JAMES MEIGS: How Green Was Germany’s Folly? “While Europe was buying solar panels, banning fracking, and shuttering nuclear plants, Russia was drilling wells and building nuclear plants. It’s a funny thing: In the West, the smart set will tell you that nuclear-power plants are too expensive and take too long to build. They also claim that wind and solar have made nuclear obsolete. And yet in Russia—a country awash in dirt-cheap gas, oil, and coal—Putin found it worth his while to double the country’s nuclear capacity in just a couple of decades. Having more nuclear power at home meant he could send more fossil fuels to his increasingly needy European customers. He didn’t do that out of generosity.”