It was a “strategic mistake” for Europe to “turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power.” That’s Bloomberg quoting the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, no less.
The occasion for her remarks was a nuclear power summit being held in Paris this week. Bloomberg reported that she noted “that only 15% of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear sources compared with a third in 1990.”
That’s left the continent too dependent on energy from Russia and the Middle East. Bloomberg notes that,
[Pres.] von der Leyen announced a €200 million guarantee to support private investment in innovative nuclear technology backed by the the Emissions Trading System, the cornerstone of the EU’s climate policy.
Minnesota made a similar strategic mistake back in 1994 when the state government formally banned the construction of new nuclear power plants. Fast forward 32 years later, and the state still gets around a quarter of all it its electricity from the two nuclear plants owned by the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy. All of the state’s nuclear units date from the early 1970’s, about 20 years before the moratorium was put in place. In the one-third of a century since, no significant incidents have occurred.
Future generations will wish that the moratorium was lifted in time to keep this “reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power” as part of the state’s portfolio.
