interesting vid, wonder if anything’s changed in the last 18 months, and if there’s any worthwhile left criticism of this perspective
@bashful228
7 months ago (edited)
33:32 you failed to define the corporate status of EDF. I’m not pretending it isn’t or can’t be a monopoly/oligarchy due to its size but it’s been variously publicly funded, gifted to the private sector to profit from ( because as we are told all the time by the renter class “ the private sector does everything better”) then EDF went bankrupt building nuclear power plants both in France and elsewhere, got bailed out by the public purse again, this happened a few times and most recently the state has renationalised it.At least be clear with your listeners what the history is before you jump into polemics. I’m also critical of markets for nautical power grids. But you need to be clear in presenting the history of EDF as a State Owned Entity/Government Trading Enterprise and as a privatised monopolistic corporation (there’s no comparable energy trading entity in France).
okay this inspired me to look into the history more. france was forced to open up the electricity market to “market competition” in 99, and by 2004 EDF was even officially privatized, at the EU’s insistence (though the french state retained majority ownership). and it was fully renationalized last year after let’s just say: a tumultuous run, on the private market.
not sure what the takeaways are exactly but surprise surprise the previously healthy edf was cannibalized heavily during the privatization years.
I wish that commenter spelled out their perspective more clearly. but it seems to me that EU neolibs are the reason for a lot of the nonsensical policies applied to EDF throughout the last 25 years
Yeah, I was re-reading the comment and realized it comes off as pro-market by the end although I think they’re just a bad writer. Them mentioning the rentier class and “the private sector does everything better” puts them definitely DemSoc and left, I think.
Overall it made me skeptical of the guy in the video’s presentation though. Shoulda’ knew the EU would be a major problem like this. Thanks for the response.
yeah I’m skeptical of the guy as well (see my other top level comment). He’s definitely a liberal, not even a demsoc or anything, though he does see some of the reality of the sheer effectiveness of central planning. He covers the topics pretty well but its a bit weird that as a medical doctor he has this whole side biz as a pro-nuclear podcaster, and some of his guests are straight up right wing while others definitely seem to lean left
I watched two of his more recent podcasts now too, no big news out of france in those besides the renationalization of EDF.
it seems like the canadian host is a bit of a renewable skeptic which I find interesting. he had a guy that is definitely just a texas oil man on one week and the next a passionate nerd talking next gen reactors and history and minutiae and about saving the climate with nuclear power.
I’m sympathetic to the perspective that pursuing renewables at the point of exclusion of nuclear energy is a mistake and that there are and will continue to be some downsides and constraints to renewables, and perhaps even that capitalists like renewables because they operate on a shorter lifecycle with lower upfront investment and great profits (with sufficient government subsidy at least).
But I feel like they took it a bit far and it seems like the host has become a bit of a climate doomer, believing we cant ditch fossil fuels in any reasonable amount of time, even while understanding that we have to. I guess the missing ingredient is global communism lol, but he doesn’t see it that way, and that’s just a whole other topic to be doomer about tbf.