VW considers German factory closures for first time in 87-year history

[STDOUBT]

So they've persuaded the EPA to de-emphasize hydro even though it's as green as wind and solar.

Greener. By far! Nice side benefit, is Hydro doesn't kill birds. Wind and solar do. EPA needs an enema. Fingers crossed.

 

[oilhammer]

Hydro just kills fish. There's no perfect solution.

 

[prsa01]

A lot of the policy decisions that decide where our electricity comes from are the work of powerful lobbying groups. For example, the Sierra Club is still hurting from a battle they lost a century ago to stop a dam from being built... So they've persuaded the EPA to de-emphasize hydro even though it's as green as wind and solar. Coal has a powerful lobby even thought it can't compete on a cost basis with natural gas, never mind how dirty coal is... So whole fleets of dirty old coal plants will still be alive and belching for decades. As for Artificial Intelligence and it's appetite for power and lots of it, the same millionaire and billionaire investors who suckered for EVs and self driving cars are pushing AI... Which is really dirty as hell, but they can buy off the politicians with just their petty cash!

The PNW might disagree with the idea that hydro is as green as wind/solar where they are (at least considering) removing the dams after destroying a multi-billion dollar salmon fishery. As with many human endeavors, the law of unintended consequences tends to bite us on the backsides. Who knows, 50 years from now we may be looking at issues from today's "green" alternatives we didn't anticipate.

 

[oilhammer]

Yep, we've been fighting the nuisance plant multiflora rose for years here, because it was a "better" alternative to using barbed wire...now decades later they've realized that not only does it not stop cattle, but it chokes out every other native plant and nothing eats it.

 

[TurboABA]

No industry is accountable for anything they do.... and the bigger they are\get, the more stuff they get away with.
It's the rest of us peeons that get to suffer.

 

[prsa01]

Yep, we've been fighting the nuisance plant multiflora rose for years here, because it was a "better" alternative to using barbed wire...now decades later they've realized that not only does it not stop cattle, but it chokes out every other native plant and nothing eats it.

oilhammer

Buckthorn, kudzu, elm bark beetle, ash borer, rats/cats/mongoose in Hawaii. The list is endless. Many certainly were not purposely introduced by humans but all introduced nonetheless.

 

[turbodieseldyke]

An unmentionable species of mammal in the entire western hemisphere...

 

[prsa01]

Yep, I wasn't going to step into that particular minefield

 

[DS4465]

Here is a 44 minute video that I find quite interesting. It is very recent, in German with English subtitles. The story of VW`s bad decisions, the EV mishaps, the people working for them, and the German (and European) view of where VW ended in 2024.

I hope some of you find it interesting as well.

The VW crisis

My regards,
DS4465. _

EDIT: Knowledge is power, me thinks.

 

[TurboABA]

Good watch.... big eye opener (or at least it should be).... if a relatively "small, concentrated and very organized" country like Germany is finding it difficult to implement\deploy\force feed EVs onto it's population, how does NA even dream up their "vision"?

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

The EV evangelists and the politicians and automakers they conned failed to recognize the inertia of big systems- Like the century of engine and infrastructure development the IC engine has benefitted from. There is simply no way the EV can duplicate that, even in a decade or three.

 

[TurboABA]

 

[Nuje]

The PNW might disagree with the idea that hydro is as green as wind/solar where they are (at least considering) removing the dams after destroying a multi-billion dollar salmon fishery. As with many human endeavors, the law of unintended consequences tends to bite us on the backsides. Who knows, 50 years from now we may be looking at issues from today's "green" alternatives we didn't anticipate.

Nuclear power is one of those things where I wonder ...50-100years from now, will the people then look back at the late-20th/early-21st century and ask "wait - you mean, they HAD power generators that used relatively little fuel and very little carbon footprint and....they just turned their back on it?!"

I know there are issues (as there are with anything looking to provide power for millions), but the "loss of life per gigawatt generated" is nowhere close to what coal...and the world seems fine paying that price for coal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[turbodieseldyke]

Nuclear power is one of those things where I wonder ...50-100years from now, will the people then look back at the late-20th/early-21st century and ask "wait - you mean, they HAD power generators that used relatively little fuel and very little carbon footprint and....they just turned their back on it?!"

Someone somewhere posted a great analogy. It's like cavemen collectively agreeing to ban fire because one time it got out of control and burnt a forest.

 

[Steve Addy]

Nuclear power is one of those things where I wonder ...50-100years from now, will the people then look back at the late-20th/early-21st century and ask "wait - you mean, they HAD power generators that used relatively little fuel and very little carbon footprint and....they just turned their back on it?!"

I know there are issues (as there are with anything looking to provide power for millions), but the "loss of life per gigawatt generated" is nowhere close to what coal...and the world seems fine paying that price for coal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They used 'relatively' little fuel, but what was done with the expended fuel afterwards I think was the big problem people had with it. In Europe the spent fuel was processed, in the US it was not, so you had disposal issues and that's where NIMBY comes in.

Aside from that greenies didn't want to include nuclear as 'clean' because it wasn't wind or solar, and that's all they want, which is ridiculous.

I'm not inclined in one direction or another, but I can tell you that we cannot power the US satisfactorily with wind / solar and the amount of coal they want us to use now. Having said that it's much more likely that we'll see the expansion of nat gas power plants before we see nuclear facilities coming back on line even, let alone new nuclear power plants, which is fine, we're overflowing with nat gas right now.

As for the EPA and dieselgate etc. Now that SCOTUS has eliminated Chevron deference I'm encouraged about whether we might get another TDI back in the US. I'm further encouraged by the idea that the new admin wants to go through the administrative state with a machete, that would make me all warm and fuzzy too. Been a long time coming IMO.

Steve