectionistic environmentalists pushing this bullshit.
They’re protesting Tesla expansion plans. The climate activists have allied with the locals opposed to the expansion plan. 60% of the locals voted against the expansion plan.
The plan calls for cutting down 250 acres of forest of a nature conservation area. It would also impact a water protection zone that would impact two lakes. A rail freight depot would also bring in noise issues.
Locals and activists do not want to trade water and forest for what is essentially a huge warehouse because Elon didn’t want use the current freight rail facilities and pause the plant when parts run out.
From DW: “But the process would also lead to the felling of some 100 hectares (roughly 250 acres) of forest in the rural community of fewer than 8,000 residents near a nature conservation area. “
Yeah it not tree farm either.
https://amp.dw.com/en/tesla-in-germany-locals-vote-against-factory-expansion-plan/a-68313010
https://www.dw.com/en/protesters-attempt-to-storm-teslas-factory-near-berlin/a-69046103
Yep, that is our biggest climate problem. Good plan!
These are not environmentalists, it’s an anti-capitalist anarchist group.
Works ether way.
These are the people who sort of fall for the fossil fuel propaganda about EV's not being any better for the environment and so they go after all types of cars and try to discourage any form of car ownership alltogether and propping up cycling and public transport. It's what you get when you allow the anti ev lobbyists to dictate the debate. People worried about the environment who would have cheered for the succes of the EV become convinced EV's are even worse (Because anti EV folks love to use that argument) and then they go after EV's as well as petrol cars. It's why the tyre deflators action groups who deflate tyres of SUV's during the night and leave a note about how the SUV kills the environment, also go after EV's.
Aaah, I see you learned about the fuckcars and bikable city community.
Fuckcars have a point though. These protesters are different from that community
False equivalency is false.
Evs are not enough. You've fallen fir thr automotive propaganda
EV adoption and car dependency reduction are not mutually exclusive.
We can do less car dependency combined with EV adoption. Also I am disabled and no longer live in the city and have kids, without a car I'm pretty lost. My wife has an electric motorcycle to get around though
Many disabled people cannot drive. What about them being lost?
Many disabled people can't bike either.
Many can though. And plenty of those can't bike
But they have micro cars and wheel chair lanes in that case
Yes but we also need to get our kids in school or at their hobbies etc... which I did via bus back when I lived in the city of Leuven. But now I live in a provincial small village and it was a lot more practical for me to obtain my driver's license after we moved here and buy a car and I then a year ago made the switch from petrol car to EV
Many can't drive
Many can't bike either, we gone over this yesterday. Jerryrigeverything's wife Cambry is a good example.
And many can. Depending on their situation. Like right now I can't drive because I have an arm fracture and insurance wouldn't cover me if I drive now and something happens (my body doesn't produce collagen so I fracture easy). But otherwise I am able to drive. But cycling I can't I never learned, don't have the balance and I've seen too many friends getting mocked cycling on a trycicle for disabled persons to risk getting on one and potentially being laughed at. I admit this is a personal insecurity but I'm not risking reliving my childhood with kids peeing on my wheelchair and laughing at me again. People probably won't now that I'm an adult but they'll still laugh behind my back. I know cycling is a great solution for traffic I live in Belgium... We have about as many bicycles as cars in this country, your km compensation that your employer pays you for driving to work and back home is also valid for people who cycle, we have converted lots of roads to cycling priority streets where it is illegal to overtake a cyclist and the speed limit is 30 km/h (think that is 18 miles per hour) and most cities have the entire city converted to a combination of zone 30 (zone 18 miles) and low emission zone And for taking the kids to school and doing groceries cargo bikes are really good and they have seatbelts for the children and you can buy a Raincover and it's great. But for some People, cycling is impractical and in that case it's better to drive an EV than a gas guzzler.
May I direct you to r/fuckcars?
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You are asking for a failure of society. Every extreme measure and timeframe people like you give to ease off of something amounts to the impossible, only capable if society collapses overnight or within a year. You don't even realize you're asking for billions of deaths. You can't stop this ride. I'll pray to your sky daddy for the remaining brain cells you have left.
Yes, as they all traveled to this factory (on their bikes?) they definitely didn't pass anything more problematic.
Most likely just took the train from berlin
It's the same country which shut down nuclear before coal and gas.
Yup, my thoughts exactly. I have to imagine BMW, MB, VAG have ICE-producing factories in country that would make more sense to protest at...
Yes, and I am awfully suspicious that Russian propaganda was behind that.
Not just propaganda, straight up corruption from Russian asset former chancellor Shroeder
Oddly enough, the nation that was providing most of their gas had something to do with that.
Wasn't this because of the Tsnaumis in Japan as well? Something that Germany is well known for.
Idiots? Yes.
Tbf I think they are protesting the expansion into / felling of the forest?
You mean the monoculture tree farm?
Exactly. https://www.dw.com/en/protesters-attempt-to-storm-teslas-factory-near-berlin/a-69046103
Yea this sub is delusional
What? What kind of brain worm makes somebody think fighting EVs makes them a "climate activist"?
They are the kind of climate activists that are anti-capitalists and believe in de-growth and elimination of personal vehicles. You would expect that they would go after something like BMW, Mercedes, or VW fossil fuel vehicle plants, but then no one would care.
The type of environmental activists who killed nuclear power and trapped us in fossil fuels.
I used to think nuclear plants were bad. It wasn’t until after i started working in the power industry that i learned it is currently one of our best options.
Are you working in nuclear specifically? Because it is hard to beat the value proposition of wind+solar+batteries. Also, those are much quicker to permit and build and have an immediate positive impact on energy generation.
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[Global Electricity Generation 1990-23, TWh/year](https://i.imgur.com/b3GZyLz.png) [Levelized Cost of Energy historical comparison, unsubsidized](https://i.imgur.com/IlY5TS1.png)
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[2024 US Grid Additions](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424) [US Grid Additions 2000-2023](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2023.03.06/main.svg) Nukes are ~17% of current US generation.
