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Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis
- ZeroGravitas 7mo agoAny money spent on blunting short term spikes in fossil fuels should be added back to fossil fuels over time. And windfall profits should be automatically seized. Otherwise you are just incentivising wars.
- mesk 7mo agoOnly Europe ? What a fantastic news ! /s
- michael1999 7mo agoSpain didn't. https://www.ft.com/content/19f2ee15-dc86-4964-b23f-d644b18a70a1?syn-25a6b1a6=1 https://www.ft.com/content/19f2ee15-dc86-4964-b23f-d644b18a7...
- eqvinox 7mo agoI really wouldn't call it sleepwalking when it's the result of a lot of lobbying and deeply ingrained mis-views of politics ("conservatives are good with the economy").
- 9864247888754 7mo ago[flagged]
- eqvinox 7mo ago? The exit from nuclear power, in Germany at least, was done by conservatives.
- casey2 7mo agoI don't know how you could believe that in good faith. That doesn't even make sense. Why would a "conservative" want to progress to a Energiewende energy model while getting rid of the infrastructure they are supposed to "conserve" Gemany took massive losses to research green energy for decades, was that also done by conservatives? I guess everything is done by conservatives? The plan drafted by SPD and Greens was executed by a conservative government, due to shift in public sentiment after massive green-backed horror campaigns after Fukushima. This sentiment shift was only possible due to decades of disinformation pushed by oil-funded greens. People joke about Trump being a Russian asset, the SPD & green party are staffed by kremlin loyalists and funded by Gazprom.
- eqvinox 7mo agoI mean… I certainly didn't take a lot of care in wording that, but you need to read it in context of the parent post. Rather than "done", saying "committed and sealed" would've been precise. But it's a response to the parent, which squarely attempted to blame the greens, when it is certainly not solely their achievement. > People joke about Trump being a Russian asset, the SPD & green party are staffed by kremlin loyalists and funded by Gazprom. Now it's my turn to go I don't know how you could believe that in good faith. (Specifically about the green party. SPD I won't argue about with Gazprom Gerd.) I don't know about you but I judge these things by the effect and whom it seems to benefit most. And I don't see the policies of the greens benefitting the kremlin and Gazprom. If they're assets, they're providing pretty shit value ;)
- leonidasrup 7mo agoGazprom has financially supported both SPD and CDU in Germany, indirectly through lobby organizations such as VNG (Verbundnetz Gas), Deutsch-Russische Rohstoff-Forum. https://correctiv.org/en/latest-stories/2022/10/07/gazprom-lobby-germany/ https://correctiv.org/en/latest-stories/2022/10/07/gazprom-l...
- eqvinox 7mo agoI did say I won't argue about SPD ;)
- leonidasrup 7mo ago"After the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Green Party won the elections in 1998, the government of Gerhard Schroeder (SPD) reached what became known as the “nuclear consensus” with the big utilities (in 2000). They agreed to limit the lifespan of nuclear power stations to 32 years. The plan allocated each plant an amount of electricity that it could produce before it had to be shut down. Because nuclear power generation can vary, the plan did not set an exact date for the complete phase-out. But in theory, the last one would have had to close in 2022. New nuclear power plants were banned altogether. " "The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its chairwoman, Angela Merkel, objected to the agreement, calling it a “destruction of national property” that would be revoked if the CDU came to power." "When the CDU/CSU won the elections in 2009 and formed a coalition with the Free Democrats (FDP), they extended the operating time by eight years for seven nuclear plants and 14 years for the remaining ten." "In the wake of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, on 11 March 2011, the same Merkel government decided on 14/15 March to suspend the 2010 lifetime-extension for a three-month period, and then to mothball Germany's seven oldest reactors for the same period (known as the nuclear moratorium)." https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...
- _Microft 7mo agoWe should have kept using nuclear? That nuclear of which refinement capacities are over 40% in Russians hands? For conversion it’s even a combined 63% for Russia+China. “Russia's Stranglehold On The World's Nuclear Power Cycle”, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-nuclear-power-industry-graphics/32014247.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-nuclear-power-industry-graphi...
- menaerus 7mo agoInteresting article. According to it, the missing piece is scaling the conversion facilities from 8% to x%, and then scaling uranium enrichment process from 30% to x%. With that in place heavy dependency to Russia+China would have been solved, no?
