Western nations energy madness

ENERGY POLICY IS CONFUSED AND CONTRADICTORY

  SOWING THE SEEDS OF A SELF INFLICTED ENERGY CRISIS?

This week Belgium announced they will phase out their present nuclear power plants by 2025. They say they will be replaced by more new technology, but were not specific as to what that will be. Germany is expected to complete its elimination of nuclear power by the end of 2022. It is acknowledged that the deficit in energy production will be filled with coal and natural gas.

It seems that all the western countries with the exception of France are in a dilemma as to what is their energy policy. At present energy prices have skyrocketed because their new dependence on North Sea wind farms has had an unexpected decrease in output due to a period of minimal winds. Who could have thought?

Germany decided to do away with nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, caused by an earthquake and tsunami. It is an interesting decision being that Germany is not prone to experience either earth quakes or tsunamis. Emotions and irrational thinking should not be part of a countries long term energy plans.

France is planning on building more nuclear power plants and is now a net exporter of energy, due to their large number of nuclear plants. 

Nuclear energy is actually the only clean carbon free energy source in existence other than hydroelectric power. It is now an over 60 year old technology that has proven to be safe and reliable. We have had the replacement for fossil fuel electric generation all this time but cant get past the horror of the "N" word. The resistance to nuclear power is based on emotion not on scientific fact. Improvements in engineering and site planning should eliminate any risk of problems.

Just a few years ago natural gas was considered the clean bridge fuel to the future, but now that lots of natural gas has been produced it too is considered a bad option. The Trump administration encouraged Europe to avoid gas from Russia and to be prepared to buy gas from the USA. The problem is that all that gas is in capped wells and not being used because of government resistance to approving the pipelines to get that gas to market. We are still discouraging Europe from buying gas from Russia, but now they have no ability to buy gas from the US. Are they foolish enough to cut their own energy options to please the U.S.

The European community is planning on releasing an energy plan soon, it is expected to approve both gas and nuclear power as clean energy sources. We will see what actually is decided after the emotions and politics are considered in the decision.