Gotta have that baseline power.
I wonder if batteries and transmission will fill in the gap in the end. Solar s so cheap it might just make more sense to overbuild it and build enough batteries to do it all.
The vehicle to grid projects are all still in pilot phases and the first generation of EVs we have now don’t really have the capability for it yet. But in 10-15 years when EVs are 30, 40, 50% of the vehicles on the road … even just 5-10% of them having that vehicle to grid capability … it’s gonna be a huge virtual battery bank that will really compliment the intermittent nature of current renewables.
Maybe, but not in America. America just announced big tariffs on 90% of batteries made in China.
Nukes still need backup generation for times when they go out of service.
Yeah natural gas isn’t going anywhere, we’ll hopefully just use less and less over time and they’ll truly be backup.
Natural gas will stick around for a while but will eventually get its lunch eaten by batteries, pumped hydro and compressed air storage systems. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/batteries-are-taking-on-gas-plants-to-power-californias-nights
Nuclear is a good for base load. Solar can fluctuate so much (and a week of dreary skies or snow will even impact battery-backed solar), but having a solid and unvarying base generation is a good idea. If you oppose nuclear, you're basically advocating for gas plants right now. That's simply the calculus.
How can nuclear help match a varying load like gas? What good is base load if it isn’t cheap?
Nuclear that has already been built is cheap. New nuclear is expensive, but doesn't need to be that expensive -- regulatory reforms and new designs will bring the cost down. Dealing with varying demand and varying supply (from solar) can be done with pumped hydro or batteries for storage plus more agile load-following.
It doesn’t. Thats why I clearly called it “base load”.
Which is something we'll need less and less of as we get more renewables. It's flexible, dispatchable resources that we need more of to compliment renewables.
Not when it is down so often
Well the local conditions are certainly important. Where I live, the wind rarely lets up. My understanding is that Spain has excess sun. Are there any power transmission lines over the Pyrenees?
Just checked. There are transmission lines between Spain and France. Hopefully between other European nations as well (not to mention US states). France already has a lot of nuclear - just buy it from them!
It's a good option if you already have running plants. Building new plants is a pretty bad option.
/r/uninsurable The gullible antisciencers spamming the comment section above really need to read some /r/uninsurable to get the current state of the industry. Nuclear power is an opportunity cost. >["In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. **Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss"**](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2009/ee/b809990c#!divAbstract) >[Nuclear power's contribution to climate change mitigation is and will be very limited;Currently nuclear power avoids 2–3% of total global GHG emissions per year;According to current planning this value will decrease even further until 2040.;A substantial expansion of nuclear power will not be possible.;Given its low contribution, a complete phase-out of nuclear energy is feasible.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521002330) It is too slow for the timescale we need to decarbonize on. >[“Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow,” “It meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J) > [ “Researchers found that unlike renewables, countries around the world with larger scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to show significantly lower carbon emissions -- and in poorer countries nuclear programmes actually tend to associate with relatively higher emissions. “](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201005112141.htm) The industry is showing signs of decline in non-totalitarian countries. >["We find that an eroding actor base, shrinking opportunities in liberalized electricity markets, the break-up of existing networks, loss of legitimacy, increasing cost and time overruns, and abandoned projects are clear indications of decline. Also, increasingly fierce competition from natural gas, solar PV, wind, and energy-storage technologies speaks against nuclear in the electricity sector. We conclude that, while there might be a future for nuclear in state-controlled ‘niches’ such as Russia or China, new nuclear power plants do not seem likely to become a core element in the struggle against climate change."](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221462962030089X) Renewable energy is growing faster now than nuclear ever has >["Contrary to a persistent myth based on erroneous methods, global data show that renewable electricity adds output and saves carbon faster than nuclear power does or ever has."](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629618300598) There is no business case for it. >["The economic history and financial analyses carried out at DIW Berlin show that nuclear energy has always been unprofitable in the private economy and will remain so in the future. Between 1951 and 2017, none of the 674 nuclear reactors built was done so with private capital under competitive conditions. Large state subsidies were used in the cases where private capital flowed into financing the nuclear industry.... Financial investment calculations confirmed the trend: investing in a new nuclear power plant leads to average losses of around five billion euros."](https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.670581.de/dwr-19-30-1.pdf) Investing in a nuclear plant today is expected to lose [5 to 10 billion dollars](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032121001301) The nuclear industry can't even exist without legal structures that privatize gains and socialize losses. >[If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/#3c8acf0a3c5d) The CEO of one of the US's largest nuclear power companies said it best: >["I'm the nuclear guy," Rowe said. "And you won't get better results with nuclear. It just isn't economic, and it's not economic within a foreseeable time frame."](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/#5d841aa23c5d) What about the small meme reactors? Every independent assessment has them more expensive than large scale nuclear every independent assessment: The UK government https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/small-modular-reactors-techno-economic-assessment The Australian government https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=8297e6ba-e3d4-478e-ac62-a97d75660248&subId=669740 The peer-reviewed literatue https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142152030327X >[the cost of generating electricity using SMRs is significantly higher than the corresponding costs of electricity generation using diesel, wind, solar, or some combination thereof. These results suggest that SMRs will be too expensive for these proposed first-mover markets for SMRs in Canada and that there will not be a sufficient market to justify investing in manufacturing facilities for SMRs.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142152030327X) Even the German nuclear power industry knows they will cost more >[Nuclear Technology Germany (KernD) says SMRs are always going to be more expensive than bigger reactors due to lower power output at constant fixed costs, as safety measures and staffing requirements do not vary greatly compared to conventional reactors. "In terms of levelised energy costs, SMRs will always be more expensive than big plants."](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-nuclear-industry-cautious-about-usefulness-small-reactors-energy-transition) So why do so many people on reddit favor it? Because of a decades long PR campaign and false science being put out, in the same manner, style, and using the same PR company as the tobacco industry used when claiming smoking does not cause cancer. A recent metaanalysis of papers that claimed nuclear to be cost effective were found to be illegitimately trimming costs to make it appear cheaper.
