alt.hn

3/19/2026 at 6:50:38 PM

Europe sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24de9e97vno

by asplake

3/20/2026 at 9:28:03 AM

Is 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?

by ZeroGravitas

3/20/2026 at 8:24:57 AM

The 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.

by Yaggo

3/20/2026 at 8:40:50 AM

A 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.

by nDRDY

3/20/2026 at 8:49:59 AM

Yes 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.

by Yaggo

3/20/2026 at 9:23:57 AM

Combustion 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.

by ZeroGravitas

3/20/2026 at 9:37:12 AM

> Nordics get even more bonus points if they use the waste heat for district heating after generating electricity.

Waste -> district heating is definitely happening in Sweden. Probably more so than waste -> electricity. There are better ways to generate electricity and we need heating anyway big part of the season.

by fifilura

3/19/2026 at 7:01:30 PM

Any 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.

by ZeroGravitas

3/20/2026 at 1:07:00 AM

The 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.

by tl1293

3/20/2026 at 8:55:42 AM

The 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-suppli...

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...

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/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-s...

by leonidasrup

3/20/2026 at 8:08:06 AM

Europe got lured from crisis to crisis by Israel and USA. Energy crisis, refugee crisis.

by juliusceasar

3/20/2026 at 8:01:07 AM

Steps taken forward but sleepwalking back again

by p0w3n3d

3/20/2026 at 2:02:26 AM

"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?

by fhn

3/20/2026 at 8:20:33 AM

Russia 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.

by watwut

3/20/2026 at 3:43:47 AM

At 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.

by temp8830

3/20/2026 at 5:30:44 AM

They did, 2 of 4 mentions don't have "full-scale". Count before laughing.

by eviks

3/20/2026 at 12:33:11 PM

Ah yes, Russian bot can't count. But now that this cliche has been pointed out to you - you won't be able to unsee it. You're welcome ;)

by temp8830

3/20/2026 at 2:07:13 AM

No plan survives an encounter with Donald Trump.

by PearlRiver

3/20/2026 at 12:58:17 AM

I 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").

by eqvinox

3/20/2026 at 5:07:56 AM

The 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.

by bluegatty

3/20/2026 at 9:22:45 AM

Wow - 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.

by notTooFarGone

3/20/2026 at 6:58:24 PM

Complete wrong on every count, but also hostile and ignorant

1) The German Green movement killed nuclear decades ago, not 'now' - otherwise those plants would have already been built.

2) The conservatives parties have been pro-nuclear forever - they phased out Nuclear due to populist concerns, not ideological.

3) This is not even controversial - this is literally just political history on the continent.

4) "basically far-right propaganda. " good god, grow up. Not every bit of history is 'propaganda', and I'm not a German Voter.

>> Nuclear Energy on the Continent and in many other places was killed by the Green Party movement <<

In Germany specifically [1] the data shows decisively an acute, anti-Nuclear populist sentiment, as a result of the 'Green' movement.

The German Green movement used 'radicalism' and 'propaganda' ate away at public reason - the evidence for this is how far away the German data point was from everywhere else.

It's why Russia is powerful, partly why Europe cannot support it's own industrial basis.

It's an existential problem, and Nuclear needs to be part of the Energy mix.

[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu...

by bluegatty

3/20/2026 at 9:52:15 AM

They 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.

by RealityVoid

3/20/2026 at 10:37:34 AM

I agree on that fully - but that is a completely different point. The Lifetime extension and the costs associated to that are not clear to me. But of course letting an already paid project run is a no brainer if the costs are not blowing up.

I don't like the assumption that this calculation was not done by the book due to the greens being in charge of that. It's always the question: Lifetime extension can cost a lot and maybe it only buys 5 years. Basically I assume there was a € price and it was too high to pay. Maybe CDU would've payed that price but I don't think either is wrong.

by notTooFarGone

3/20/2026 at 7:05:00 PM

No - it's not a completely different point.

The Greens - out of ideological fear mongering - forced the end of Nuclear, just like they forced the end of new construction decades ago, and keep the German public in fear.

by bluegatty

3/20/2026 at 10:34:27 AM

> 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?

by blitzar

3/20/2026 at 2:01:43 AM

If only the greens who lobbied the shutdown and demolishing of nuclear power plants were in charge everywhere.

Truly brilliant, and it doesn't affect their voter either, who are on the dole anyway.

by 9864247888754

3/20/2026 at 4:14:03 AM

We 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-graphi...

by _Microft

3/20/2026 at 8:29:45 AM

The 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-c...

by leonidasrup

3/20/2026 at 7:12:10 AM

Reliance 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.

by citrin_ru

3/20/2026 at 6:56:59 AM

Interesting 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?

by menaerus

3/20/2026 at 2:48:25 AM

?

The exit from nuclear power, in Germany at least, was done by conservatives.

by eqvinox

3/20/2026 at 9:19:11 AM

"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-ge...

by leonidasrup

3/20/2026 at 3:23:47 AM

I 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.

by casey2

3/20/2026 at 4:15:40 AM

I 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 ;)

by eqvinox

3/20/2026 at 8:00:09 AM

Gazprom 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-l...

by leonidasrup

3/20/2026 at 11:21:22 AM

I did say I won't argue about SPD ;)

by eqvinox

3/20/2026 at 8:17:19 AM

How 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.

by watwut

3/20/2026 at 1:21:20 AM

[dead]

by nine_zeros

3/19/2026 at 9:33:34 PM

Only Europe ? What a fantastic news ! /s

by mesk

3/20/2026 at 1:48:17 AM

[dead]

by aaron695

3/20/2026 at 5:42:00 AM

From 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.

by michieldotv

3/20/2026 at 6:44:15 AM

If they stuck with coal for producing electricity, it wouldn't such a huge problem.

by mono442

3/20/2026 at 7:18:52 AM

The 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

by wcoenen

3/20/2026 at 8:36:57 AM

The price of the coal actually doesn't matter much since the european union emissions trading system heavily penalizes burning it.

by mono442