Great Russia reloaded?
Thanks but no thanks.

Hmm, maybe Serbia, Montenegro and I don't know, Bosnia? (this ex-Yugoslav country is always off my radar, I know close to 0 about it), would like to be part of such construction.

Very true.

Do you think they might invade?

From where? With what?

In other news, the US and Russia continue trolling each other: The US Embassy in Moscow is now located at 1 Donetsk People Republic Square.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/...ratists-a78071

No, they would have to invade nato territory.

Well, I can't stand bullies and I had no hesitation in choosing which side to be on.


We can discuss about a lot of things, but the moment one tries to justify this war against a country which minded its own business they instantly lose all my interest and...respect.

The Greens have to go against everything they pretend to stand for, the consequence of holding office.

Only one thing is still missing, restarting a nuclear power plant. We may see that next year, after the first winter of the asinine attempt to get off Russian fossil fuels without proper preparation.

What they have just remembered is that the nuclear fuel comes from.?...


Wait for it....



Russia! BOOM.
You can't make this up.

Restarting the NPP - or extending the last 3 - is not trivial technically or in terms of fuel rods. Also a drop in the bucket by now. So yeah, coal generation and gas rationing seems likely. Need to reactivate old mothballed coal plants though - most modern coal plants have been running many hours already in the last year.

I don't think this is the time for Schadenfreude against the Greens. They are in a difficult situation and surely cannot be made responsible for what they inherited. Habeck strikes me as a considered, sensible and - dare I say - honest guy in handling this.

That said, the Greens of course have always been anti-nuclear, and maybe even they now understand how stupid Merkel's decision in 2011 was.

The companies responsible for the mothballed German nuclear plants are putting up a lot of resistance against reopening these.

Theoretically, you just need to load new fuel rods and they would start running again.
Of course, the companies involved have legitimate concerns over their liabilities for safety so claiming extensive checking and testing would be needed and a lack of skilled operational staff.

Having said that the Japanese have managed to restart nine of their nuclear plants with no serious problems, in detail, twenty-one reactors of the country's 54 were decommissioned after the Fukushima disaster, and of the 33 that were deemed operable by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the agency has only approved nine for restarts.

Maybe the German government should claim the potential lack of energy is a national emergency and so put restarting nuclear plants out to open tender.

True, thing is the ship of green ideals is floundering on the shoals of reality. Just like the prophesies of black and red have predicted.
Habeck seems to be a good guy, but this is way beyond his political ability to control
.

Don't get me started on Japan. Absolute madness. They must have paid hundreds of billions by now for the additional LNG imports since 2011. 54 NPP and one fifth is back after 10 years?

The major nuclear fuel providers are Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Co., Areva, Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), TVEL, Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH (ANF), and Westinghouse, only one of these is Russian.

If you are a country operating Russian designed reactors then it is harder to switch to non-Russian suppliers, before the war Ukraine had already switched seven of Ukraine’s fifteen Russian designed reactors to Westinghouse fuel.

German nuke plants got their fuel from France, Framatome and Russia's Rosatom, with Westinghouse supplying the rest. However there are only three AKW's running and their fuel will be depleted by the end of the year.
No new fuel was ordered as they were expected to go offline before 2023 and as it takes 18 months (according to a report on ZDF) for fuel to be produced and delivered they will not be generating power longer than a month or two after the deadline. Only Rosatom is able to supply in the timeframe required and hthey have extended their middle finger.

__________________
Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

I assume, most of the staff already have new jobs, too?

That (atomic) ship has sailed, IMO. Any calls, appeals, cries and swears are just political theater at this point.

Maybe we'll have more kids in Germany in the Fall of 2023, because people spent more time in bed, because the rest of the apartment is too cold? ;-)

Chances are though, we'll have more fires and blackouts from people abusing electrical heaters (maybe a couple of Grenfell-style ones, too), more carbon-monoxide asphyxiations from people making an-indoor fire without proper ventilation and more deaths from old people freezing to death.

Most people renting won't be able to take the 85k+ € camper and move to Portugal for the Winter.

It is starting to look bleak because politicians are telling us not to worry, everything is under control but save energy.

[QUOTE=greenmount;3417776]
Totally agree with you. Neither can I.

Most concerning is the Russia-China-India alliance. With every day that Russia make ground, this alliance is emboldened, and a move on Taiwan is a when not if, and is increasingly likely to be sooner than later.

The Lithuania stand-off for me is a good thing. It may be the catalyst to bring NATO into the fight. Whilst Russia is dealing with an alternative set of facts, diplomacy is useless.

No, I am not an advocate for war, in fact the contrary. But the global world order is at a tipping point, and only military readiness will prevent it tipping the wrong way.

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So sayeth the 'Speed
* I do look like my avatar

I agree. Strength is the only diplomatic language that Russia and China truly understand and respect and we just have to assume that by default they are constantly seeking to exploit any weakness they can find, with teams of people dedicated 24/7 to find the best ways to undermine NATO and strengthen their own position. NATO need to take an increasingly tough stance and accept that peaceful diplomacy is not the driving force at this stage.

strange that the "genocide" and mass bombings of hospitals and schools seemed to stop right around the time that azov got trapped and surrendered.