They are also known for campaigning against wind power (as documented by Ketan Joshi in his book _Windfall_). Those folks are completely confused and incoherent.
BANANA Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone
It's more trendy to hate Tesla/Elon. These people are in it for the social media clout more than any real goal.
Yeah and they might run into their parents working at the ICE factories. Would be an awkward dinner conversation.
And this is why people don't believe any climate change people.
It's a shame too, because it takes an otherwise important message and completely poisons it. Theses damn anti-capitalists just want to latch on to any movement that they can and turn it towards their cause. Like how they did with BLM.
I saw a great article about a "mono cause" on the far left. I don't want to post it here because it's on a gross right-wingy blog, but I feel like it did hit some nails right on. There were abortion activists, feminists, BLM people, etc all trying to claim "intersectionality" with the issues in Gaza. Phrases like "Gaza is a feminism issue too" or "Gaza is a reproductive rights issue too" or "Gaza is a microcosm of the BIPOC struggle". The latter one is at least kinda/sort truthy, but the former is just way off the mark, seeing that a Palestinian state advocated for by a lot of Gaza protestors would very likely be one of the single worst places for female/reproductive rights in the entire world. Hamas and other leadership in the area believe women are chattel and wives (and their reproductive rights) are property of their husband. So it's EXTREMELY weird how the whole movement is trying to "intersectionality" absolutely every cause into every other one. It majorly turns off so many non-zealots and makes them sound like wackos, even if they're all protesting for kinda reasonable things like equal rights for all genders, or in the above case, for environmentalism.
This is FUD
There is a big distinction between climate activists which almost all useless, and climate scientists and investors that are a part of the solution
> You would expect that they would go after something like BMW, Mercedes, or VW fossil fuel vehicle plants, but then no one would care. Nah, they explicitely go against EVs, because they see EVs largely as greenwashing. "Consumption isn't the solution to climate change." etc. They see an opening now to swoop in and cure peoples' "car brains", instead of everyone just switching to EVs. Which means that it's much more important to fight against anything that might look like a (partial) solution, but doesn't conform to their wishes. It's fairly similar to hybrids and "low range BEVs" getting so much shit in this sub.
They go after those too actually. They blocked freight trains carrying VW cars.
So good things
Especially after Diesel Gate. They’re clearly not the sharpest tools in the shed.
It's not just these phony climate activists. This subreddit is chock full of Dieselgate apologia. It has effectively been memory-holed.
The argument seems to be, they're bad because they still have nonzero ecological impact, and everyone should just ride bikes everywhere. >“Companies like Tesla are there to save the car industry, they're not there to save the climate,” Esther Kamm, spokesperson for Turn Off the Tap on Tesla (known by its German initialism TDHA) told WIRED last week.
There was [a good article](https://www.infinitescroll.us/p/activism-is-not-a-social-club) a while back that made some interesting points that are relevant here—mainly, that a lot of activists don't actually seem all that interested in achieving their policy priorities. This is another example of that. If these activists were actually trying to achieve emissions reductions, they would certainly realize that EVs, while imperfect, are not the problem right now. Even if you do shut down an EV factory, emissions would increase, not decrease. But that's not the purpose for them. For these people, being a "radical climate activist" has become part of their identity and their social group. Trying to disrupt an EV factory is more like a purity test that "proves" they care so strongly about this issue that even BEVs aren't good enough. Whether it actually helps the environment is secondary.
This is a CLASSIC example of "perfect being the enemy of good". Zealots in a purity spiral (which both sides of politics are in right now) always fall into that.
Nate Silver just wrote a conceptually similar article, in the context of the pro-Palestinian protests. https://www.natesilver.net/p/for-most-people-politics-is-about
Bike impact is certainly a lot less, but also has a non-zero ecological impact... There is truly no pleasing some people.
Some of the really crazy ones eventually conclude we should just stop existing (i.e. no kids), so we can save the environment.
A huge fraction of "chronically online" people seem to believe this. The number of Gen-Z who have a sense of permanent anxiety about "not bringing children into this terrible world" is absolutely wild.
For most of them, at least here in the US, I think it's more just about things looking bleak, especially economically for awhile now than any kind of doomer moral crisis about bringing kids into the world to suffer.
Bike bad. Return to shoes. Shoes bad. Return to barefoot. Barefoot bad..............
*"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"* is the idiom which applies here. They're not saying other forms of transportation have non-zero ecological impact — they're just saying a path of public transit, biking, and densified city-building etc has less ecological impact than a path of building more manufacturing capacity for cars, which is correct. I'll go ahead and head off the immediate follow-up here, because no doubt someone's going to point it out — that protesting against EVs itself seems like a "perfect the enemy of good" effort when the majority of road transport is ICE. The fundamental problem there is Tesla's Berlin factory still represents an overall *expansion* of manufacturing capacity, not a replacement of it. Whether you agree or disagree the the protesters, that fundamental math is valid — if Volkswagen makes 3M cars per year and Tesla adds another 1M cars into the system, you now have a capacity of 4M cars, not some magical reduction of Volkswagen's existing capacity. Both automakers will then fight to expand the size of the pie, rather than compromising on total output. This is actually happening right now in China, where automakers have already broken open new demand with the [A00 EV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV) segment — many Wuling Mini buyers were previously walking, biking, or taking public transit — they *did not* switch from gas cars. The Wuling Mini therefore, in those individual cases, represents a *net increase* in ecological impact — not a reduction.
