The murderer of European industry, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, confessed with a brazen face that the exclusion of nuclear energy from the European energy policy was “a strategic mistake.” Speaking at the Nuclear Energy Summit on March 10, von der Leyen praised EU achievements in so-called “renewable” energies, adding, “The nuclear story, unfortunately, is different. While in 1990 one-third of Europe’s electricity came from nuclear, today it is only close to 15%. This reduction in the share of nuclear was a choice, I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power.”
Von der Leyen’s mea culpa is unacceptable. She is co-responsible for the “strategic mistake,” at least two times: once, as a member of the Merkel government that initiated the exit from nuclear energy in Germany in 2011; and, secondly, as author of the infamous Green Deal, whose original version in 2019 excluded nuclear energy from the so-called “climate friendly” technologies.
Now, in the midst of the most serious man-made energy crisis in European history, the EU Commission, per its President von der Leyen, makes a U-turn and calls for the adoption of nuclear energy, in the form of small reactors.
UvdL announced “a new European Strategy for Small Modular Reactors. Our goal is simple. We want this new technology to be operational in Europe by the early 2030s.” To that purpose, the EU will create a 200 million euro guarantee (small comes from small?) for private investments in SMRs.