- citrin_ru 7mo agoReliance on Russian gas (which did increase after shutting down nuclear) is a bigger problem than relying on nuclear fuel: in nuclear energy fuel cost has much smaller impact on electricity cost than gas price for gas fired power stations.
- leonidasrup 7mo agoIn 2024, the EU imported a little over €700 million in Russian uranium products out of a total of €22 billion Russian energy imports. https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/ending-european-union-imports-russian-uranium https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/ending-european-union-impor...
- leonidasrup 7mo agoThe reliance on Russian nuclear fuel services is a consequence of decisions made decades earlier in U.S. made during Bush era and later Obama era. "Following proposals from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia, and in connection with the US-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), there have been moves to establish international uranium enrichment centres." "The first of these international centres is the International Uranium Enrichment Centre (IUEC) established in 2007 by Rosatom at Angarsk in Siberia" https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/uranium-enrichment https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
- bluegatty 7mo agoThe Green Party of Germany is the most damaging institution of them all. They are responsible for the situation by spreading ideological disinformation and fear mongering. Otherwise Germany and others would be in the same position as France.
- notTooFarGone 7mo agoWow - a nuclear-head in the wild. Tell me please how building nuclear plants today will solve our problems in the 15-20 years it takes to build them. Or how the conservative party did phase out nuclear? They were 16 years at the helm, why couldn't they stop it? But no the fringe party is at fault for everything. That rhetoric is both completely unfounded and basically far-right propaganda. Congratulations - you got targeted and manipulated into a single issue voter.
- RealityVoid 7mo agoThey could have... You know... Not closed the existing running nuclear power plants at all? The greens pushed a lot for that. I admit, the future looks good for solar. But to hell and back if I don't prefer a nuclear power plant to a fossil fuel one.
- blitzar 7mo ago> Not closed the existing running nuclear power plants at all? How many more years would you run a plant commissioned in the 1980's for?
- bluegatty 7mo agoA very long time with maintenance, upkeep many are going to have 60 year lifespans and theoretically 80-100 years. Some are planned for 80 years. In the meantime, every day that goes by without building more, is the a day without the ability to walk away from Russian or Gulf oil.
- notTooFarGone 7mo ago
- tl1293 7mo agoThe BBC misrepresents "the Chinese lesson". China does build up renewables, but it does so while still supporting its heavy industry with cheap Russian gas. It does not help at all to put aluminum smelters on Qatari ground, claim zero emissions, and then watch those being bombed together with the LNG facilities. It also does not help if Russia is the last country on earth that still has natural gas and can dictate fertilizer production. The journalists are all about short term thinking, mindless green agenda religion and no economic knowledge.
- leonidasrup 7mo agoThe BBC probably copied "the China lesson" from many renewables publications which present China as a beacon in deployment of renewables. https://cleantechnica.com/2026/03/15/when-fossil-fuel-supplies-falter-interest-in-renewables-increases/ https://cleantechnica.com/2026/03/15/when-fossil-fuel-suppli... https://www.lombardodier.com/insights/2025/november/from-coal-to-clean.html https://www.lombardodier.com/insights/2025/november/from-coa... Which is only half-true. China builds renewables not as replacement for fossil fuels but as an addition to fossil fuels. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/yes-china-has-embraced-renewables-but-dont-call-it-a-transition-expert-says/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/yes-china-has... The exit from fossil fuel is planed in far future. China plans to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. https://english.news.cn/20251108/c47cb3e85468475f84182f8a7c791ecb/c.html https://english.news.cn/20251108/c47cb3e85468475f84182f8a7c7... The priorities in Chinas energy policy are: 1. Availability of energy 2. Security of supply 3. Cost 4. Everything else Chinese EV cars in are cars running not on oil but running mostly on domestic coal and hydro-power. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...
- nine_zeros 7mo ago[dead]
- aaron695 7mo ago[dead]
- fhn 7mo ago"They prefer to flare the gas than to deliver it" What Russia chooses to do with their resources is none of your business. Her sense of entitlement is astronomical like most of the west. "This market is not functioning anymore." so you point fingers at everybody else?
- temp8830 7mo agoAt least they didn't forget to use the exact phrase "full-scale invasion" everywhere, including what was supposed to be a direct quote. It's really quite funny. I think the former chief editor of Pravda now holds a high rank in the EU propaganda apparatus. They famously had to repeat the same cliched phrases ad nauseum to reinforce them.
