For that matter, it's probably a net positive to put most plastic "recycling" into such schemes, as we're just turning plastic products into lower and lower grade pieces, with the associated generation of microplastics.
Nordics countries generally need lot of heating because of cold climate, which in cities is typically district heating, i.e. delivering the heat as hot water from big heating plants. Heat pumps are also very popular (air-to-air, air-to-water, geothermal).
For example, my house is entirely heated with 3 heat pumps, even in -25°C. From April to September 10 kW solar panels provide the most of energy, also charging my Tesla.
There's complicated interactions though, removing the plastics can affect the makeup of the fuel and the post combustion products can free recyclable metal from other materials they were combined with. Recycling processes often have an unrecyclable fraction which can be burned etc.
It does not help at all to put aluminum smelters on Qatari ground, claim zero emissions, and then watch those being bombed together with the LNG facilities.
It also does not help if Russia is the last country on earth that still has natural gas and can dictate fertilizer production. The journalists are all about short term thinking, mindless green agenda religion and no economic knowledge.
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/03/15/when-fossil-fuel-suppli...
https://www.lombardodier.com/insights/2025/november/from-coa...
Which is only half-true. China builds renewables not as replacement for fossil fuels but as an addition to fossil fuels.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/yes-china-has...
The exit from fossil fuel is planed in far future. China plans to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060.
https://english.news.cn/20251108/c47cb3e85468475f84182f8a7c7...
The priorities in Chinas energy policy are: 1. Availability of energy 2. Security of supply 3. Cost 4. Everything else
Chinese EV cars in are cars running not on oil but running mostly on domestic coal and hydro-power.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...
"This market is not functioning anymore." so you point fingers at everybody else?
Russia deserves all criticism and hate it gets.
I think the former chief editor of Pravda now holds a high rank in the EU propaganda apparatus. They famously had to repeat the same cliched phrases ad nauseum to reinforce them.
> President Donald Trump's US has become one lynchpin in Europe's energy provisions, replacing Russia.
Nah, he is joining them and helping them greatly. Russia is the only country gaining on this stupid war.
They are responsible for the situation by spreading ideological disinformation and fear mongering.
Otherwise Germany and others would be in the same position as France.
Tell me please how building nuclear plants today will solve our problems in the 15-20 years it takes to build them.
Or how the conservative party did phase out nuclear? They were 16 years at the helm, why couldn't they stop it?
But no the fringe party is at fault for everything. That rhetoric is both completely unfounded and basically far-right propaganda. Congratulations - you got targeted and manipulated into a single issue voter.
Since then, I renovated my house, installing a heat pump. That's long term planning when it comes to a household. The same kind of judicious long-term thinking we did not see from our leaders. Yeah, supply chains were shifted quickly and we started importing LNG from the USA and Qatar soon after giving some semblance of stability, but really we are still captives to petrostates.
Now with LNG prices spiking, exposing the vulnerability of our imports once again, we have our PM De Wever saying that we should aspire for normalised relations with Russia ASAP so that we can tap that cheap gas? That's a hard pass for me.
Fossil fuels are problematic enough as it stands but, I get it: Saudis draining the Colorado river for cow feed using their oil money, or whatever, that doesn't register very high up in what matters in the here and now. Yet another oil-shock fueled inflation wave though? That stings.
So perhaps the silver lining here is that at the very least, the geopolitical risk they pose is now truly very palpable. Again. It's out in the open. Again. We should seize the moment and see it as an opportunity to really double down on our efforts in phasing out fossil fuels. Again. The world will be a much better (albeit different) place without them.
Waste -> district heating is definitely happening in Sweden. Probably more so than waste -> electricity. There are better ways to generate electricity and we need heating anyway big part of the season.
I don't like the assumption that this calculation was not done by the book due to the greens being in charge of that. It's always the question: Lifetime extension can cost a lot and maybe it only buys 5 years. Basically I assume there was a € price and it was too high to pay. Maybe CDU would've payed that price but I don't think either is wrong.
The Greens - out of ideological fear mongering - forced the end of Nuclear, just like they forced the end of new construction decades ago, and keep the German public in fear.
How many more years would you run a plant commissioned in the 1980's for?
In the meantime, every day that goes by without building more, is the a day without the ability to walk away from Russian or Gulf oil.
1) The German Green movement killed nuclear decades ago, not 'now' - otherwise those plants would have already been built.
2) The conservatives parties have been pro-nuclear forever - they phased out Nuclear due to populist concerns, not ideological.
3) This is not even controversial - this is literally just political history on the continent.
4) "basically far-right propaganda. " good god, grow up. Not every bit of history is 'propaganda', and I'm not a German Voter.
>> Nuclear Energy on the Continent and in many other places was killed by the Green Party movement <<
In Germany specifically [1] the data shows decisively an acute, anti-Nuclear populist sentiment, as a result of the 'Green' movement.
The German Green movement used 'radicalism' and 'propaganda' ate away at public reason - the evidence for this is how far away the German data point was from everywhere else.
It's why Russia is powerful, partly why Europe cannot support it's own industrial basis.
It's an existential problem, and Nuclear needs to be part of the Energy mix.
[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu...
Is your solution to look in the past and blame everyone to solve the problems today?
Of course in Hindsight phasing out nuclear so fast was a mistake. Does that solve our problems now?