I see some rather obvious advantages to reducing our energy dependence... (and no, I didn't mean giving Jérôme more work by buying more wind turbines -that would indeed be a drawback, since he couldn't post much then).

Of course, that may just the environmentalist in me. But also, if Europe were to become a world specialist in all things energy  consumption reducing, could it fail to be repaid tenfold when all countries will start to be desperate for energy savings?

Of course, it would require policy choices of a rather different nature from what we have seen of late. Surely the fact that Schröder had a nice rich seat waiting for him at Gazprom is no sign that all was being done to relieve Europe of the dependency...

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi