I work with some germans and they work from home all the time.
On the plus side, the tax return of work commute by car increases labour supply and enables people to live further from the high density areas, not everyone can wfh.
With electric vehicles, maybe they are good enough even from an environmental perspective.
At least where I live, the 150 minutes before time is a side effect of Covid. A lot of airport staff were let go and restaffing with security clearances takes a while.
This summer was exceptional, it will go back to normal like 60 minutes for domestic travel and maybe 90 minutes for international travel.
Break even, time wise, here is around 500 km and then train is the better choice.
But there are a lot of destinations that can only be served realistically by airplanes and that is not likely to change much during my life time.
Last one was connected in 2009 which isn't that recent but there are also not that many projects of this size. China and Russia might not be the most thrustworthy and I would rather see more more western examples but then we have to go back a couple of decades, most of which were excellent.
I agree that a gigantic shift is required and put my hopes into mass produced SMRs. It's gonna take time and money, yes, just like the shift to EVs and renewables.
Fossil fuels is still above 80% of global primary energy, nuclear 5% and renewables excluding hydro 2%.
I really don't think putting all eggs in the solar/wind basket is good. They should of course also get heavy investments but that doesn't have to exclude nuclear. We're gonna need everything we have to end the fossil era.
Something like this. The project started in 2000, construction began in 2005 and should have been completed in 2010. Original cost was 3 billion euro but landed on over 10 billion euro.
It is the first nuclear reactor in Europe for 15 years so not much working experience or available sub contractors.
Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that.
If nuclear energy should be considered, much more must be built more continuously.
There was a military exercise with Sweden and Finland in that region at that time, they could have just wanted to have a little look and see and their signal recon from a distance probably sucks like everything else.
It's of course provocative but still less than 2013 when 4 fighter jets and 2 bombers flew in attack formation against Sweden in a simulated nuclear attack.
Almost everyone does it, but it's for living expenses, books and such, not for tuition.
Currently, a university student borrows around $800 and gets around $300 each month. Then you are supposed to pay back what you borrowed during 25 years starting 6 months after you stopped borrowing.
It really is a great system imho.
edit: Had to check, apparently only 70% takes student loans.
At the same time the US government can borrow at around 1%. Why not consider education an investment in society and let students borrow at this rate as well?
My swedish student loan has 0.05% interest rate this year.
On the plus side, the tax return of work commute by car increases labour supply and enables people to live further from the high density areas, not everyone can wfh.
With electric vehicles, maybe they are good enough even from an environmental perspective.