Re. German percentage of university students -- I suspect that this is where the previous poster's point about work-based training comes in, technical education etc. If we had better programs for that here than the existing ones, we might see a lower percentage opting to go to university. Nonetheless, the Germans are showing that free university tuition can be done.
It can be done to an extent, but the political climate there currently is that it can't cope as a free service. I agree that more technical and job-based solutions are required for those that are not academic types. I've made this point before, but when I used to employ people for our office staff I used to insist on graduate candidates only. That guaranteed that those who turned up were of a minimum level of ability/effort/intelligence and we could ignore all previous qualifications. Since around the turn of the century that's been an entirely pointless stipulation - we've had graduate candidates turn up who would surprise me if they tied their own shoelaces unassisted.
The system of grammar schools was a much better alternative. I know the age and method of seeding has its detractors and I'm not convinced I know the answer to that problem, but taking non-academic kids to a school where they learn the skills they will use in life and pushing the rest to be the best they can be makes far more sense than the current system of "deferred success" and everyone being equal regardless of ability.
In France, I assume it was the 'public sector socialists' who decided to have a massive nuclear power program, so I don't think our experts on energy should be less pragmatic or more left-wing than their French counterparts.
I wouldn't hold the French up as a successful economy but they do lead the world in Nuclear technology. I suspect it's something to do with the heavy science/maths leaning in their schools.
It's not the experts on energy I'm concerned about, it's the politicians all having a race towards Greenpeace to chase easy votes.
Also, I think trying to move us towards green energy, where possible, should be a priority and in view of climate change and energy security (north sea oil eventually going, middle-east general instability) is as much an issue of pragmatism as idealism.
If nuclear power didn't exist I'd agree. Realistically though, storage technology is so far off being viable that wind/solar power in this country is next to pointless. Shale gas will probably get us through the development cycle of nuclear plants but that's the way we need to head.
It's worth mentioning that the German government is to completely phase out nuclear power by 2022, with much increased investment in renewables. I think in the short term, it means they are using more coal, until they have invested enough in renewable energy. Currently, renewables provide 26% of their electricity and they are pushing that number higher and higher. For some perspective, they got 6.3% of their electricity from renewables in the year 2000. Their government's goal is to get 80% of their electricity from renewable energy by 2050.
I've just been reading up on this. I genuinely didn't realise how stupid people leading countries around the world are.
Yet again, it's the same misunderstanding of statistics that leads people to be scared of flying but happy to drive causing really bad decisions. I didn't realise how far the contagion of stupidity had spread.
An unpredictable source like wind or solar will not and cannot make up such a large proportion of the power generated without better storage technology (technology that is currently far, far more dangerous and expensive than nuclear). Those wind farms and solar panels that Germany are building will, at times, produce a combined energy output of 0GWh. Which means that the entire energy requirements of Germany will need to be fulfilled by another form of energy. This means that there still needs to be either coal or gas power stations running in the background (because shutting down and starting up are prohibitively expensive), chucking all that lovely CO2 into the air.
If they have the right terrain, space and money they may have pumped some water up a mountain which will provide a trickle but that seems to be fairly unrealistic as a main power source. Roughly that means to produce 1GW you'd need to release 3.6 million cubic metres of water down a 100m drop every hour. That obviously assumes no losses which is impossible.
Can they achieve a target of 80% produced by renewables? Possibly - sounds like an outside estimate but not too unreasonable. Does this mean that their CO2 output drops to 20% of a 100% fossil fuel output? Not even close. They're also buying in a lot of biomass it seems. That's concerning for a country that seems to be nothing but forest when you fly in and out. Their CO2 output ramped up heavily when they started this program and saw a slight drop last year (although that was more consumption-based than production-based).
Obviously I'm not saying that this technology won't improve, but the time scales of a realistic (ignoring what people say to win votes), 100% renewable, energy system with no need for a fossil fuel backup are long. And all of this because people don't properly understand risk.
Again though, these aren't pipe dreams, but reality in comparable nations. Nothing is perfect but there are different ways of doing things and, in those areas we've been discussing, I don't think Corbyn is being particularly outlandish or unrealistic.
Unless they're properly costed and realistic then they're pipe dreams. At the moment he's a small step from the likes of Russell Brand - telling the world what they want without the slightest inkling of how they'd actually get it.