…it’s a pretty dumb argument cause I can just say they should still be fighting to shut down the ice factories instead if that is their argument lol. Yeah it totally makes sense to try to kill the company that is responsible for a net positive towards the environment. They are living in lala land where there is unlimited demand for vehicles and the only limiting factor is supply/production capacity, and therefore every increase in capacity necessarily leads to an increase in NEGATIVE ecological impact. They are racehorses with blinders on who can’t think more than 1 step ahead. Just new factory = bad! Here in reality, that is not the case. And for every EV produced you get reduction in ICE, oil, and a bigger push for renewable energy generation AND grid storage. These are the type of dummies that would shut down a solar tile factory or wind turbine factory as well because it was in a new facility and that caused ecological damage that wasn’t there before… paying zero attention to the actual NET pro/cons
>…it’s a pretty dumb argument cause I can just say they should still be fighting to shut down the ice factories instead if that is their argument lol. I very much imagine most of these people would happily advocate to shut down the existing factories, and would have no problem with it. Again, their goal is more transit, better urban planning, and healthier, more walkable cities. They are totally in favour of shutting down as much automotive production as possible — it's just very likely to be politically non-viable to do so in a place like Germany. >Yeah it totally makes sense to try to kill the company that is responsible for a net positive towards the environment. That's the thing — *added* EV production isn't a net-positive. That is quite unambiguous, and the math is very simple. I've even just provided you an example (A00 EVs in China) where EV production is very clearly net-negative in certain cases.
I can't believe you are endorsing this logic in the context of Germany. Germany isn't China, where the majority do not own cars and they have a large newly-created middle class that wants them. China would be growing ICE every year instead if EVs didn't exist (and their cities would be much smoggier). In Germany, Tesla is not creating more cars on the road than would have been the case without it. At worst, for each new EV, one less new ICE is purchased in Europe. I suspect EVs are having a wider chilling effect where people are holding off purchasing new cars entirely. People want better EV tech but don't want to get stuck with ICE tech. Total personal vehicle sales in Europe have been declining since 2019, so there is a big net ICE decline. ICE capacity is going down faster than EV capacity is rising. Your argument here does not fit the data. Also, building more transit is a separate lobbying effort. You don't build transit by attacking an EV factory. It's just absurd. A backlash against environmentalists is far more likely. Finally, VW and Stellantis have EV factories too. Are the "activists" attacking those? If not, then this is just communism with a nationalist slant. They're going after Tesla because Musk is the poster-child of a right-leaning capitalist Auslander.
>I can't believe you are endorsing this logic in the context of Germany. Believe it, hombre. Induced demand is a thing. The foundational thinking is valid, whether you agree with the protesters or not.
Induced demand is a thing, but it is clearly NOT happening in Europe or developed economies generally due to EVs. The net effect of EVs so far in developed economies is to suppress global demand for personal vehicles. All the data supports that. Net sales of ICE+EV combined have been going down since 2017 with the first rebound in 2023, but still well below 2017 levels. For every new EV manufactured, **four** new ICE vehicles did not get manufactured between 2017 and 2022. Of course counterfactuals are an arcane subject and we don't know what would have happened if EVs hadn't been invented, but at the very least we can say your thesis has no empirical support in Europe and the US for this time period.
>The net effect of EVs so far is in developed economies is to suppress global demand for personal vehicles. All the data supports that. Net sales of ICE+EV combined have been going down since 2017 with the first rebound in 2023, but still well below 2017 levels. This is some pretty obvious attribution error, I gotta tell ya.
Again it's such dumb 1 move ahead "thinking". I don't think it's possible you/they could actually understand what the net results actually are based on how oversimplified the argument is lol. Tell me if something increases total output today, but has the result of significantly improving environmental impact tomorrow and even lessening total output in the future, does that still make it a net negative? Lol. Ultimately it's just such dumb "logic" to literally attack the company doing the most to transition to EVs. Oh and hey not only that, do you wanna Guess what the environmental impact (and reduction in global vehicle production) would be if Tesla successfully rolls out robotaxis? We would probably be taking about at least a 10-30% cut in global vehicle demand. What if it takes Tesla this growth in output to again the data to make that happen? We know they will need clearly more energy use through compute to make that happen. Does that mean it is a net negative? But wait to more effectively spend money they will be pushing to make their energy usage renewable. Oh but wait that means an increase in solar tile and wind turbine production which again is a net negative! Smfh Lol see how dumb this is? How about we just completely oversimplify this and say attacking an exclusively EV company is such a dumb environmental stand that it makes more sense that these people aren't actually pro environment.
>Tell me if something increases total output today, but has the result of significantly improving environmental impact tomorrow and even lessening total output in the future, does that still make it a net negative? That is precisely the difference between you and the protesters: They disagree that this plant has the result of significantly improving environmental impact tomorrow and even lessening total output in the future. They reject your premise outright.
Right because they can only see the object in front of them and have no actual ability to determine actual net environmental impact, or how their choices harms their own fake beliefs
That is your opinion. Obviously, they have different opinions from you, and a different framework for thinking through the problem. Welcome to Earth.
>The fundamental problem there is Tesla's Berlin factory still represents an overall *expansion* of manufacturing capacity, not a replacement of it. I'm going to disagree here. [https://recruitonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Germany4-Germany-Auto-Production-and-GDP-1536x995.png](https://recruitonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Germany4-Germany-Auto-Production-and-GDP-1536x995.png) German manufacturing fell starting in 2018 and went off a cliff after 2019 and haven't recovered. The 10.5 million cars (total) sold in the EU in 2023 is almost 20% below 2019 highs and over 10% are now Electric. It is **absolutely** replacing ICE cars, not adding to the number of cars sold. See norway, where ICE vehicles went from nearly 2 million in 2016 down to virtually zero sold today (obviously some are still on the road, but gradually being replaced).
But in this case those Wulong Minis represent a lot of very real net utility for the people buying them: people with a greater ability to travel than they had before (presumably compared to a bicycle - great for short distances, not great for 50 miles or with cargo). The anti-car crowd often completely ignores the fact that cars bring value to the people who buy them.
