The country in Europe that taxes wages the most and has no digital vision whatsoever (exaggerated of course) gets to do the project. The country where people still don’t see a need for fiber, protest against nuclear and wind energy (some even against solar), and little to no digital education. That’s the country this is going to?
The largest share of the aid, €495 million, will go to GlobalFoundries to support its “SPRINT” project in Dresden. The US-based pure-play foundry plans to expand and adapt its existing site to add new 300mm wafer manufacturing capacity.
Mind you, a major reason for why Saxony is full of Nazis and all educated people leave is because after the reunification all of the industry and related infrastructure was torn down with promises of being replaced, which then never happened. Most political parties have promised to do so and it barely happened.
What did happen was that the German solar panel industry made its home over there. And it flourished and did very well, employing tens of thousands of workers – until the conservative government (following “advice” from their coal buddies) not only axed subsidies but outright banned new installations at a time when the industry was running almost entirely on domestic sales. This instantly killed the entire industry, caused a wave of unemployment, gave Chinese manufacturers an inroad that ensures the German solar industry will never bounce back, and evaporated tax income that could’ve been used to pay for better infrastructure to attract more companies. And, of course, it didn’t endear the people over there to the major parties.
Getting tech companies to open factories or fabs in East Germany is something we’ve been trying to do for quite some time now. From the companies’ perspective there’s plenty of space in convenient locations and educated workers are easy to find in the area when there’s actual jobs for them. From the country’s perspective, reindustrializing the region gives us (besides tax income) a chance of snapping it out of the sense of doom and abandonment that makes it such an especially fertile ground for far-right influence. And this time the fabs won’t compete with coal or automotive so the conservatives won’t crony them out of existence.
It’s not even the first new fab near Dresden; ESMC (a joint venture between TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, and NXP) is currently building one intended to make 12-16 nm wafers. Not the most prestigious nodes but the kind of stuff that’s used in bulk by various industries.
Less so. The thing with solar was that the German companies were forcibly put out of business right when the Chinese companies had the tech figured out and were expanding aggressively.
As a result the Chinese now fill a mature market and any new company needs to fight to displace them. Also, they’ve had two decades to improve their products so any new German company world start with a market disadvantage and a tech disadvantage. And of course they have cheaper production costs so any new German product would be more expensive, to boot.
In comparison, while the German car industry is doing its best to avoid being competitive, they actually do still make at least some decent cars. They even noticed that there is a market for cars under 40,000 € – way too late but still in time to not entirely lose the segment.
Also, of course, the government is actually helping rather than harming them. In fact, it’s bending over backwards to fulfill their every wish, as per usual.
One of those is not like the others. There’s no future for nuclear energy. It’s an outdated, expensive, fossile fuel just like coal and gas and Germany is doing well in phasing it out!
Nuclear is the most expensive energy form
It’s only green if you ignore several key factors like water usage for cooling, dirty mining operations and long transport routes
Its a maintenance nightmare especially compared to distributed power production like solar and wind
Nuclear fuel recycling is as big a lie as plastics recycling
Fusion remains a pipe dream even after almost 100 years of continuous research and funding
Nuclear wins in one metric though: Space efficiency per kwh!
Although it’s debatable how important that really is when we can use solar panels to provide shaded parking and place wind turbines on the open sea where there’s plenty of space…
This anti-nuclear argument is bullshit considering the context. Germany dicomissioned perfectly fine and working nuclear stations without having any better alternative essentially bringing back the worst coal mining and processing to compensate and creating a disastrous overall net loss in terms of environmental impact and energy generation efficiency. It’s a moot point now since they fucked themselves years ago, it’s no longer feasible to fix this and renewable sources are slowly overtaking coal.
Lol, what are you talking about? Most of the german nuclear power plants were built before 1980 and would not have met modern safety and operational requirements. Only three can be considered “perfectly fine and working”, but tbh. even the owners don’t know whether they would have passed the mandatory inspections in 2019 and 2039.