- watwut 7mo agoRussia is choosing to invade Ukraine and Russia started war with genocidal intent. That war is still ongoing. Russia deserves all criticism and hate it gets.
- PearlRiver 7mo agoNo plan survives an encounter with Donald Trump.
- mitchbob 7mo agohttps://archive.ph/2026.03.19-073746/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24de9e97vno https://archive.ph/2026.03.19-073746/https://www.bbc.com/new...
- michieldotv 7mo agoFrom speaking with others, I will say that, on average my peers seem not to have learned from the energy crisis following the invasion of Ukraine. It's business as usual. Consequently those learnings have not permeated society up to the political class. Since then, I renovated my house, installing a heat pump. That's long term planning when it comes to a household. The same kind of judicious long-term thinking we did not see from our leaders. Yeah, supply chains were shifted quickly and we started importing LNG from the USA and Qatar soon after giving some semblance of stability, but really we are still captives to petrostates. Now with LNG prices spiking, exposing the vulnerability of our imports once again, we have our PM De Wever saying that we should aspire for normalised relations with Russia ASAP so that we can tap that cheap gas? That's a hard pass for me. Fossil fuels are problematic enough as it stands but, I get it: Saudis draining the Colorado river for cow feed using their oil money, or whatever, that doesn't register very high up in what matters in the here and now. Yet another oil-shock fueled inflation wave though? That stings. So perhaps the silver lining here is that at the very least, the geopolitical risk they pose is now truly very palpable. Again. It's out in the open. Again. We should seize the moment and see it as an opportunity to really double down on our efforts in phasing out fossil fuels. Again. The world will be a much better (albeit different) place without them.
- mono442 7mo agoIf they stuck with coal for producing electricity, it wouldn't such a huge problem.
- wcoenen 7mo agoThe coal price has a tendency to spike during an energy crisis. The market is more volatile than crude oil. For example, check what happened in 2022. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal
- mono442 7mo agoThe price of the coal actually doesn't matter much since the european union emissions trading system heavily penalizes burning it.
- p0w3n3d 7mo agoSteps taken forward but sleepwalking back again
- juliusceasar 7mo agoEurope got lured from crisis to crisis by Israel and USA. Energy crisis, refugee crisis.
- watwut 7mo agoHow is that "Europe sleepwalking" when it is something literally made and created by USA for no reason? > President Donald Trump's US has become one lynchpin in Europe's energy provisions, replacing Russia. Nah, he is joining them and helping them greatly. Russia is the only country gaining on this stupid war.
- Yaggo 7mo agoThe rest of Europe needs an energy reform. They should take the Nordics countries as an example, where household usage of gas is very minimal / non-existent and everything is electricity based (electricity being the cleanest in the world). They are also leading the EV adaptation by big margin.
- nDRDY 7mo agoA significant source of electricty is generated from waste-to-power plants in the Nordics. Several of those countries import rubbish by the shipload to turn into power. For that matter, it's probably a net positive to put most plastic "recycling" into such schemes, as we're just turning plastic products into lower and lower grade pieces, with the associated generation of microplastics.
- Yaggo 7mo agoYes that's the best use of waste (next to not producing the waste in the first place). Also, those powerplants are usually combined type of powerplants which make them highly effective, i.e. they are producing both heat and electricity. Nordics countries generally need lot of heating because of cold climate, which in cities is typically district heating, i.e. delivering the heat as hot water from big heating plants. Heat pumps are also very popular (air-to-air, air-to-water, geothermal). For example, my house is entirely heated with 3 heat pumps, even in -25°C. From April to September 10 kW solar panels provide the most of energy, also charging my Tesla.
- ZeroGravitas 7mo agoCombustion with energy recovery is slightly lower down the "Waste hierarchy" than recycling. Nordics get even more bonus points if they use the waste heat for district heating after generating electricity but I think it still comes out as a bit worse than recycling overall. There's complicated interactions though, removing the plastics can affect the makeup of the fuel and the post combustion products can free recyclable metal from other materials they were combined with. Recycling processes often have an unrecyclable fraction which can be burned etc.
- ZeroGravitas 7mo agoIs it really sleepwalking if a politician funded by the weelchair corporation is dragging you out of bed and throwing you down the stairs to increase their profits?