I wish there was somewhere I could talk about world affairs and European affairs with reasonable people, the way I can talk about tech on HN. But anywhere I've tried - Twitter, r/europe or any smaller subs I've found are just filled with reactionaries trying to stir up hate for whatever reasons they have. There are reasonable voices there, people who are capable of actual conversation, but they're just drowned out. I used to comfort myself by thinking they must all be 14 year olds, or Russian bots, or whatever, and some probably are, but now I'm convinced the large majority are just hate filled adults who've gotten stuck on Twitter, Facebook, reddit etc. and literally spend all their time there basically shouting as if they were lunatics on a street corner.

I might pass by but I wouldn't stand and listen to an angry man on a street corner, and I definitely wouldn't try and have a conversation nearby (or with) them. So why would I expect that to work on Twitter?

Well "Europeans on Twitter" are probably the kind of people who look at the owner of the site posting about a homeland for white people and that kind of thing and aren't bothered too much by it.

They're wrong.

A couple of years ago the last of the exploration rigs in Norway left Norwegian waters. Because nothing that could be drilled (and hasn't already) can compete on price with solar etc.

Lots of people think someone should do this or that. They don't invest their own money though, they just think someone else should do, etc.

> It feels like this collective insanity will never end

They simply do not believe that the consequences will be as bad as the models predict. And a lot of trust and good will has been expended on social issues, for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. As a strategic decision, we have taken our eye off the ball, climate change is actually an existential threat, bathroom choice never was. You can argue that we can do two things at once, but there is a cost for dividing our focus and effort; even if it didn't raise the hackles of those already less predisposed to worry about the environment.

I think Europe should resume drilling in the North Sea and Groningen if they have exploitable reserves there. Europe depends on energy imports and that won't change in our lifetimes (I'm in my early forties, so at least in my lifetime.) They should take advantage of whatever resources they have.

I'm guessing you think otherwise? Why? Do you think the energy transition will be faster? What makes you think that?

> we need to resume drilling in the North Sea and Groningen

Well, there's also the simple reality that the US doesn't actually need fossil fuels from the Middle East or Russia in the same way Europe does. It affects prices here, obviously, and an increase in energy prices can do severe damage to the economy, but it's not a potentially existential crisis in the same way.

twitter is a self-selected group these days, even assuming these are real people and not some kind of propaganda op.

It's like going on stormfront and wondering why there's so many white nationalists on the internet.

> It feels like this collective insanity will never end

You’re referring to Twitter, right? ;)

Yes, this is correct, Europe energy policy is catastrophically behind and needs to pursue all paths simultaneously, because the future is very murky, Europe needs a LOT of power, and it's not clear which will work best:

- Continue building out solar + battery storage

- Resume drilling in domestic accessible offshore locations safe from trade disruptions

- Recommission and build new nuclear plants

- Build LNG import terminals to eliminate dependence on Russian gas

The Russian threat in the short term is very real and this is making Russia stronger. And the economic threat to Europe in the super short term is bigger then the one to America ... and will help internal fascist movements that are very much already empowered there (and sponsored and supported by BOTH Russia and America despite being very much homegrown).

So, like, both I guess.

Oil companies love $90 oil, but much higher than that and you start to run into demand destruction issues in the medium term.

It’s just pulling forward future gains while shrinking the time horizon, if the world speeds the transition to renewables and electrification from this. Short term gain for faster irrelevance.

Oil to $200/barrel please, as long as possible, same with LNG.

Edit: Iran attack wipes out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/03/19/iran-attack-... - March 19th, 2026

Looks like the global clean energy transition will be getting back up to speed.

The argument that high oil prices are good for America is one of the most ridiculous ideas being pushed right now. Yes, on a trade deficit front, it slightly reduces the net amount of money leaving. But we are also the world’s largest consumer of oil, and it literally powers every part of our economy.

Saying that America is better off with high gas prices is like saying Americans will eat more beef if the price of beef doubles because we make lots of beef. Cattle ranchers will be better off; everyone else eats more potatoes.

"Oils ain't Oils" - old motor oil company slogan from the 1980s.

What the US exports isn't "car ready" - most primary oil sources are heavily biased one way or the other (heavy, sweet, light, etc) and the useful end product is blended.

