Breaking news: Nuclear power and gas are sustainable

The EU Commission deliberated for a long time, listened to many arguments with one ear, and most of them escaped again without being slowed down by a brain mass - if we can assume that the figurative expression for humanoids applies to a bureaucratic construct.

We do not yet have all the information on what plausible grounds the best minds in European science will use to declare sustainability, as the news had our editorial tickers running hot just a few minutes ago. But we are sure that it will raise a cry of joy for all future generations.

The most obvious, albeit purely speculative, assumption is that an attempt was made to tailor the classification as simply as possible to the level of the common ageing population. After all, cognitive abilities and abstraction skills decline over the years, so why overburden the population consisting of over 40% pensioners by weighing more factors than:
- are impacts visible
- when are they visible
- why should we care?

The first question was: are we talking about fossil fuels? Since gas can also come from freshly digested cows and does not have to be a by-product of oil production, (hence the oil price link, because at the beginning of marketing it had no idea what it would cost - but that is another topic) the classification as a sustainable energy source was easy. What escapes invisibly into the atmosphere must be harmless.

Nuclear power was more tricky. In fact, 'nuclear power' itself is not used at all, but the artificially generated separation of radioactive particles, which can no longer be stopped, is used to contaminate water, which becomes so hot that it can be used to drive turbines.

But since every atom on this planet has lived in some way, been digested and then compressed into something else by pressure from the earth's crust, there is another important argument in favour of the sustainability quality of uranium and plutonium: research. Apart from cancer research, which is supported by the tobacco industry, no other branch of industry is on the upswing as much as studies on the half-life and storage possibilities of fuel rods.
This creates jobs that will not decline in the next one and a half million years, since the workers who die off from radiation exposure will soon have to be replaced.

We have all been too short-sighted so far. Sustainability does not mean at all what effects our actions or omissions have for our future and that of our children, but how the economy benefits from them. It is then also quite clear that the Commission had to decide in this way.

The coalition government's nuclear phase-out will therefore inevitably lead to a lawsuit by the EU against the main contributor. But this is only about money. There is enough of it and it is not being spent on NATO, refugees, repairing infrastructure damage caused by extreme weather, solar or wind power, lighting nature reserves (keyword: light pollution), the health system or the fight against money laundering.