It's about time they admitted to something that was obvious to almost everyone: nuclear power is the only effective path to carbon-free base load power generation. Wind and solar make good intermittent sources, but base load has to be utterly reliable regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. That's nuclear.
Getting rid of the nukes was a knee-jerk reaction, not a smart technological decision. The pivot to depending on oil and gas from a potential hostile neighbor just added to the
The mistake was not investing more heavily in renewables. We well as putting Europe in this situation with gas and oil supplies, it allowed China to get ahead with some of the technology and all of the manufacturing.
I would say the issue was simply lack of common sense. They should have kept nuclear, increased renewable's so they could decrease their dependence on fossils.
It wasn't a momentary, passing thing. Activism in the west against civil nuclear power, especially in Europe, has been heavily driven by Russian intelligence for decades precisely because - surprise! - kneecapping European energy independence serves Russian goals and makes the Russian petrol empire more money. European energy policy was under sustained attack, and once bad actors got into various drivers seats, the Euros were too proud and arrogant to listen to anybody trying to send up warnings. Now they'r
It's about time they admitted to something that was obvious to almost everyone: nuclear power is the only effective path to carbon-free base load power generation. Wind and solar make good intermittent sources, but base load has to be utterly reliable regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. That's nuclear.
Getting rid of the nukes was a knee-jerk reaction, not a smart technological decision. The pivot to depending on oil and gas from a potential hostile neighbor just added to the
The mistake was not investing more heavily in renewables. We well as putting Europe in this situation with gas and oil supplies, it allowed China to get ahead with some of the technology and all of the manufacturing.
I would say the issue was simply lack of common sense. They should have kept nuclear, increased renewable's so they could decrease their dependence on fossils.
Yeah, this is the tyranny of Jevon's Paradox: You make something more efficient, but end up using more of it because of those efficiency gains.
So as you point out, you can't expect to solve an energy crisis by (only) optimizing energy consumption.
It wasn't a momentary, passing thing. Activism in the west against civil nuclear power, especially in Europe, has been heavily driven by Russian intelligence for decades precisely because - surprise! - kneecapping European energy independence serves Russian goals and makes the Russian petrol empire more money. European energy policy was under sustained attack, and once bad actors got into various drivers seats, the Euros were too proud and arrogant to listen to anybody trying to send up warnings. Now they'r