It's not straightforward for the US to get high on it's own supply and even what it delivers to others is less useful to thse others when other non-US sources aren't readily available to blend in.

Also ... using sequestered carbon has been increasing the insulation factor of our common atmosphere, left unchecked (ie. stopping the use of fossil fuels) is a major problem for the coming century.

Burning fossil fuels also raises the global temperature, reduces air quality, and people still have to pay more at the pump.

Being a net exporter of a global commodity is only relevant in an extremely acute crisis (e.g. WWIII).

Plus one of the reasons why we export so much oil is because it's cheaper to import oil to a refinery in New Jersey from Saudi Arabia than to get it there from Texas due to some very stupid US laws.

Thoughtful comment.

Please read hn rules.

They didn't say 'only'. Unless there was an edit after your reply

At this point, I guess I don't really care.

The reason china was able to do this is because of the free trade movement that started with Reagan to undercut US unions. US companies outsourced all the manufacturing as much as possible and china capitalized on the market opportunity.

Am I supposed to be mad that jobs shipped to china who steals a tech weren't shipped to Vietnam who hasn't stolen tech?

China is hardly the only country that has used internal policies and loose intellectual copyrights to get ahead (Famously, the US did the same thing in the late 1800s, stealing factory designs from england). And part of the reason US companies still do business with them is because they are cheaper.

And the US subsidizes corn and attacks other oil producers. And Korea puts tariffs to benefit their local technology industry.

Welcome to the real world. Whoever isn't cheating is losing.

Ideas are cheap and execution is what matters. Any attempt to "own" an idea is an exercise in futility and a sign that you probably suck at execution. Sorry, but we should be encouraging competition and reducing barriers, not sitting here crying that the Chinese are running laps around us because of intellectual property "theft"

Really? How did anywhere get started?

Germany ripped off British engineering texts because they had no copyright laws there.

America got started taking what was started elsewhere, the same can be said for any country except for Scotland.

I think those lovely Chinese people would laugh at your sinophobic 'thinking'. Maybe stay off the corporate media and do your own research.

Huawei are an amazing company, all of their kit is highly innovative, but too good for you and your slave masters. Hence the lies. In fact, if you want a computer that isn't 'NSA Inside', go with Huawei. You won't look back, although they won't sell you a PC with Nvidia in it or a phone with Google in it because of your government.

Solar panels? Germany did the work on that, China bought the IP and did the production engineering. All is legit.

Besides, that screen you are looking at, was that made in America? Nah, it is going to be China, outside chance, Korea.

subsidize ?

no all that shit just not worth that much;

The profit marginsof these industries are ridiculously high, to the point that if you’re willing, you can manufacture many useful, high‑quality products.

only when China could build them, there are real "free" market

Even if it didn't make sense to build new nuclear, that doesn't mean it makes sense to shut of existing nuclear.

It's not that easy, and the 2025 blackout good evidence of that. Renewables need a grid that's engineered for them and that require significative investments. Without them, closing power plants (of any kind) is, IMO, nonsensical.

Ironically, Spain has plenty of Uranium, but there is an environmental law that doesn't allow its mining.

https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257

This country is crazy.

Existing nuclear power is acceptably cheap. For France the longterm LCOE for running their fleet to EOL is €60 per MWh.

The problem is new built nuclear power which costs €180-240 per MWh excluding insurance, backup, final waste disposal etc.

It also won't be online until the 2040s meaning it is entirely irrelevant as as solution to anything on a time scope not on the level of decades.

Levelised Cost of Energy is the highest, in the entire developed world, in the UK, which has enough wind and solar installed to entirely meet needs today.

It is NOT cheap, it is cheap for sellers, because they account on the basis of a MWh being equally useful all the time. It isn't. There are TWh-scale shortfalls in winter because, and a medieval peasant understood this, a shortage of ambient energy is what winter is, and it's worth paying energy penny you have to avoid its worst effects.

Business is not better. I've worked in the chemicals industry, and conferences in Europe have been like a wake for the last decade. I've overseen large orders go to China because, I could not give a shit how much it cost, the European green alternative - for delivery within Europe - could not guarantee timeframes, due to reliance on renewables. The Chinese shipped product could. That is your "cheap".

