alt Hacker News>> Europe is the only place which shows a little less potential. They can build solar farms in Spain, Turkey, North Africa and add transmission lines.
Traveled a lot in Europe earlier this year (by rail). Saw quite a lot of solar installed, both on buildings and in open land.
Saw even more wind turbines. Europe may have less solar potential, but clearly they still have enough sun to make solar economically viable. And the addition of wind turbines makes sense; that co-exists very well with farm land, and nicely balances solar production.
Haven't visited Europe in a few years. Last time I was there, on a train routed through less populated areas of northern France, I saw nuclear plants emitting steam. For all their downsides they do feed a lot of power into the grid. It is a relatively clean option.
You make a strong case for alternative options. I guess the path taken pivots on evaluation of the tradeoffs, and significantly, who does the evaluating.