>So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found in Europe.

You could say most of the same things about batteries. There is a little lithium in Europe. But Europe doesn't have a battery industry. It's in China. And you could buy batteries from China, but we aren't doing that and the political trends don't support more energy dependence on China. You could also buy nuclear reactors from China, but of course Europe doesn't want to do that either.

What they are proposing is that Europe is going to pivot from not making batteries to not building nuclear plants. They will, however, write lots of papers about the reactors (neé batteries) they would like to build, if only the prevailing wage or regulatory regime or other economic excuse du jour wasn't stopping them.

It has increasingly become my impression after watching these debates unfold that the core technology is not the real problem. The problem is a lack of political will to encourage the growth of new industries in green energy, failing both at regulatory and industrial policy. Solar is succeeding, not because it is the best form of energy (though it is) but because it is mostly paid for and installed by individuals and small businesses (with a little capital you can own your own solar farm!).

Sweden had a major company try to make lithium batteries but it was not economical viable without major and continuously infusion of government subsidies. The company Northvolt is the largest bankruptcy in modern Swedish industrial history.

> The problem is a lack of political will to encourage the growth of new industries in green energy, failing both at regulatory and industrial policy

100% this, no doubt about it. There is a collective lack of investment into the future and I'd say we are witnessing managed decay more than anything else.