You can buy uranium from Russia, Kazakhstan, Mali, Canada, US, Australia, or the sea if you really want to, all of those have large reserves, and store multiple years' worth more or less by accident, modern industrial processes actually struggle to make sense at the low volumes nuclear requires. Bringing that up as a problem is just not honest.

Years and tens if not hundreds of billions; the Netherlands is experiencing this, after a decade of cheap solar, a rise in EV, and new builds being built fully electric on the consumer side, and many datacenters and green energy generators built on the business side, our grid is at capacity to the point where new businesses can't get connected and new housing projects are put on hold (I think); the grid can't manage any more. The grid manager Tennet spent 15 billion last year, and will need to keep doing that for at least another decade - and that's a relatively small country.

Why would you invest in nuclear power, which is several times more expensive per kwh than wind + battery in Denmark, which also has excellent links to reliable hydropower from Norway and Sweden? Especially when your greatest external security threat is Russia which has openly threatened targeting nuclear reactors of a country they are trying to invade?

Not to speak of the inconvenient fact that Uranium is not a resource found in sufficient quantity in Europe and current European nuclear reactors get their fuel from Russia and Niger, not exactly reliable havens of stability.

Nuclear power makes certain sense for nations that want a military nuclear arsenal and are willing to subsidize nuclear reactors to retain the required workforce and research base. For everyone else it is a money sink and a complication when designing their grid for renewable energy.

Same as Sweden. Creating divisive issues from nothing decades after the possibility passed.

At least the MAGA Hard right is staring to come around. Who could have guessed that they like extremely cheap distributed energy generation!?!?

> Why MAGA suddenly loves solar power

> The Trump-led attack on solar eases as the right reckons with its crucial role in powering AI and keeping utility bills in check.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/03/02/katie-mil...

Poor train service? (Recent accidents aside)

Any areas in particular?

Even France shut down the Superphénix. It was just built too! A waste of ten billion dollars because the government gave in to these extremist environmental groups. One of them even fired an RPG at it while it was being built.

No, we did not. Katharina Reiche and that guy from Bavaria are certainly not "Germany" or the majority of Germans. No atom reactor is going to be built, it's just typical rhetoric from both of them.

Not even the major energy suppliers are interested in building new nuclear reactors.

I was not against prolonging the phase out for a bit, but we don't even have a permanent storage solution after all this time.

They aren't even compatible with climate change: https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...

A lot of people thought France was just being arrogant for not going all in on becoming dependent on the US and maintaining their own ways of doing things. These past few years, it's been paying off for them. Hopefully other countries will wisen up and not allow their defense and entire economy to be dependent on the US or any other big country. It always comes back to bite them in the ass. The post WW2 decades were unusually stable and assuming it'll be that way forever is not wise.

> even Germany stated recently that closing down their Nuclear Plants was a big mistake

Well that's because we have a new government, CDU was always in favor of nuclear power.

> For a very long time, I have always said France is smarter than what people give them credit for. Spain should take a peek over the mountains at France to see what a sane energy policy looks like.

Incidentally, if I remember correctly, one of the causes (or things that made it worse) of the almost day-long blackout we (Spain) had last year was because France disconnected one of the links to Spain without notifying us properly.

Purely from an engineering standpoint that is an attractive option. But North African countries have often been politically unstable. It's risky to place your energy security in the hands of a region that could erupt in another coup or civil war at any time.

This did happen in summer of 2022, but only in public buildings, private households were not affected, so the OP's point seems a bit overly dramatic. Given that AC usage is highest when solar production is also highest, this seems highly unlikely given the solar build-out of the last 4 years.

It was in 2022 and 2023: https://cerneasesores.es/real-decreto-ley-14-2022-obligacion...

I think some of them are definitely funded by them, there was an article about it I saw: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-funding-europe...

They fund other stuff that weakens and divides Europe too like the separatist movements in Scotland, Catalonia etc.

That's not to say that all the people in these movements are Russian agents or that these groups don't have some good points and legitimate grievances, but nonetheless they are an easy, cost-effective way for Russia to attack us.

Of all the silly things I’ve seen Europe do over the last 20 years, getting rid of nuclear plants has to be one of the strangest. Sure, we all want solar but it’s not there yet. Hidden forces here would not be a surprise.

Related the children book from Germany https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221101-the-cloud-the-n...

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An absurd conspiracy theory.

Nuclear power has an LCOE that is 5x the cost of solar and wind. Nobody would build it on cost alone.

