Commentary Europe isn’t going to achieve a competitive energy transition with the current interventionist policies. Europe doesn’t depend on Russian gas due to a coincidence, but because of a chain of mistaken policies: banning nuclear in Germany and prohibiting the development of domestic natural gas resources throughout the European Union, combined with a massive and expensive renewable roll-out without building a reliable back-up. Solar and wind don’t reduce dependency on Russian natural gas. They’re necessary but volatile and intermittent. They need back-up for security of supply from nuclear, hydro, and natural gas. Dependency rises in periods of low wind and little sun, just when prices are highest. Batteries aren’t an option either. It’s impossible to build an industrial-size network of enormous batteries; the cost would be prohibitive and the dependency on China to build them (lithium etc.) would be even more of a problem. At current prices, a battery storage …