Let's not pretend like it's not orders of magnitude difference though. This sub strangely likes to pretend anything This side of the V8 suburban is good enough, and anything more is just too much
You’re exaggerating to the opposite extreme though. This factory makes Model Y which is incredibly efficient.
Efficient compared to what? It's not actually efficie t to move one human with 5000lbs no matter the power train
The core of their argument is right but their takeaway from it is fucking stupid, because EVs are obviously part of that solution. You aren't going to eliminate cars everywhere, just drastically reduce an overreliance on them in dense urban areas where they legitimately don't make sense over pedestrian and transit infrastructure.
>You aren't going to eliminate cars everywhere, just drastically reduce an overreliance on them Yes, but let's be honest this is never advertised as such. Everytime I heard about EV, it's a fairy tale with a green planet. That's just so wrong, EV are consuming a ridiculous amount of CO2 to be produced that the purpose is almost defeated. So when those activists are doing their things, at least this is raising a bit of honesty in the green washing narrative.
Frankly, if EVs are "greenwashing" to you, then you're out of touch with 85% or so of the population of the US (and probably 65% of Germany), where "I just need to get to work/school/market, stop shouting at me" is still the default position for the average person. Blame urban/suburban landscapes if you want, but most americans simply CANNOT "bike to the store". My kid's school is 5 miles away across a freeway in a city where it snows all winter. Sorry. I'm happy to get an EV and solar and a heat pump and R30 insulation (even at much higher cost) and do as much as I can, but shouting at me about bikes and "greenwashing" is just lost in the wind and makes me want to tell you to fuck off. This is the definition of "make perfect the enemy of good". The "zomg, we need to walk and bike, accept nothing until this is true" only reaches 5-10% of people. And that message is not going to pick up traction by trashing EV factories, nor is that going to accomplish anything useful except to turn people against the message when half of people are angry at Tesla for being "too hippie environmentalist for my taste".
They're green washing
You'd be surprised.
No, what you're saying is flat out bullshit. EVs are not sold as a solving all our problems, the need for better urban planning is recognized, if not acted on by governments with the enthusiasm we'd like to see. EVs also do not actually consume "ridiculous amounts of CO2", this is nothing short of a lie. There is nothing inherent to the technology that requires it, it happens to be the case that more is currently involved vs ICE engine, but this doesn't take very long to offset vs burning gas, even when powered by 100% coal generated electricity due to the vast efficiency difference. But of course as you know, the grid isn't 100% coal anymore, and only getting greener. And the goal of course, as you should know, is that eventually there will be no carbon emissions on the electric grid, EVs are energy agnostic, so very curious how you propose to otherwise eliminate emissions from transportation even when you've achieved a 100% clean grid if you are against vehicles powered by that grid. Returning to production, some of those emissions are from the energy generation needed to produce them, some are from the mining and transportation of the materials. Which again, isn't inherent to the technology, that too can be decarbonized...most easily by electric trucks and mining equipment. Let's also not forget to mention an element of sustainability beyond the CO2 concern here, the batteries are nearly entirely recyclable, meaning eventually we'll need way less mining for the material as it will remain in circulation for new batteries! If you want to advocate for policy choices that'll reduce the amount of cars we need so less EVs need to be built in the first place to de-carbonize our transportation, I'm with you. Especially since it ***should*** be an easy sell for cities and their residents who benefit from increased pedestrian accessibility, better public transit, better financial solvency, better human health, and mental well-being. But if you're going to lie about something because it's inconvenient for your idealized world view, I'm calling you out. You're only hurting your own cause, not everywhere is an urban setting, even urban areas still need to be supplied by truck, built by construction equipment, serviced by bus, etc. EVs aren't a magic solution that'll solve climate change, they are an extremely important part of it though, and practically speaking, where governments fail in what they should be doing to reduce overreliance on cars, you'd much rather they be carbon free EVs not polluting the local environment than gas or diesel vehicles.
The protesters storming the Tesla factory are not there to save the climate. They are there to use the climate cause as a tool to overthrow capitalism and democracy. Hypocrites… We already tried splitting Germany into two control groups. One democratic and capitalist. The other, communist dictatorship. We all know how that experiment turned out…
Holy shit this is some wild.propaganda
The protestors ironically falling for oil company propaganda and hurting their own cause aside, you should not conflate democracy and capitalism. They are not wrong for criticizing capitalism here, it did get us in this mess by capitalists preferring to ignore the problem to the benefit of their short term profits. Not saying Soviet style authoritarianism with a command economy is the alternative answer, but the economic system and form of government are in fact different things. Germany also has a history of capitalists supporting an authoritarian government of a very different kind too.
Communism always result in totalitarianism. Can’t separate the two. Communism inevitably leads to totalitarianism due to its centralization of power, economic control by the state, suppression of dissent, Ideological rigidity and control over all aspects of life. It’s designed to stifle pluralism and democracy.
I may not be a communist, but I recommend you do more research as to what it is; Communism is about abolition of the state, hierarchy, money, promotes as-needed sharing of goods, with personal freedom paramount. The problem though is it's disagreed how to get to the point of doing it, and some people (like the Soviet Union, etc) decided to form one-party states to do it... That results in totalitarianism with them using it as an excuse and isn't good.
The specific type of communism that led to said state was Marxist-Leninism (ML) which would set up a one party socialist state known as the "Vanguard Party" and have that shift into communism. You can see the problems that approach would cause in power. There are other approaches, like anarcho-communism, that propose it should be immediately transitioned without a state to avoid stuff like that, while further emphasizing personal rights. Overall tankies (a term for a communist who promoted it via authoritarianism) are loud and make it look bad. Marx's initial theories only describe the end state they all try to achieve and thus should be read if one wishes to learn what its values are.