The only reason countries build and run nuclear power plants is because it shares supply chain and a skills base with the nuclear military.

Which means they have nukes (France, Russia, US) or they they want to take out an option to one day build a nuke in a hurry just in case for a threat that is usually very obvious (Sweden, Japan, South Korea).

This was clearly recognized when Iran started building nuclear power plants but when Poland suddenly got interested in 2023 ostensibly "because environment" after decades of burning mountains of coal nobody batted an eye.

Then we need regulation to make sure every ebike and scooter sold is safe to charge without exploding. No cheap batteries.

The big story I think is how handily they took out billions of dollars of US radars and that these air defense systems are not up to the task (we actually already knew this from Ukraine, but media worked overtime to ignore this fact). In a way, all this supposedly "superior" US and Israeli tech (at least on the defense side, offense is a different story) has been exposed. I do think focused engineering efforts could close this gap, that was needed already 4 years ago.

Yes, what's happening in the Sahel absolutely barbaric and is shamefully swept under the rug in Western media because of the countries sponsoring it.

I’m fasting! No need for energy at all.

Also a gigantic Jerusalem cross tattoo.

I think the parent comment was referring to the same fanatics you are

It's a bit off topic but that didn't sound right to me.

According to the following it was a reduction but yes near zero in the context of total emissions. A few hundred million tonnes reduction ain't nothin none the less.

"plummeted from more than 1 000 Mt CO2 in 2019 to less than 600 Mt CO2 in 2020, in the context of the pandemic.

In 2023, aviation accounted for 2.5% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, "

https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/aviation

Of course we shouldn't expect a couple of years of shutdown to significantly reverse 200 years of man-made atmospheric CO2 accumulation, but surely it would help stop the problem to get worse if the widespread WFH effort were sustained after the pandemic.

I remember reading articles about local politicians insisting companies and governments do return to office for no other reason than to have the workers spend money downtown for lunch. Not even implying it, directly stating it.

Because downtown city centers were missing out on office worker revenue and started giving incentives to companies who brought people back into the office. I 100% believe the reason we went back into the office at all was because of this despite all the talk of 'in-person collaboration.'

Exactly, put AI in the office instead.

> The whole "reduce your carbon footprint PSA" was just a ruse.

It is especially true in the context of this war when the US is attacking oil infrastructure which is causing catastrophic environmental damage: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/world/middleeast/iran-oil...

Similarly related to the paper straw meme that has been circulating the last while.

But the companies have a large carbon foodprint to deliver a product or service for the consumer.

When I buy a large SUV / Truck, and never drive it, is that not counted negative towards my carbon foodprint?

I'm not sure the stockpiling you mention will work the way you propose. We already stockpile oil, yet we still see price shocks. Stockpiling metals can still lead to price shocks due to reluctance to release them and the need to eventually replenish them.

We also stockpile foods and medications, and that doesn't provide price stability.

Yes, the shocks aren't as immediate if you have the infrastructure set up and you are out of the initial adoption phase. Even things like lithium and silver are limited resources, so getting more out of the ground will eventually face scarcity as energy demand has always increased over the long term.

Even at that, America is rapidly turning away from oil as wind and solar are so much cheaper. The leaders are putting on the brakes, and the change is uneven - but there is a lot of wind and solar going up in the US even now and it has been happening for 15+years.

> America has ample supplies of natural gas, oil etc. and so doesn't need to turn away from fossil fuels to be energy independent.

In the short to medium term. The natural gas, oil etc. are in fact finite resources created over a tremendously long period of time in pre-history and so once they run out you're done.

You could run nuclear power plants much longer, perhaps even indefinitely, and of course wind and sunlight are renewable, Sol doesn't give a shit what we do, it's going to shine on the planet and cause winds here until long after we're dead. But the dinosaur juice runs out, it's a quick burst and then if you didn't transition too fucking bad game over.

> in hindsight she likely would have been

It took you hindsight? I could've told you that in 2024 with regular sight.

You don't have primaries to pick sensible candidates to begin with? In either party, of course.

Kamala was always obviously a better option than Trump. Let's not pretend people didn't know who and what Trump was, or that his behavior after 2024 came as a shock to anyone.

Won't someone think of the children, how are their schools going to get bombed if we dont do it?