It's not as though Germany could have 'decided' in the 1970s to have 2022 technology. Sure, increased investment at the time may have sped up the development of renewables, but it still wouldn't be fast. Science doesn't quite work that way.
But here we are, instead. Thank Reagan. And Bush. And Bush, again.
US spent $5T trashing Iraq and Afghanistan. That would have paid for completely switching over to renewables, several time over.
This seems to be implying that basically all the research was done between the 2000's and now, and that scientists had been twiddling their thumbs between 1970 and 2000. Actually, scientific advances between 1970 and 2000 were critical to enable the renewables boom that we experienced since 2000.
Could it have gone faster if more funds had been made available? Maybe. But claiming that we "lost" 30 years in research on that topic simply shows ignorance about the way research works.
> US spent $5T trashing Iraq and Afghanistan. That would have paid for completely switching over to renewables, several time over.
Yeah, and if the Romans hadn't spent so much time fighting with their neighbours, we would all be eating free lunches now.
I shudder to think what failure looks like to you.
Operating the wind farms is much cheaper than operating the nukes and mining the extra coal would have been. That opex savings goes to more capex wind generation capacity, further reducing costs by each GW displaced.
So, yes, success. Not being off coal already is not failure. Replacing an entire country's energy infrastructure takes time, no matter what.
Looks at France
Sure.
