Germany shut its last three nuclear reactors in April 2023, in the middle of an acute energy crisis triggered by the loss of Russian gas. The decision was not revisited when the crisis arrived, because doing so would have required the governing coalition to admit that the Green politics it had elevated to the center of its identity had materially harmed the people it governed. A Decouple analysis argues that political identity proved stickier than physical reality, even once the electricity bills surged.
The reactors built across Europe between the mid-1970s and late 1980s and later shut down were not marginal facilities at the end of their useful lives, "Hvylya" reports. They were vast, complex concentrations of engineered knowledge representing decades of accumulated operating experience, trained workforces, regulatory culture, and supply chain depth - with low fuel costs, zero carbon emissions, and capacity factors no other thermal generator could match. They were shut down because opposition to nuclear power had become a marker of political identity in societies wealthy enough to prioritize symbolic concerns over material ones.
The scale of what was lost cannot be recovered quickly. France still has a nuclear fleet, but the engineering workforce that commissioned those 54 reactors has largely retired. The specialized welding trades, project management expertise, and the regulatory culture that enabled rather than blocked development - all of it eroded during decades when new nuclear construction seemed unnecessary.
When France attempted to demonstrate it could still build, the result was Flamanville 3: a single EPR reactor whose construction began in 2007 and achieved grid connection only in late 2024, after costs escalated to roughly 13 billion euros against an original estimate of 3.3 billion. Flamanville, the analysis argues, reveals both the institutional knowledge Europe has lost and the cost of rediscovering what previous generations knew.
New nuclear construction could be authorized across Europe, but the supply chains and workforce needed to execute it at the pace the 1970s demonstrated are not reconstituted by political commitment alone. Reconstituting those supply chains, the analysis warns, will take decades, not years.
Earlier, "Hvylya" examined why a transatlantic divorce opens a dangerous window for adversaries in Europe's most vulnerable regions.