Renewables lead to energy independence and a more distributed energy grid. It's fundamental to security, and can't be so easily measured in terms of money. The EU is increasing its independence from China via initiatives like the Net-Zero Industry Act. And this talk of "politicians being bought by Chinese companies" is laughable in the face of what oil companies are doing, to the benefit of exporters like USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other regimes, and definitively not the EU.

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altern8 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure, I'm in Poland and all we had was coal. Now it will take a few decades to have our own source of power again. Maybe 20-30 years..?

What are oil companies doing to drive European companies out of business (not saying they aren't, I just don't know)?

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torlok 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm from Poland too and the only thing we have is land, the sun, and wind. Coal poisons the air we breathe, and hurts the climate our children will live in. It's not about money, it's about security. The worst thing for polish security is being dependent on foreign oil and gas, and to be reliant on a few power plants that are an easy target for russian drones, and rely on water from rivers that are running dry more and more often. The transition away from coal should've come much, much sooner. When you hear a push back against renewables, and people praising oil and gas, who's benefiting from this? Poland, or oil suppliers like Russia?

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altern8 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I like nuclear.

But I think it's a huge investment that would take decades.

	▲	torlok 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm fine with supplementing with nuclear, but it's still a single point of failure, and needs water. France and Switzerland had to shut down nuclear plants last year because the rivers got too hot. This issue is not going away.

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pjc50 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Poland still has majority coal power production! It's one of last places you can possibly blame renewables for pricing.

	▲	altern8 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Well, green initiatives made us stop using coal. Also, we've started exporting because of carbon credits--which caused prices to skyrocket.
	▲	Moldoteck 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		prices in poland are dictated by coal. Coal got insanely expensive due to co2 taxes