In some parts of Dresden the SPD, Left and Green party each had more votes than AfD. There are urban areas with a high percentage of AfD, but Dresden also has villages.
The country in Europe that taxes wages the most and has no digital vision whatsoever (exaggerated of course) gets to do the project. The country where people still don’t see a need for fiber, protest against nuclear and wind energy (some even against solar), and little to no digital education. That’s the country this is going to?
Lol, also in one of the most racist places in the country (declared Nazi emergency in 2019, exodus of skilled foreign workers from Eastern Germany 2024) for a USAian company.
Chip sovereignty is critical but this isn’t the place to do it.
Mind you, a major reason for why Saxony is full of Nazis and all educated people leave is because after the reunification all of the industry and related infrastructure was torn down with promises of being replaced, which then never happened. Most political parties have promised to do so and it barely happened.
What did happen was that the German solar panel industry made its home over there. And it flourished and did very well, employing tens of thousands of workers – until the conservative government (following “advice” from their coal buddies) not only axed subsidies but outright banned new installations at a time when the industry was running almost entirely on domestic sales. This instantly killed the entire industry, caused a wave of unemployment, gave Chinese manufacturers an inroad that ensures the German solar industry will never bounce back, and evaporated tax income that could’ve been used to pay for better infrastructure to attract more companies. And, of course, it didn’t endear the people over there to the major parties.
Getting tech companies to open factories or fabs in East Germany is something we’ve been trying to do for quite some time now. From the companies’ perspective there’s plenty of space in convenient locations and educated workers are easy to find in the area when there’s actual jobs for them. From the country’s perspective, reindustrializing the region gives us (besides tax income) a chance of snapping it out of the sense of doom and abandonment that makes it such an especially fertile ground for far-right influence. And this time the fabs won’t compete with coal or automotive so the conservatives won’t crony them out of existence.
It’s not even the first new fab near Dresden; ESMC (a joint venture between TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, and NXP) is currently building one intended to make 12-16 nm wafers. Not the most prestigious nodes but the kind of stuff that’s used in bulk by various industries.
Are we watching in slow motion over the last decade(?) the same scenario play out with automotive industry?
Less so. The thing with solar was that the German companies were forcibly put out of business right when the Chinese companies had the tech figured out and were expanding aggressively.
As a result the Chinese now fill a mature market and any new company needs to fight to displace them. Also, they’ve had two decades to improve their products so any new German company world start with a market disadvantage and a tech disadvantage. And of course they have cheaper production costs so any new German product would be more expensive, to boot.
In comparison, while the German car industry is doing its best to avoid being competitive, they actually do still make at least some decent cars. They even noticed that there is a market for cars under 40,000 € – way too late but still in time to not entirely lose the segment.
Also, of course, the government is actually helping rather than harming them. In fact, it’s bending over backwards to fulfill their every wish, as per usual.
One of those is not like the others. There’s no future for nuclear energy. It’s an outdated, expensive, fossile fuel just like coal and gas and Germany is doing well in phasing it out!
Nuclear wins in one metric though: Space efficiency per kwh! Although it’s debatable how important that really is when we can use solar panels to provide shaded parking and place wind turbines on the open sea where there’s plenty of space…
This anti-nuclear argument is bullshit considering the context. Germany dicomissioned perfectly fine and working nuclear stations without having any better alternative essentially bringing back the worst coal mining and processing to compensate and creating a disastrous overall net loss in terms of environmental impact and energy generation efficiency. It’s a moot point now since they fucked themselves years ago, it’s no longer feasible to fix this and renewable sources are slowly overtaking coal.
Lol, what are you talking about? Most of the german nuclear power plants were built before 1980 and would not have met modern safety and operational requirements. Only three can be considered “perfectly fine and working”, but tbh. even the owners don’t know whether they would have passed the mandatory inspections in 2019 and 2039.
In some parts of Dresden the SPD, Left and Green party each had more votes than AfD. There are urban areas with a high percentage of AfD, but Dresden also has villages.
Good job, Europe!