To understand the geopolitics of the last two centuries, chart the history of coal, oil, and gas. Whoever controlled these fuels set prices, created alliances, won wars, determined inflation, and dominated foreign policy. Europe believed for years that it had found a reasonable solution: buy cheap gas from Russia. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and turned that dependence into a weapon.
The European reaction was swift but not smart: it replaced Russian pipelines with American liquid natural gas tankers. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says that by 2030, US exports could account for 80% of European imports of liquified natural gas. In short, Europe traded dependence.
The important question is not who sells us the gas — but why we still need so much of it. As long as Europe relies on importing fossil fuels, someone on the other side will have the power to exert political, economic, or strategic pressure. Russia, the US, Qatar, or Algeria: the supplier changes, but not the vulnerability. The only reasonable solution is to rely on renewables.
That’s why energy transition is not only a climate issue. It is a question of sovereignty. Chatham House sums it up well: renewables and electrification are the true basis of European energy security. A solar panel on a Spanish roof cannot be used as a geopolitical weapon in the same way as a gas pipeline. A heat pump reduces imports. A smart grid decreases exposure to international markets. An electricity system based on renewables, storage, and flexibility shifts power from fuel producers to technology and engineering.
Europe is making remarkable progress. Renewables already generate 47.3% of the total electricity of the continent’s power grid. Wind and solar alone reached a historic milestone by generating 30% of EU electricity, overtaking total fossil fuel generation at 29% for the first time. Hydropower is also important, supplying more than a quarter of renewable power.
It is worth debunking another myth: nuclear energy fails to solve Europe’s energy squeeze. In fact, it prolongs it. Current nuclear power is extraordinarily expensive compared to solar and wind. Lazard’s latest report once again shows that renewables are by far the cheapest form of new electricity generation.
While solar and wind continue to reduce costs thanks to learning curves and economies of scale, Western nuclear plants accumulate delays, cost overruns, and projects that are impossible to finance without huge public subsidies. France’s Flamanville and the UK’s Hinkley Point C show that each new nuclear power plant is a monument to bureaucratic and financial problems rather than a solution for tomorrow’s energy needs. The West has been failing to build reactors on time or within budget for decades.
In addition, nuclear fits poorly into a system dominated by renewables. Modern power grids require flexibility, storage, and adaptability: distributed and variable generation. Nuclear power plants, designed to operate continuously as rigid-based energy sources, discourage this flexibility.
Nor does nuclear offer true strategic independence. Europe imports virtually all the uranium it consumes. According to Euratom, much of Europe’s nuclear fuel depends on imports and supply chains dominated by Russia. Trading dependence on gas for dependence on uranium does not seem like a geopolitical revolution or an intelligent decision.
The good news for Europe is that a real alternative exists: renewables. The energy transition is not simply about replacing fossil plants with other technologies. It consists of completely changing the architecture of the energy system. Moving from a model based on importing and burning fuel to one based on renewable electricity, storage, digitalization, smart grids, and efficiency requires a technological transformation much more similar to the Internet than to a thermal power plant.
Europe has a historic opportunity. While it lacks reserves of oil or gas, it does have industrial capacity, engineering, technology, regulation, and talent. It can stop acting as a captive customer of fossil empires and become a leader of a distributed and electrified energy system. It can substitute imports for local investment, volatility for stability, and geopolitical dependence for technological autonomy.
The last century can be understood by following the trail of oil. Whether Europe should buy Russian or American gas is the old, fossil, 20th-century question. The 21st will be understood by following the trail of electrons.
Enrique Dans is a Senior Fellow with the Tech Policy Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He is one of the most prominent Spanish academics in the fields of technology adoption, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Tech 2030
A Roadmap for Europe-US Tech Cooperation
