[oezi]

On the contrary: everyone who invested in Europe in building any sort of capacity was handsomely rewarded (incl. nuclear).

Energy prices are so high because too many guarantees were given to too many parties to entince investment.

[roenxi]

They aren't building new capacity in most forms of energy generation. Eg, in the UK they've basically only building renewables [0], and not in sufficient quantities to maintain their electricity production. The story is similar in most EU countries last I checked. Compare to, say, India to see a healthy approach [1].

Sure the market is signalling that anyone who can bring energy to the table will be rewarded, and trying desperately to keep people in the game who are already playing. But there'd be capacity built and the aggregate numbers wouldn't look so bad if new construction hadn't been politically blocked for years now.

They're choosing de-industrialisation rather than letting people use nuclear or fossil fuels. People really should be panicking about that, they are going to take a massive lifestyle hit. There will be trouble.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_electricity_generation...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_electricity_product...

[oezi]

It is a bit weird to call building of fossil plants "healthy" when it is leading us down to environmental destruction.

Nuclear on the other hand is game over everywhere except China. It won't come back within the next 20 years. After this renewables and power grids optimized for renewables (across countries and with lots of decentralized storage based on electric cars) will make any type of energy generation which isn't wind and solar infeasible.

Nobody is choosing de-industrialization. Cheap gas from Russia has been keeping energy cheap in Europe. People are choosing solidarity with Ukraine even if this means some harder years.