EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1353
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Deleted User 173346
16169 Posts
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Just_a_Moth
Canada1971 Posts
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Dav1oN
Ukraine3164 Posts
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Just_a_Moth
Canada1971 Posts
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Oukka
Finland1683 Posts
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Yurie
12166 Posts
On February 28 2022 06:01 Oukka wrote: Re: the figther jets, I'm going off of no actual knowledge here, but I'd guestimate that a pilot can spend more time in the air than a plane can. So just more planes means more flight time even if the number of pilots stays the same. I don't really know. A quick search for ratios: There are 12,500 active duty pilots in the USAF, and the service counts just over 5,000 manned aircraft. This will give an overall, rough, ballpark figure of 2.5 pilots per aircraft across the entire force. Others said a ratio of 3. Then some smaller examples included around a 1:1 ratio. So I guess short term it could be true. Damages to the planes will likely add up and maintenance can probably be hard to keep up in an active war footing. So having a new plane to slot in instead of finding parts (assuming the planes are at secondary or tertiary bases) and performing advanced maintenance would help regardless. At a certain point you run out of pilots, assuming you keep "buying" air planes to replace loses. Drones seem more worthwhile from an expertise perspective. You don't lose the pilot. | ||
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Zaros
United Kingdom3692 Posts
On February 28 2022 05:49 plasmidghost wrote: I believe that too. Putin would absolutely consider that a severe escalation The fighter jets themselves seem fairly provocative but i'm all for it drive Putin out of Ukraine. Need to have some serious thinking about what happens if the Ukrainians do start to force all of the russians out of Ukraine, what is Putin likely to do next? Nukes? He seems increasingly deranged. Do the Ukrainians march on Crimea, they would be justified but it has a holy significance for Russia as well as Ukraine, could end up with an even more dangerous situation. Maybe a coup is the best we can hope for in Russia. | ||
Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37116 Posts
We will be monitoring this thread very closely so please think very carefully before you post. | ||
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whaski
Finland577 Posts
On February 28 2022 05:19 Legan wrote: According to Bellingcat's executive director, there was an essay posted yesterday that got deleted shortly afterwards. The essay seemed to be meant to be posted after Russian forces had successfully taken Kyiv. https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498025819054264328?cxt=HHwWkMC-kfWih8opAAAA "The Ukrainian question"... It is like attempt to get in historybooks as the most foul regime IF this stuff is real. And preplanned war explained... | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
On February 28 2022 01:17 Jerubaal wrote: What was his objective anyway? Seems like he got a lot just by annexing those two eastern provinces. That's the strange thing. Ukraine still have control over most of those two provinces. The areas of the separatist areas in those two eastern provinces that Putin has claimed he recognises as independent provinces have not been invaded yet at all. From that it is clear that Putin intends to simply take over the whole of Ukraine, with a very high priority on Kyiv, but not much on simply occupying those two provinces. On February 28 2022 06:01 Oukka wrote: It can be very physically demanding. Flying a mission can require quite significant time of briefing and debriefing. Re: the figther jets, I'm going off of no actual knowledge here, but I'd guestimate that a pilot can spend more time in the air than a plane can. So just more planes means more flight time even if the number of pilots stays the same. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
IPCC report WG2 just got posted today. for a quick and dirty TLDR of the 3,600 pages I'd personally recommend carbon brief's QnA. Not because I can attest it's good - haven't read the whole report for obvious reasons - but because I appreciate their previous work and think it's at least gonna be a good starting point. Thanks to Putin, Germany at least might be closer to pushing though a significant increase in transmission lines as well as renewable power generation for synthetic fuel production (H2 and maybe even CH4 from CCS CO2?!) in times of excess production. Although I've read that hydrolysis is not that flexible as a scaled up process. Definitely a gap in my knowledge. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Russian aggression in Ukraine has pushed the Finnish public closer than ever to NATO. Finnish political parties will gather on Tuesday to discuss Russia’s attack on Ukraine and Finland’s role in Europe’s new power balance. Finland’s potential NATO membership will also be on the table, Prime Minister Sanna Marin told reporters Monday. The mood in Helsinki is tense: Finland has Europe’s longest border with Russia at over 1,300 kilometers, but is not a part of the military alliance. The country is a close ally of NATO, but there has been little appetite to join the club — until now. “It is very understandable that many Finns have changed or are changing their minds after Russia started waging war on Ukraine,” Marin said. Finns are evaluating “what is the line that Russia has crossed, and what is the line that Russia will not cross … And if Russia does cross some line, do we face it alone or together with others,” Marin said. She did not comment on her personal position on NATO. A survey by the Finnish broadcasting company Yle found that 53 percent of Finns support their country joining NATO. This figure goes up to 66 percent if neighboring Sweden were also to join NATO. This marks a drastic shift in public attitudes — in the previous poll in 2017, only 19 percent of Finns supported NATO membership. A citizens’ initiative to hold a referendum on whether Finland should join NATO gathered the required 50,000 signatures in less than a week, which forces parliament to debate it. In a move premier Marin called “historic,” Finland announced it is offering Ukraine weapons. “Finland staunchly supports Ukrainian independence and sovereignty. Finland will offer weapons to Ukraine and the aid will be delivered quickly. This decision will not endanger national defense,” Marin said. Source | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
