You don't need new square mileage for solar, you can add it to areas already used for other things. The Netherlands for example have the largest percentage of rooftop solar of all the EU countries, getting over 14% of their yearly electricity production from it.

Rooftop solar don't work when a single house's worth of roof can generate a whole family, && there are more than one family sharing the land - energy generated from solar is proportional to projected area on the land and not volume or total surface area of buildings on it. I guess buildings are lower-rise in Netherlands(which is good for your psychological health).

Then why aren't those EU countries negotiating agreements with other less-well-off countries that are so blessed?

Yes, that would require a cable. But it isn't rational to be in a situation where we believe we can build a fusion reactor, but some relatively simple civil engineering is apparently beyond us.

The EU is surrounded by a bunch of dictatorships. Not exactly the ones you want to have you by the balls for something as important as energy.

See what's happening now with the Middle East. Don't want to repeat that dependency. I'm referring to the UAE basically using the climate conference as a sales conference for fossil.

Though not the EU anymore, but something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_Powe...

The downside being you still don't have energy independence, if that is a goal.

It should be a goal. It's less than 2 years since a former EU ally used our dependence on them for energy as a bargaining tool.

We haven't had energy independence in Europe for decades. That risk is managed by hedging, and there's no reason we couldn't do the same with long-distance solar interconnects.

> We haven't had energy independence in Europe for decades.

Yes, and that has bitten us in the ass big time.

It's odd to me that you're fine with the fruits of all other research, such as solar panels or power transmission infrastructure, but this particular bit of research is an affront.

Is there any country in the EU (bar the micronations) that doesn't have sufficient space for either solar or wind or a mix of both?