Hey, just wait 25 years, and fusion will be cheaper than anything ;)

The problem is that even the theory behind that is wrong. In fission with a thorium breeder reactor you can in theory have zero cost fuel, even natural uranium would be even zero cost if you went with a fast breeder. With fusion you will need to continually breed the fuel.

In addition, the materials you need for a nuclear reactor are pretty simply and can be done with 1960s technology, while the materials for a fusion reactor are literally unknown.

So all the assumptions about fusion are just wrong, the increase in energy density of fusion over fission is pointless, unless maybe we want to travel do another star system.

I guess you're right. It's a pity that Elon Musk was incapable of aligning with the German Green movement. So many good things (e.g. large batteries on the German grid to buffer wind and sun) could have come out of that. The Green party actually helped create the right circumstances to build the German Tesla factory quite fast. He was not exactly grateful later on, supporting their political opponents :-D But I guess their extreme wokeism did not help either.

I agree on the problem of the mainstream having trouble to fix the system that feeds their corruption. I just fear that electing proven traitors such as AfD (partially financed by Russia and China, supported by Russian bots, now bootlicking the US admin) and BSW (directly controlled from Moscow) will only make a tough situation worse.

I have given them as examples, both having support from voters. There’s unfortunately no real alternative to mainstream parties at the moment from political point of view. Nobody really cares about cost of living and housing crisis, overcoming healthcare special interest group lobbies etc.

So true, unfortunately. I wonder why that is the case. Maybe the majority of voters (pensionists, state employees, ...) is just not affected by these problems (yet)?

Most people have a vested interest in one party remaining in power, one that addresses their personal concerns over everything else. The ruling coalition just passed a pension reform that supports the older generation but is hostile to the young. Trade unions will support the SPD no matter what, because additional bureaucracy "benefits" workers. CDU is strongly influenced by business lobbies (and FDP too). Greens are feel-good choice for voters alarmed by climate change and as such are highly unstable (their pro-war stance could be probably a good idea, if Ukraine was winning, but now it looks detached from reality). The main problem is that German politics have professionalized, with careers starting straight from university, and became as opportunistic as product management in scale-ups. People understand that their political future isn’t tied to a decade-long housing program, so that is off the table.

spot on

Merkel dumped nuclear after Fukushima simply to improve her electoral calculus. As in everything she did, there were no long-term concerns. Yet to her defence it has to be stated that nuclear energy in Germany was just not economically feasible anymore at that time (when gas was still cheap, wind and sun cheaper, and burning coal was not yet frowned upon). Also, Germany had shut down their own uranium mining long ago.

That move reminds me of Cameron promising the Brexit referendum to placate Eurosceptics because he thought it would never happen.

France guarding the rest of Europe, that's funny! The connection had to be dropped because it did not have the capacity to supply Spain with enough power at that moment. And the connection is so small, because the French do not want competition from cheaper Spanish power generators.

I still do not understand how anybody can set up real-life CI on Github? Have they ever looked into real CI solutions?

Nonsense. Civilian nuclear plants are not needed for nuclear weapons. They are in-fact a terrible way to make nuclear weapons.

You must have dreamed this. There is no blockade against Kaliningrad. Especially no sea blockade. In fact, there is a EU treaty in place that ensures overland transport to Kaliningrad via Lithuania.

What in fact is in place is widespread GPS jamming done by the Russians from Kaliningrad, and that impacts ships sailing the baltic sea.

It's a scale between sanctions and other forms of blocking trade. Cutting off Kaliningrad will be a key part of punishing Russia as it moves more into Ukraine. There have been many instances of deliveries turned back through lithuania, sometimes causing massive disruptions to shipping to Kaliningrad. There has been a lot of threats from Russia that if the blockade gets to be fully enforced that they will respond militarily. Having total access to this port is going to be the next phase of the Russian war.

Regardless, without Kaliningrad being a factor, it is still Denmark's responsibility to control those waterways to deny Russia access to the North Atlantic. Having to reinforce Greenland is taking resources away from Denmark enforcing its area in the Baltic Sea.

There is a lot of information about it over the past few years from more international sources. And no, it's not imagined.

The really debatable issue is with the reported attempted agreement by the Trump admin and attempts by Russia to sort of trade Ukraine to Russia for Venezuela. If this turns out to be true, and you can find domestic reporting on this offer having been made a few years ago, then places like Kaliningrad, Estonia and other former Soviet Republics become the next targets.