It's not like other forms of power generation don't have similar problems. Solar PV cells lose efficiency and need to be replaced. Nuclear has very long term storage concerns. Coal and natural gas plants have finite expected lifetimes before the whole plant needs to shut down.

I spent a good chunk of my life in the Pacific Northwest. You get very long stretches of cloudy skies through most of the winter that are poor for solar. However, there are alternatives in that region like hydro that may be more suitable choices.

Can you point to large scale solar or wind projects that were shoved into places that have extended periods of low sunlight or wind?

Are you saying that they chose bad locations inside of Germany for wind and solar or that Germany doesn't have any viable locations and they shouldn't build wind and solar in Germany at all?

germany is producing tons of solar energy though?

can you be more specific and give 10 examples of german solar plants that produce ~0W electricity in a year?

they might be a lot more productive than you think

Without that solar / wind, Europe would be paying 100 million euros per day more for LNG. Electricity in Europe is expensive enough already, making it even more expensive by shunning the cheapest available form would be even harder on industry.

And if Germany did not phase out nuclear, EU would not have relied on russian LNG for so long.

But we live in an imperfect world.

Prematurely phasing out 10GW of nuclear electricity is a drop in the bucket compared to LNG usage. A mistake, but a minor one.

Axing the whole nuclear generation was a disaster.How many GW were not even planned, not to mention built in all those years? And don't try to slide out on "nuclear build-out takes too much time". It does not if there is a will.

The $1.3 million doesn't mean much. The article stated he could've switched to a significantly cheaper option and cut the bill to $300k. That's still a lot but since he worked for the company that sells the tokens it isn't as though they were paying the retail cost.

You're looking at students at a top tier university in a field that pays extremely well. The numbers are going to be at the high end for what a grad student can make. A quick search for PhD salaries suggests that $20-35k/year is more common.

The median wage number you cited is also for the total population. According to this graph the median wage for college graduates is around $7k/mo. I'm fortunate to make very good money but I'd still notice a $2k/mo pay cut.

There's another relevant saying about apples you should check out.

Are you seriously trying to equate people exercising their right to peacefully protest to the power to detain and shoot people?

> You can not have a for-profit system and a government subsidized one

Have you told Australia? They seem to think they've been able to do this for a while now.

> Democrats advocate for things like healthcare and cancelling student loans -- never happens

Democrats passed the ACA under Obama. Republicans have been trying to get it repealed with only moderate success ever since.

Biden announced student loan forgiveness in 2023. The Supreme Court struck it down in 2023.

Democrats have been able to get done at least some of the things they said they would.

You have to replace everything you own on some cadence. Eventually I'll need to replace the battery on my solar system. I'll also need to replace the panels at some point and even the roof the system is installed on.

My solar system uses a Tesla powerwall. I'd expect its real world performance over time to be about the same as what you see in batteries for Tesla vehicles.