The two problems with renewable energy are always going to be geography and consistency. Geographically - you don't want to put solar panels where there's a lot of cloud cover on a regular basis or windmills in places that aren't windy. And you'd better hope those power sources are close to places that use a lot of power, or else power transmission becomes expensive. On consistency - sunny days (or months) and hurricane-level winds produce more power than wintry and windless ones. Batteries are garbage at scale, so something like hydrogen might be good, but that's absurdly inefficient to make greenly (via electrolysis). To be fair it sounds like these are the exact problems they're trying to solve, but if the technology (in the sense of efficient engineering design, not basic science) isn't there in 2022 then the large-scale infrastructure won't be in 2035. Also remember that there's four energy sources at play here that have various priorities to get rid of - coal, Russian gas, LNG, and nuclear. Russian gas is at least in the top two (competing w/ nuclear) among those options. Is the strategy going to be "more emphasis on renewable energy so we can shed Russian gas, but keep dirtier fuels?" If so, the real strategy is you're keeping more coal up and running. LNG as an alternative to Russian gas is an option, and Europe is definitely going to push more towards that (as they already have) but the price difference is substantial, and you need many years to make that happen at a large scale even if you're willing to dump hundreds of billions in extra expenditure. I can say this pretty confidently because this is exactly what was said in 2014, and it turns out that when you make stupid transition plans you win stupid prizes as happened in the 2021-present time period. Which means not just gas but desperately backtracking on coal as well. In the long run you can and do want to avoid dependence on a single supplier, but the only way to be both green and Russia-free in the short term (5 years absolute minimum, but realistically more like 15-20) is to decide that you don't really want to have an economy. It's currently in the interest of all involved that "the gas must flow." Maybe not the US since they want to sell overpriced LNG, but really no one else. And yes, the truth here is quite an ugly one but that's commodities for you. You will find that even in wartime, Ukraine and Russia cooperated to make sure that more gas flows through than it did in the prewar days. | ||
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emperorofwild
87 Posts
I think this war tells them that Russia is not that strong. Big win for anglo saxon‘s old tricks！ | ||
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whaski
Finland577 Posts
On March 01 2022 11:27 emperorofwild wrote: I think this war tells them that Russia is not that strong. Big win for anglo saxon‘s old tricks！ There are many reasons, but the biggest one is fear. We have seen how Russia has switched its goals to just shoot everything as possible. And given our history with "dear neighbour" many of us are absolutely terrified. Like our news analyzed, we have been absolutely naive about Russia and Putin. The whole diplomatic aproach with Russia has been a complete failure and we should have listened Baltic countries, Poland etc. when they warned us about Russia. | ||
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emperorofwild
87 Posts
On March 01 2022 11:52 whaski wrote: There are many reasons, but the biggest one is fear. We have seen how Russia has switched its goals to just shoot everything as possible. And given our history with "dear neighbour" many of us are absolutely terrified. Like our news analyzed, we have been absolutely naive about Russia and Putin. The whole diplomatic aproach with Russia has been a complete failure and we should have listened Baltic countries, Poland etc. when they warned us about Russia. My history knowledge，Finland has been peace with Russia after 1920s？ So what changed？ Answer1:Russia is much weaker than it was. they need Europes industry products just as Europe need their petroleum. It could be good for whole Europe. Answer2: NATO, which mainly controled by US expanded to the border of Rusia, that is Russian's "biggest fear". Its like someone having his dagger on your throat ,saying Im not gonna to stab you ,and i m not touching you ,so you can not fight back,i m just defending my self. And this world has no police ,or this dagger guy always say himself is the police. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
On March 01 2022 08:17 LegalLord wrote: It's cute, and accelerating transition to green is a good thing, but replacing natural gas with green energy on an accelerated schedule is a pipe dream (heh). I say this a lot, but the real solution to energy independence is not green energy, but coal and fracking. Saying "fuck the environment" is definitely a strategy, and it can get you energy independence, but if everybody does it we all lose. The two problems with renewable energy are always going to be geography and consistency. Geographically - you don't want to put solar panels where there's a lot of cloud cover on a regular basis or windmills in places that aren't windy. And you'd better hope those power sources are close to places that use a lot of power, or else power transmission becomes expensive. On consistency - sunny days (or months) and hurricane-level winds produce more power than wintry and windless ones. Batteries are garbage at scale, so something like hydrogen might be good, but that's absurdly inefficient to make greenly (via electrolysis). To be fair it