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If you stick around, you'll see that I regularly argue against market liberalisation in the energy sector - or at least for open, durable, active State involvement.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 03:47:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
how can you blog and watch France in the World Cup at the same time?  Multitasking...
by BooMan on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 03:49:52 PM EST
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It's half time...
I would multitask, but sadly my wifi does not work in the room with the TV (plus I'm actually watching this game, and the neighbors are around, plus a few extranumerary kids who are sleeping over, so we're having a big party)

Off now...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 03:52:03 PM EST
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OOps I read that as 'my wife does not work in the same room as the TV' and was just trying to get to grips with the surreal enormity of it when I noticed my mistake....

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Jun 28th, 2006 at 03:29:50 PM EST
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We agree 100% on this and also on nuclear, I see. And also I presume on the outcome of the game that just ended.

Outside of consumer goods, can you think of a market which operates significantly differently than energy in this regard? I have a hard time thinking of any which wouldn't require active and durable State involvement and regulation if not ownership (health care, communications, banking, transportation, etc...)

The move to liberalise these past two decades will be seen, I am convinced, as a big mistake.

And now it is nearing 19h00 where I am, the skies are sunny and the poor Spaniards have been spanked as predicted by yours truly (by the exact score, I might add), it's time for a little celebratory Pastaga!!

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 05:31:36 PM EST
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What's your position on nuclear? Just to be sure?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:24:47 PM EST
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I gather that redstar is on the "cool team", with you and me. He's just joined the club of people that will keep on getting blasted for "total lack of awareness about the dangers of nuclear power".
by Alex in Toulouse on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:30:41 PM EST
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Redstar is also alone on the Stalinist corner of the ET political compass.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:34:18 PM EST
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The political compass is a bit like a referee in a world cup game siding Italy. A lot of unfair judgments, and no replays. I wish I could join redstar in the Stalinist corner ...
by Alex in Toulouse on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:36:08 PM EST
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Did you see you are now in the authoritarian conservative  quadrant?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:51:14 PM EST
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Finally where I belong ;)
It was a long road getting there.
by Alex in Toulouse on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:56:12 PM EST
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Let's be fair, eh? This compass thing is a relative compass, if I show up as Stalin on the social scale it might just mean most folks taking that test are dissolute libertines, no?

I'd like to think of my space as the Gramschi space. I'd guess Stalin's probably way higher than me up the y-axe, maybe higher than everyone.

This being said, he probably had the right idea about nuclear power too.

 

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 10:44:35 PM EST
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PS sorry about that ignomy imposed upon your team earlier today.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill
by r------ on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 10:45:34 PM EST
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I'm not an energy person, my background is in media, but my reading on the subject is that nuclear is a competitive source of electricity, emits no CO2, only two major accidents in the history of the industry and neither in a western democracy with a history of an effective and transparent regulatory and safety regime.

For those who think nuclear is less safe than the alternatives, all I can guess is there are no coal miners in their family tree, or they don't live near a refinery or a gas pipeline.

Many Americans understandably have a phobia about nuclear and I sympathize, since you need to provide stringent safeguards and a regulatory framework around which to build an industry which is safest when standardized. This takes a certain aptitude for the collective which America patently is hopeless at. European countries (other than Belgium and France) have no such excuse except maybe the UK which shares America's economic ideological fetishes to some extent.

But just because it doesn't work in America anymore doesn't mean it shouldn't be a part of our energy future in the West, in much the same way just because gay marriage won't work in Saudi Arabia doesn't mean it isn't an idea whose time has come for advanced Western social democracies.

Sorry I got off topic but that's the pastis and then dinner talking, great game, great game.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 10:36:09 PM EST
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Nuclear energy accidents are like airplane accidents. It's not how many people are killed, it's the degree of control one has of the situation.

Cars kill lots more people than airplanes no matter how you measure it, but people have no problems driving in cars because "behind the wheel" you feel in control of the situation.

You can choose to go into a coal mine, but you can't choose to not live within 1000 miles of a nuclear power plant. (At least not in North America or Europe.)

It doesn't matter how many nuclear accidents there have been so far, or how many people have been killed (which is a debateable number), but whether you have a choice to live "near" one.

by asdf on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 11:44:08 PM EST
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The move to liberalise these past two decades will be seen, I am convinced, as a big mistake.

It's not so much a mistake as the Cult of Capitalism's Counter-Reformation.

It's not even about money really. It's about recentralising power so that the peasants don't have access to it, and so can be exploited ad lib.

Most 'reforms' are about consolidating that power base. Wind is considered a threat because it has the potential to be massively decentralised, with players at every level from house-sized microgeneration to huge national farms.

Nuclear is inherently centralised and anti-democratic because it can never be fragmented like this. In the minds of the noobies who are promoting it, that's a good feature and not a bad one.

Also, Big Technology is always more exciting to plan, finance and build than relatively small-scale run of the (wind)mill projects. Where's the fun in building something that you know will work reliably and can be put together fairly quickly? Isn't it much more interesting to have lots of meetings with government representatives and law makers who make you feel like someone really important, and will hand over big sexy cheques more or less on demand?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 06:45:19 PM EST
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I take nuclear as a basket of clean energy options that include hydro, wind and solar as well as future fuel innovations to come.

But on the other hand, I strongly belive we don't move past the age of petroleum without the state.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Tue Jun 27th, 2006 at 10:39:18 PM EST
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