She was always keeping a moderate tone, always leaning towards supporting China and the Chinese state as well. I thought she'd skip around the censors because of it.

It's not profitable. For example, in Sweden, the companies involved aren't interested. There was talk of EDF being restructured a couple of years back separating the unprofitable nuclear away from their other businesses (until state bailout and investment). Their CFO resigned over their decision to carry on building UK's latest nuclear powerplant. The Conservatives only pushed through the UK's next nuclear powerplant only after giving EDF assurances and ability to start taking in profits before the completion of the project.

This is what it takes to build nuclear. A lot of state money... Whereas renewables are cheaper, easier, and faster to decarbonise.

China's President sent his own daughter to Harvard and China has wide income inequality, as well as the greatest proportion of millionaires and billionaires in the world. The wealthy in China go on day trips to Paris to literally eat cake.

But it's not the general public who is averse to nuclear, they're as a whole, probably more in favour of it. The current Swedish governmrnt campaigned on it. It's nuclear companies themselves who don't want it. Which is partially why Sweden suddenly and quietly scrapped their plans.

Renewables?

Sweden was a bit of an outlier though. Most younger Swedes live alone. And they tend to follow government advisories. New Zealand's strategy was stellar, particularly early on in the pandemic. You could do what you want. I remember we were out having concerts as if there was no pandemic, thanks to the zero COVID strategy. But by late-Delta, early-Omicron, zero COVID could not longer be sustained, and it was clear only mitigations would stick. The government hoped to eliminate it like they did the other times, but it was just impossible then, people had become complacent. But yes, on the healthcare-side and economic-side, NZ fared better than Sweden.

So, you're going to spend, billions, to build a nuclear powerplant, that will decarbonise at a slower rate, never turn a profit, be an economic sinkhole megaproject, or, you could just build a solar panel or wind turbine in like, a year, where it'll be functional and working. Profits allow you to reinvest into more projects. Losses, mean you're putting endless amounts of money into less.

It's actually the worst time to get started on nuclear. Costs keep going up. There's a reason why countries overwhelmingly prefer to invest in renewables over nuclear. This includes nuclear companies. EDF is one of the largest investors in renewables, and it's actually the profitable side of the business. It's going to be the taxpayer that's going to pay for nuclear, and they're not going to get their money's worth, as opposed to renewables.

Is it though? You'd need to cut the price of nuclear by about 1/4. Even then, renewables are faster at decarbonisation. Not that nuclear represented a large amount of the German grid in the first place. Best case scenario for Germany, is extending the lifespan of their plants not more than a few years.

Depends. Renewables are faster at decarbonising than nuclear. Only if we're starting from scratch. They're also cheaper, and at scale, more reliable. Difference here was, Germany shut down existing nuclear before they could ramp up renewables. I will add that this is the most generous argument to maintain nuclear.

Perhaps the timetable for them could've been extended, but when literally one of the largest nuclear power companies in the world prefers renewables, and balks at the cost of opening a nuclear powerplant without significant government guarantees and subsidies, that should tell you something. The nuclear argument is usually fuelled by the mining lobby. Even China, who does not care for public opinion, and has an active nuclear stake for military purposes, prefers renewables. The only argument for Germany was the when was the appropriate time to shut down the reactors, not that it shouldn't have been done.

Do we count EEZ encroachments in the Pacific? Only reason why China isn't as militarily adventurous as Russia right now, is because they know they're not ready yet. Not really yellow scare nonsense when China itself (Republic of) is concerned about this.