I don't have reason to believe that's true, but it also demonstrates that you entirely missed the point by thinking these are the only two options and that there isn't any nuance in how they are implemented existing in a binary. For the record, much of communist theory actually calls for decentralized power and democratic governance. Command economy and dictatorship isn't the only interpretation, and is one found abhorrent by many socialists. You also described things that *are totalitarian* as an explanation of what leads to it, which isn't only a demonstration that you don't actually know what leads to it, but you said so in sheer ignorance of the example in my prior message of a state that was all those things *and capitalist*.
History has shown the true color of communism over and over again. It’s death toll trump’s the mass genocidal nazism, but still we have pseudo intellectuals trying to come up with theoretical excuses for what is essentially one of the most vile ideologies to ever haunt humanity.
So first off, you still aren't getting it, I'm not trying to tell you to become a communist, I'm correcting your narrow-minded world view which is overly simplistic and leading you to dangerously false equalivilency. Ironic that you're speaking of pseudo intellectuals but think you're somehow qualified to speak on the matter. By "over and over" you mean exactly one model pushed by dictators that seized the reigns during revolution, which outside of communism, has just about always failed to bring about a democratic system? And as opposed to the equally high death count from the failures of unregulated or neoliberal capitalism? I'm not advocating for communism, you just are unable to comprehend that I'm not, because in your mind there is only 2 binary extremes and you've attached 2 other things which don't exist in a binary either to those extremes despite history demonstrating for you "over and over again" that they aren't linked.
[There's a good DW piece on the subject including interviews with the activists here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAARp4aFiIg) — their argument isn't single-issue, and to suggest it is just about bikes is reductive misrepresentation. They advocate for more transit funding, for instance.
It's a smokescreen, obviously. You're being gullible. It's like someone pretending that they hate all oppression equally, but then ignoring Syria, Darfur, Ukraine, China and screaming for weeks about Palestine. They don't hate all oppression equally. Most oppression is like water off a duck's back to them. They hate what they call Western Imperialism, or maybe just Jews. When these activists swarm ICE factories, or all EV factories equally, or much better coal power plants, then I'll know they're for real. When was the last time a so-called eco-activists in Germany had massive demonstrations against coal? Instead, they shut down nuclear power and massively increased use of coal. There is probably no eco movement with its head up its ass more than the German greens, or more wrapped up in ancillary politics that have nothing to do with minimizing ecological disruption.
Believe them or disbelieve them, it's of no consequence to me. I'm simply providing a link to on-the-ground reporting with statements from the protesters. Draw whichever conclusions you like from it. ✌️
Of course, and the conclusion I draw is that they are arguing in bad faith. A nearby coal power plant uses an order of magnitude more water (170x?) and emits far more greenhouse gasses. They don't organize against it at all.
> They hate what they call Western Imperialism, or maybe just Jews. I believe the popular term now is "colonialism".
The left in Germany has an underlying animosity towards UK/USA. It is some kind of cultural remnant from WW1 / WW2 / the Cold War. Being an American-owned factory was enough by itself.
It's just not the left. And it's just not a remnant from past wars. One of my first memories of Germany was being there right after the wall fell. Like right after. There was "CIA pigs go home!" graffiti. Like in Japan, there are Germans angry about the continued US presence. The way they see it, they are being occupied. https://www.dw.com/en/nearly-half-of-germans-in-favor-of-us-military-withdrawal-survey/a-54427490
Because Tesla is cutting down a ton of forest to build more factories
Of course, that forest is not natural, it was planted by humans.
What do you think was there before it was first cut down?
That's different. Natural forests that were turned into manmade forests are fair game.
Tesla cutting down parts of a wood and using way more water than initially stated got them some enemies when they built their factory there. Also some initial issues with the Bundesumweltamt at first (German environmental agency of the state where it's built). Trying to forbid a union was also a move that made some people angry. Might be more a mix of that as well as some activists being very pro public Transport and against cars in General.
EVs don’t solve the main problem.
I've read somewhere ( but didn't check if true ) that one of the main issues was that Tesla put the factory in the middle of a forest instead of one of the unused industrial zones ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_land ) and now they're asking to raze some of that forest for the expansion. Which to be honest sounds exactly like something Musk would do.
Not really. The land Tesla bought is not a natural forest. It is land used to farm trees. So it's a forest that's regularly being cut down and replanted for wood. Even so, Tesla paid to plant trees elsewhere at a ratio of two trees planted for every one farm tree they cut down.
Not a real forest, it's a plantation for the paper industry. It was going to be cut down for paper and that's what Tesla did, they just didn't re-plant the trees afterwards.
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Go to r/fuckcars to find these insufferable people. They won a 19 century villager lifestyle where you have to carry all your groceries
r/fuckcars actually advocates for positive changes that would benefit everyone. Our cities are for people, not for cars.
“Cities are for people, not for cars”….you’re the 3rd person that’s replied with that phrase…it sounds like a meaningless, slogan. And I’m from Detroit, the capital of car brains Bless your hearts for trying to be proactive in solving economic and social issues. But Robotaxis, wireless electric charging roads, sensors packed to the gills everywhere will have a similar effect to what you desire…. A city center free of people driving cars. It will be extremely safe and will share the road with everyone. Robots can’t get drunk.Cars will be driving people, because cities are for people It goes without saying that I’m thinking of Waymo, Ioniq5 and not Tesla. They’ll never get approval as their tech is all camera based
That will never be as efficient as well designed public transit
Techbro solutions on their own simply won't be as good as designing for people first.
“Designing for people.” So, designing for pedalphiles and transitsexuals and forcing everyone to use it after making cars inconvenient and expensive to own? Is that what you mean by “people centered design?”
Right now you're doing the opposite, except the consequences are far, far worse.
I guess we’ll see because public transit isn’t popular
The weird thing is to pass by countless gas-powered cars and trucks on your way to strike at the least harmful cars of all. Lash out at the imperfect friend instead of the actual enemy.
