Nothing like a good winter of blackouts to... energize political momentum.

Even this winter, clearly still pre-EV dominance, is going to be interesting - if it's cold in europe for long, and if Russia decides to use their current position of power for a nasty short-term shock, that could really shift people's willingness to accept a few sacrifices in the coming years.

I wouldn't count them out just because they've got issues; those things might change quite quickly - some of the needed infrastructure can be built in just a few years, once the political will is there, which currently is lacking. Sure, it's a problem, but on this topic: what else is new.

What do you mean? I cannot remember the last time we actually had a power outage here. It is also not like we aren't working on making the grid ready for increased loads. A more known example for that is Suedlink that is meant to connect the wind farms in northern Germany to the south of it by moving 4GW of power (that's 5-10% of total power generation in Germany alone) over hundreds of kilometers.

Progress on SuedLink is glacial and projected completion has been pushed back from 2022 to 2025 in 2016. Current estimates are between 2026 and 2028.

Meanwhile the shutting down of the last nuclear power plants in Germany, the original reason for SuedLink, is on track to happen by the end of 2022.

I am not impressed by the level of foresight on display here.