sounds like these are the exact problems they're trying to solve, but if the technology (in the sense of efficient engineering design, not basic science) isn't there in 2022 then the large-scale infrastructure won't be in 2035. Also remember that there's four energy sources at play here that have various priorities to get rid of - coal, Russian gas, LNG, and nuclear. Russian gas is at least in the top two (competing w/ nuclear) among those options. Is the strategy going to be "more emphasis on renewable energy so we can shed Russian gas, but keep dirtier fuels?" If so, the real strategy is you're keeping more coal up and running. LNG as an alternative to Russian gas is an option, and Europe is definitely going to push more towards that (as they already have) but the price difference is substantial, and you need many years to make that happen at a large scale even if you're willing to dump hundreds of billions in extra expenditure. I can say this pretty confidently because this is exactly what was said in 2014, and it turns out that when you make stupid transition plans you win stupid prizes as happened in the 2021-present time period. Which means not just gas but desperately backtracking on coal as well. In the long run you can and do want to avoid dependence on a single supplier, but the only way to be both green and Russia-free in the short term (5 years absolute minimum, but realistically more like 15-20) is to decide that you don't really want to have an economy. It's currently in the interest of all involved that "the gas must flow." Maybe not the US since they want to sell overpriced LNG, but really no one else. And yes, the truth here is quite an ugly one but that's commodities for you. You will find that even in wartime, Ukraine and Russia cooperated to make sure that more gas flows through than it did in the prewar days. SPM.D.5.3 The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (very high confidence) It's funny, but fuck the environment because it's complicated or too expensive is not an option. Suddenly your whole post is obsolete, albeit pointing out various challenges of building a sustainable energy supply that I wholeheartedly agree with. Though not with your delineation of the next steps. Importantly though is that I'm not talking about Germany only. It's been a huge mistake by government and people here to call ourselves the climate leader because we said no to nuclear and coal while sabotaging renewable energy and grid development. Albeit nuclear was a entirely non-clilmate related decision. Europe has a far superior energy grid connectedness in contrast to the US. By design and political decision. Even including the UK, meaning we can and have to do exactly what you deem too expensive. Build high capacity direct current power lines for shifting energy from cheap renewable production (north) to where we need it (cities, south). Hence we in Europe are intend on cooperation (the degree depending on subject of course), everyone can profit from the research that went into renewables while current existing power plants will have to be retrofited with CCS to support grid stability in the transition to different consumption patterns. That the challenges faced by humanity in this regard are unimaginable and hard to understand is perfectly underscored by your post. Purported realism that blinds from reality. Again, this report underscores that it is not a chioce. It's do or die. Literally. Playing Russian Roulette with one empty chamber only. Good fucking luck. I'll take expensive renewables and a cut to the amount of tech and flights I can consume. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18443 Posts
On March 01 2022 13:00 emperorofwild wrote: My history knowledge，Finland has been peace with Russia after 1920s？ So what changed？ Answer1:Russia is much weaker than it was. they need Europes industry products just as Europe need their petroleum. It could be good for whole Europe. Answer2: NATO, which mainly controled by US expanded to the border of Rusia, that is Russian's "biggest fear". Its like someone having his dagger on your throat ,saying Im not gonna to stab you ,and i m not touching you ,so you can not fight back,i m just defending my self. And this world has no police ,or this dagger guy always say himself is the police. While answer 2 is definitely what Russia wants you to believe, it just doesn't make any sense. NATO isn't holding a knife to Russia's throat. NATO's main and leading principle is that it's a military alliance to defend the countries together. Ukraine didn't want to join NATO because they want to invade Russia, but rather because Russia was getting increasingly pushy and menacing. Turns out actually joining NATO is pretty much the only thing that would have stopped Russia from invading here (well, I guess full capitulation to their demands and becoming another puppet state like Belarus would have worked too). So no, the right analog isn't that NATO has a knife to Russia's throat. It's that Russia is a particularly ill tempered man who keeps beating up his neighbours when they don't do as he tells them. It seems quite logical for his neighbours to want to join into an alliance that says "right, next time you punch me, we'll gang up on you". Oh, and did I mention he also has explosives to blow up everybody in the neighborhood if he felt his own life was in danger? So even if they do gang up and fight back, they can never get too vengeful or everybody dies. Finland was so far the hippy neighbour, smoking pot and asking why we can't all just be friends. He got punched a bit but justified it as just the cost of living. Now, however, he's seeing the other neighbor that didn't join the alliance get attacked with a chainsaw and is rapidly recalculating his options. | ||
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On March 01 2022 13:00 emperorofwild wrote: My history knowledge，Finland has been peace with Russia after 1920s？ So what changed？ Uhm? Is my understanding of the English language so bad? Or are you just ignoring the Finnish Winter War entirely? | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28894 Posts
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