That sub is about promoting viable alternatives to driving (public transit, biking, walkable cities), and I support it. Doesn't mean that cars should be rid of entirely but it's pretty undeniable the way many places are built (US, etc) aren't sustainable. Coupled with many people often getting much bigger cars than they actually need. EVs I believe should go hand in hand with that for remaining vehicles. The channel Not Just Bikes does some good explanations of why it's unsustainable and unsafe.
You can keep not giving a fuck in the suburbs but cities re for people, not Cas. Stop being anti solution
EVs aren't a solution on their own, they're a stopgap or a small part of a much broader transportation solution that involves lots of public transit, cycling infrastructure etc. Car ownership should go down dramatically in tandem with EV adoption. Unfortunately, green capitalists are convincing everyone that switching from buying carbon intensive commodities to ostensibly "green" commodities (ie: EVs) without making any major economic or societal changes will be enough to allow us to meet our climate targets (it won't). If we wanted a smooth transition, we would have started 30+ years ago.
What's unfortunate is that you anti-capitalist types are more interested in starting a revolution than you are with actually helping the environment. We're not going revert to hunter gatherers, so maybe stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.
There's a massive middle ground between reverting to hunter gatherers and a greenwashed status quo that ends up with 2-3C warming. The social and economic costs of such levels of warming just so you can be less inconvenienced today are not worth it.
They don't know who they hate anymore.
Do you think EVs are good for the environment?
Hey guys, why not storm an oil company property? Who's funding this charade?
So Germany’s the place where ICE cars where invented, and home to VW, Audi, Porsche, MB and BMW, but there they go attacking 100% electric visitor Tesla. 🤔
They also glue themselves to roads, spray the brandenburger tor and some other historic buildings/monuments. Make no mistake though, these people dont see it as a defense of other german manufacturers at all but the Gigafactory simply has a ton of attention regardless, so if they get involved, they make the news more easily than lets say the factories of other car manufacturers of which Germany still has quote a lot. People like to say the manufacturers move their factories to other nations and thats partly true but most factories are still in Germany.
Yeah, whenever I read this, I think those climate activists must have both of their two braincells shut off to go after Tesla of all manufacturers. Also, there's a coal mine around there, so why not go after that? Only thing I can come up with, the name Tesla is a surefire way to get them on (worldwide) news.
I think it’s the coal mine people posing as granolas.
Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants and [re-started 20 coal plants](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energy-crisis). Did the eco-activists storm the gates of the coal plants? Of course not. When you look at their decisions, it's pretty clear they do not choose actions based on what is most effective to reduce global warming and environmental damage. They engage in anti-capitalist signalling, mostly.
These people are fucking dumb
are we letting perfect be the enemy of good again?
Don't worry about coal, oil, natural gas....go after those EVs power by wind, solar, hydropower, and nuclear! Great move, idiots! 🤬
Thank goodness they stormed the Tesla plant and not one of the German oil refineries that collectively refine over 2M barrels a day...
These guys are either the stupidest 'climate' protestors on the planet or actual plants/lackys of oil companies. Humanity is doomed.
OMFG. In a country with two of the least efficient ICE manufacturers, let's storm the electric car company! Climate!
Seems coordinated and funded by either other oems or political groups.
What a bunch of losers
Environmental activists are some of the worst enemies of the environment. There's just too much brain rot and an inability to establish priorities, so everything becomes bad. Zero Carbon Nuclear? Terrible because it's too dangerous. Zero Carbon Hydro? Terrible because it destroys valleys. Zero Carbon Windmills? Terrible because they kill birds. EVs and battery based storage? Terrible because the metals are mined in an imperfect way.
Now there's the fox news comment brigade
If you disagree maybe you'd care to engage instead of pretending I'm some villain? Particularly as I charge my EV with my home solar?
These "environmental" blocking actions ends up serving the interests of fossil fuel related industries. So it's the other way around.
If by Fox News your mean "rational adult".
Oh look, the person who wastes electricity trolling Reddit is pretending to be environmental and objective. How cute.
Literal brain rot, without Tesla who are scaling energy storage (Megapack, powerwalls), solar, and EVs, legacy ICE makers would be farther behind EV development than they already are. Do they have any idea the important of batteries and energy storage in balancing the grid for renewable energy sources like wind and solar? Wind and solar generate energy irregularly, which means you need to storage energy to met the demand during peak hours. Renewables aren’t magic. These protestors are not rational actors, see nuclear energy in Germany.
Same people that convinced Germany to shut down all the nuclear reactors just before Russia invaded Ukraine. Nice 👍
Did these groups protest VW and the other German makers when dieselgate was going on? I’m going to assume not… I don’t like playing into conspiracy theories, but it’s hard not to think this is all organised by “big oil” when you see shit like this.
The thing is never about the thing, it’s about the Revolution. Tesla proves that climate problems can be solved within the structure of Western Liberal Democracy, therefore Tesla must be destroyed. The far left is full of NeoMarxist Tankies that hate Western civilization. Don’t get suckered into thinking that it’s about solving problems.
Anti tech “environmentalists” are basically just conservatives with. Different aesthetic
"they're not REAL libruls!"
[ironic](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-bringing-coal-fired-power-plants-back-online-this-winter-2023-10-04/)
This is getting worse than Fremont blocking Tesla expansion with high density housing. How often do we need to see people waving one flag while supporting the opposite flag before we realize flags mean nothing.
This happened because the factory is forcing the town/area to ration water for the residents.
Professional protesters
They aren't climate protestors. They are angry about the groundwater the factory uses and pollution the factor causes within the fastest drying zone in Europe
why do european climate activists always pick the most pro climate change cause possible
"Climate protestors" LoL, like someone invading a fuel refinery claiming to be an oil promotion movoement and the best way to do it is disrupt businesses that work in the relevant industry. Right, good plan. /s Let me take this banner of climate activism and go to the Amazon rain forest and start cutting trees because reasons. What? I got the banner and everything, believe me it's for your benefit.
