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Comment by valyagolev | Hacker News Reader

Nord Stream 2 and the new German cabinet are much more important parts of the equation than the article seems to allow. German is the main Russian trade partner in the west, if Germany stops that, Russian stance will have to change too. i’d expect that the threat of cancelling the project would seem more credible to Putin than of a real war. but it’d be hardly good news for us, who live in Germany and already pay a lot of money for utilities

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and on that note the most worrisome part for me, long term, is the continuing refusal of Germany to embrace nuclear energy. without it, Germany will be dependent on the natural gas for longer, and thus locked in this particular relationship

I am honestly surprised how there isn't a push for bigger energy independence. For how long will the dependency on russian gas is sustainable (politically speaking)

there’s such a call… but it’s dominated by petty local prejudices and weird beliefs, like all politics is. germans want to go all wind and solar, but they also don’t want any of this stuff near their homes, and they don’t want nuclear because it’s so dangerous, etc etc

Nuclear energy plants are dangerous especially if you think about who is going to build them.

The same people who built the Berlin airport would also build the power plants.

there are already six built in germany. and a nuclear plant is not an architectural passion project. the same people who built a lot of quite well executed german infrastructure would build them

>there are already six built in germany. and a nuclear plant is not an architectural passion project. the same people who built a lot of quite well executed german infrastructure would build them That was some time a go, nowadays the execution is not quite so well, not to mention cost explosion, massive schedule overrun, just look at Stuttgart 21

The international companies that build airports are absolutely not the same companies that build nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power plant construction is not a huge industry, and there are only a few companies globally that do it.

The former Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder, started the phaseout of nuclear energy.

Now he’s the chairman of the board of Rosneft and the chairman of the shareholders committee of Nord Stream. You figure it out.

one of his many sins... i always reflexively considered this Merkel's blunder as well

I have often thought of the western anti-nuclear movement being supported/amplified by Russian/Soviet influence campaigns.

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