Europe is living through its third energy price shock in four years. In 2022, Russia weaponized its gas pipelines. In 2023–24, conflict in the Red Sea disrupted shipping lanes. Now, war in the Middle East has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil has breached $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Stock markets are in freefall. European gas prices have surged roughly 70%. Each time the trigger is different. The vulnerability is always the same: Europe runs on fuel it does not own, shipped through waters it does not control.

Wind and solar cannot be embargoed, blockaded, or shut off by a foreign power. Every terawatt-hour of domestic renewable generation is a terawatt-hour that no adversary can weaponize. Unlike the U.S., Europe has no shale gas. Unlike China, it cannot fall back on cheap domestic coal. The only energy Europe can produce at scale, on its own soil, is renewable electricity. Europe must now become the world’s first Electro-Continent.

This is not only about shielding against the next geopolitical shock. It is about building the foundation for the next industrial era.

The AI Race Is an Energy Race

The IEA projects that global data-center electricity consumption will more than double by 2030, reaching roughly 945 terawatt-hours — more than Japan consumes today. The winner of the next industrial revolution will not be the region with the best engineers. It will be the region that can deliver the cheapest, most abundant, fastest-to-deploy power.

Europe is being squeezed from both sides. Industrial electricity prices in the EU are roughly twice those in the U.S. and about 50% higher than in China — a gap that is widening. European founders are already world-class at innovation. But no amount of innovation can overcome a 100% overhead on your primary industrial input.

Both superpowers have understood that energy abundance is a strategic necessity. China invested over $1 trillion in clean energy in 2025. The U.S. enjoys the double advantage of cheap domestic shale gas and the massive capital commitments of Big Tech. As former ECB President Mario Draghi’s landmark competitiveness report made clear, Europe’s industrial base is bleeding out because of energy costs. If Europe wants to host the next generation of €100 billion companies, it must fix the foundation.

Renewables Won the Market. Now Let Them Build.

The good news: renewable energy prices have dropped more than 90% over the past decade. In 2025, over 90% of new renewable capacity was cheaper than the fossil fuel alternative. Clean energy is the cheapest and fastest form of new generation available.

Wind and solar generated more EU electricity than fossil fuels for the first time in 2025. Yet the gas tail still wags the dog. A single dip in wind and hydro output last year forced higher gas burn, pushing the EU’s fossil gas import bill up 16%. Every remaining molecule of gas dependency is a transmission mechanism for the next foreign crisis.

China is becoming the world’s first electro-state — making cheap, domestically produced electricity its primary competitive advantage. But Europe has something China does not: the density, grid interconnection, and integrated single market to do this at continental scale. The EU’s Clean Industrial Deal, launched in February 2025, places renewables at the heart of industrial strategy. The vision is correct. The execution is failing.

The Permits Problem Is a Security Problem

While Brussels sets the right direction, member states are undermining it. Last November, Sweden rejected 13 offshore wind projects in the Baltic Sea — projects with a combined capacity of nearly 32 gigawatts. That single decision wiped out €47 billion of private investment.

Across Europe, legislators are still listening to incumbent energy companies that need policy life-support to survive, rather than backing technologies that already stand on their own in open markets. Renewables may have needed an early push. They do not need one now.

Energy permits must be treated as national security priorities — with the same urgency as defense procurement. If a wind farm permit takes eight years, but a war can close a strait in eight hours, the permitting system is a strategic liability.

You cannot fight a trade war with China by starving your own industries of power. You cannot win the AI race with the world’s most expensive electricity. You cannot build €100 billion companies on a foundation that cracks every time a foreign government closes a shipping lane.

Europe does not need more government handouts to win this race. It needs government permissions. The capital is there. Corporate giants are desperate for green electrons. Pension funds and infrastructure investors are ready to deploy. What is missing is not money or technology. It is the political willingness to let them build.

David Frykman is a General Partner at Norrsken VC, the Stockholm-based venture fund backing founders solving the world's greatest challenges.

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