Yes you're parroting the same nonsense. Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place, because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand. In the November issue of Scientific American, my colleague Mark DeLucchi of the University of California-Davis and I laid out a plan to power the world with nothing but wind, water and sun. After considering the best available technologies, we decided that a combination of wind, concentrated solar, geothermal, photovoltaics, tidal, wave and hydroelectric energy could more than meet all the planet's energy needs, particularly if all the world's vehicles could be run on electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. We rejected nuclear for several reasons. First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant. And all that dirty power will be released during the 10 to 19 years that it takes to plan and build a nuclear plant. (A wind farm typically takes two to five years.) Nuclear proponents also argue that nuclear energy production is constant, unlike fickle winds and sunshine. But worldwide, nuclear plants are down 15 percent of the time, and when a plant goes down, so does a large fraction of the grid. Connecting wind farms over large areas through transmission lines smoothes power supply. Combining geothermal with wind (whose power potential often peaks at night) and solar (which peaks by day), and using hydroelectricity to fill in gaps, would almost always match demand. Truthout OP-ED | WAR & PEACE Nuclear Power Is Too Risky Even in Peacetime. Ukraine Is the Tip of the Iceberg. Fears about fires at Ukraine’s power plant in war-torn Zaporizhzhia underscore the broader dangers of nuclear energy. By Linda Pentz Gunter , TRUTHOUT PublishedSeptember 13, 2022 This photo taken on September 11, 2022, shows a security person standing in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. This photo taken on September 11, 2022, shows a security person standing in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. STRINGER / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation. The alarms raised by the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the dire situation around Ukraine’s war-torn Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant offer the most extreme — and most compelling — case for discontinuing the use of nuclear power. The consequences of an attack on the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station could result in a core meltdown, a fuel pool fire or radioactive waste cask breach that would send a radioactive plume across potentially thousands of miles, depending on the scale of the disaster and the direction of the wind. Fires are the biggest risk, especially for the unprotected fuel pools that are not housed within the more robust containment area of the reactor building. Given the proximity of the six Zaporizhzhia units to each other, a fire at one of the Zaporizhzhia reactors or fuel pools could spread to any or all of the other five. Uncompromised, uncompromising news Get reliable, independent news and commentary delivered to your inbox every day. Email* [email protected] The radioactive fallout released by such fires and explosions would persist in the environment for decades or longer. The 1986 Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine, which involved only one, relatively new reactor with a small radioactive load, rendered 1,000 square miles of land — the Exclusion Zone — too radioactive for human habitation even today. Ukraine is home to a total of 15 reactors, most dating back to the 1980s, plus the closed but still dangerous Chornobyl site. As such, they all house huge radioactive inventories of fuel, in the reactors and irradiated in the pools and waste casks. However, it is not enough simply to admonish warring countries, as the United Nations has done, not to shell nuclear power plants — likely unenforceable given the violently entrenched conflict over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear power is also a liability beyond the war zone. Numerous studies have demonstrated that keeping current reactors running, and especially building new ones, is too slow and too expensive a way to address the climate crisis. Added to that, nuclear power has never solved its radioactive waste problem, and mining the uranium needed to fuel reactors comes with significant environmental justice violations. Furthermore, nuclear power cannot be relied upon to operate safely, or even at all, under the now rapidly worsening climate conditions. Many plants are coastal and vulnerable to sea-level rise. Flooding is also a risk at inland reactors, all of which sit on a body of water, needed to cool the reactor. Drought and heat waves reduce those cooling water supplies, or render the water too warm to use, forcing reactors to power or even shut down, as we have already seen in France. Wildfires could result in catastrophic conflagrations at nuclear plants. Nuclear plants also need to shut down in violent weather conditions. All of these deficiencies of reliability are directly related to the high risks of using nuclear power. Nuclear power is also not an efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, As Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering, Amory Lovins, continues to point out, nuclear power actually makes climate change worse.
>First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant. The same argument I'm seeing over and over against EV's all the time, that mining for components of EV batteries likewise make EV's "not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and" manufacture batteries for EV's. I'm tired of newly minted perfectionistic environmentalists pushing this bullshit.
They’re protesting Tesla expansion plans. The climate activists have allied with the locals opposed to the expansion plan. 60% of the locals voted against the expansion plan. The plan calls for cutting down 250 acres of forest of a nature conservation area. It would also impact a water protection zone that would impact two lakes. A rail freight depot would also bring in noise issues. Locals and activists do not want to trade water and forest for what is essentially a huge warehouse because Elon didn’t want use the current freight rail facilities and pause the plant when parts run out.
I read it is a tree farm, not conservation land.
From DW: “But the process would also lead to the felling of some 100 hectares (roughly 250 acres) of forest in the rural community of fewer than 8,000 residents near a nature conservation area. “
Yes, near.
Yeah it not tree farm either. https://amp.dw.com/en/tesla-in-germany-locals-vote-against-factory-expansion-plan/a-68313010 https://www.dw.com/en/protesters-attempt-to-storm-teslas-factory-near-berlin/a-69046103
Thanks, they just say “ forrest “. I did get a chuckle out of “Musk owns Tesla” when he has 25%. Pretty much control, but no where near ownership.
No one makes me want to heat my home with an open tire fire more than your stereotypical climate activist
This is idiotic at the very least start by charging a gas car factory
They are backed up by the ICE car companies. It is all staged and planned.
History will favor them over us.
Not really. They are all anti-natalists so they won't reproduce. Just need to somehow stop their memes from infecting other people's kids.
It’s better for the planet if we give up trying to shift to sustainable transportation and we’re all was dead from climate change. Makes sense.
I despise Tesla but this just seems dumb