The EU Green Taxonomy Soap Opera feat. Myrto Tripathi

The EU Green Taxonomy has been a source of acrimony in the EU since it launched. It was meant as a tool to guide investment towards a "low carbon, resilient and resource-efficient economy" by classiflying technologies into three tiers: "Sustainable," "Transitory," or "Brown." 

The initial categorization committee did not include scientists or engineers but rather limited itself to green finance and environmental NGO's who constrained the sustainable definition to wind, solar and tidal, exluding nuclear and even hydro. 

Over time, more and more interest groups have entered the fray, exposing serious dissension within the EU member states, who are bitterly divided into blocs based on their opinions about the role of Nuclear Energy and Natural Gas. 

In addition to EU members, green NGOs, oil and gas, the renewable industry and nuclear advocates have stepped into the fray. As a result the sustainable category has grown to include bio-energy, geothermal, and hydro alongside wind and solar.  

Nuclear went under the closest scrutiny of any power generation technology, with a Joint Research Council report finding that nuclear was no more harmful to human health or the environment than other electricity production technologies already included in the sustainable category of the Green Taxonomy.

As it stands, Nuclear and Natural gas have been put in a special category for further consideration, but nuclear seems to be out of the running as a "sustainable" technology. The fate of its final status will have dramatic impacts on the ability for nuclear to bring back energy sovereignty and stability to the EU grid, which is currently in crisis due to volatile and extremely high gas prices. 

Myrto Tripathi of Voices of Nuclear joins me to lay out the cast of characters and the soap opera-like drama of the EU Green Taxonomy process so far. Join her at Stand up for Nuclear Paris, which will be occurring Oct 9th from 1100-1700 local time. For more info go to https://www.voicesofnuclear.org/stand-up-for-nuclear-2021/