German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the Western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?

  • jabrd [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    52·
    1 year ago

    Germany’s green energy push was secretly propped up by outsourcing fossil fuel needs to Russian natural gas. The war in Ukraine and America subsequently blowing up the Nordstream 2 pipeline means Germany will need to find new alternatives to feeding their energy needs. One could hope this results in a speed up of green tech development as it becomes more of a pressing necessity than just, you know, the right thing to do. And hey speaking of knowing the right thing to do and then not doing it because of the perverse economic incentives for ignoring it, it’s funny to note that the global leader in green tech is China but due to this new cold war the US is brewing and due to Germany’s newly-humbled-into role as Jr Junior partner to the US there’s no way there will be the necessary cooperation there between national tech sectors

        • pingveno@lemmy.mlEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          I advise caution with Hersh’s reporting. It was weak to begin with, relying on a single source. It’s not improved at all since publication, with no one coming forward even anonymously to corroborate the claims. Seymour Hersh has published important stories, but he’s gotten sloppy with this one.

          • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
            34·
            1 year ago

            Yes stranger on the internet, the most decorated investigative journalist alive has "gotten sloppy’ you say. So who’s more credible here, the guy who broke My Lai and Abu Ghraib, reported on Watergate and the secret bombing of Cambodia, won a Pulitzer and a record five Polk awards, or you, some anonymous commenter on the internet, laughably calling it “weak”, “cautioning” against it? You don’t think other bootlickers in the past have called his reports on My Lai, Cambodia or Abu Ghraib “weak”?

            • pingveno@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              His reporting on My Lai was based on internal government documents. Abu Ghraib was already being reported by other sources like Amnesty International, so he was backing up by other reporting there.

              Thing is, I’m not asking you to trust me. Not one bit. I’m asking you to apply an appropriate level of skepticism. Common practice for an accusation this serious is to get more people talking. But here, the whole accusation rests on one source. Why should we trust this source? Because Seymour Hersh said they know stuff? And since then, nothing. Now maybe Hersh is still digging and will publish something in the future. If so, I’m all ears. Until, I stay skeptical.

              And it’s not just me pointing to how Hersh uses anonymous sources as being problematic. His Wikipedia article has a lengthy section covering both criticism and defense.

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
          4·
          1 year ago

          That seems like one anonymous source for a very wide range of allegations. I hope you do not accept that as absolute fact.

          • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            31·
            1 year ago

            Considering the only party on Earth that benefits from the sabotaging of that pipeline is the US i think it would be very hard for anyone reasonable to ignore. Hersh is also one of the few investigative journalists who has reported on things like this consistently and been correct in the past

            • noride@lemm.ee
              5·
              1 year ago

              The only point I’d push back on is that this was only in US interests. Ukraine makes a decent sum allowing Nord 1 to transit over land in their territory, money they would lose with the activation of Nord 2.

              Further, regardless of whom you believe committed the act, there is evidence to suggest the targeting of Nord 1 was accidental and the actual intent was to just hit Nord 2.

              You could even speculate the destruction of Nord 2 was insurance that the west wouldn’t abandon Ukraine since they could no longer flip a switch and take them out of the gas equation.

          • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            8·
            1 year ago

            Do you know what the US does? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However, the claim is the US blew up something that didn’t belong to them. That is the most ordinary claim. It is so ordinary that if something explodes and you don’t know why, it would take evidence to prove we didn’t do it somehow

      • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        25·
        1 year ago

        Here’s a Washington post article including statements from the pentagon claiming that they’ve been aware for over a year that the Ukrainian military had plans to destroy Nord Stream 2 and then subsequently did: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/06/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-ukraine-russia/

        Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

        Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.

        …

        The highly specific details, which include numbers of operatives and methods of attack, show that for nearly a year, Western allies have had a basis to suspect Kyiv in the sabotage. That assessment has only strengthened in recent months as German law enforcement investigators uncovered evidence about the bombing that bears striking similarities to what the European service said Ukraine was planning.

        …

        Ukrainian officials, who have previously denied the country was involved in the Nord Stream attack, did not respond to requests for comment.

        The White House declined to comment on a detailed set of questions about the European report and the alleged Ukrainian military plot, including whether U.S. officials tried to stop the mission from proceeding.

        The CIA also declined to comment.

        …

        The European intelligence made clear that the would-be attackers were not rogue operatives. All those involved reported directly to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, who was put in charge so that the nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wouldn’t know about the operation, the intelligence report said.

        imo this is just bullshit and the pentagon is just trying to throw the Ukrainian government under the bus to save face that the US committed an act of war against a fellow NATO member - the Hersh theory seems a lot more likely since it’s not just uncritically repeating the current public line of the Pentagon. Still the article illustrates how it was very definitely either the US or a close US ally who did the bombing