Europe has survived 3 energy shocks in 4 years. The only way out is to stop buying power from its enemies | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2026/03/25/europe-3-energy-shocks-in-4-years-what-to-do-next/
Europe has survived 3 energy shocks in 4 years. The only way out is to stop buying power from its enemies | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2026/03/25/europe-3-energy-shocks-in-4-years-what-to-do-next/
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Nuclear is a much better option in the short and medium term.
And renewable doesn’t solve the supply chain issue, a lot of materials for construction and maintenance need to be imported as well.
Nuclear is part of the solution. We shouldn’t rely on a single source of energy.
👆🏻 This is a key point.
No-one should rely on a single source; neither geographical location nor type of energy.
Europe is sharing both gas and electricity amongst countries, but also needs to generate more and use less.
Nuclear is not a good option at all if you want to stop buying energy from the “enemies” such as the billionaires and politicians who will be in charge for it.
Where do you store the waste? Nuclear is more expensive than renewables. Where do you get the nuclear material for the plants? Where do you get enough professionals to man these new plants? How to ensure the new plants you’ve build (fastly) are safe? How to ensure the plants are not easy targets for enemy attacks and sabotage?
It’s not a perfect solution, and ideally we would all be on renewable, I am not disagreeing with you there.
But a full renewable grid in Europe is simply not realistic with the tech we have now. A full nuclear grid is.
Keep researching renewable and nuclear (fusion would be the ideal option, even above renewable), but use the best we have now.
We have uranium in Europe. But we can also import it from many countries all around the globe, ao strategically much more diversified than rare materials needed for renewable.
Educate new professionals. Build them securely, not fastly. Still a better time perspective than a full renewable switch. Plants will always be easy targets, nuclear or not. Modern plants do not catastrophically fail like Chernobyl. Do yoh really think France has not thought of the security implications with their plants all over the country?
Now for nuclear waste… Yeah, it’s a problem. Also being researched. But it is little waste. It’s manageable until we have the right renewable tech or nuclear fusion.
As for the cost, again, it is expensive upfront, cheap to operate, cost efficient to renew.
Your talking points are twenty years out of date.
Nuclear takes decades to permit and build. You can build solar, wind, and BESS storage plants in 2 years, including permitting l, procurement, and construction.
The IPCC put it best: the fastest way to decarbonize and make independent the power sector is through renewables + storage.
We should hold onto the nuclear plants we have, and recommission the ones still standing (so long as they still operate safely), but all remaining efforts should be put towards renewables deployment.
Not too sure why this comment got downvoted.
Grid balancing is no joke - you’ll likely have new nuclear up and running before you rebuild the grid of an entire nation (which is needed for renewables to take the lead).
Let’s not forget, lithium for batteries, a key element in a renewable grid (to help offload and balance) is also not widely produced in Europe. Water batteries could work, but those are not small projects.
Nuclear is your “short” term because renewables (grid rebuild) are still a long term project.