Elon Musk says its 'obvious' Europe needs to return to nuclear energy

Musk believes that increasing nuclear energy output is "critical to national and international security."

Musk also went on to taunt "those who (mistakenly) think this is a radiation risk" by asking them to say what they thought was the worst location, and that he would then go there and eat locally grown food on television. Musk mentioned going to Japan shortly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster and doing the same thing, and claimed the radiation risk is significantly lower than most people believe.

The tweet has come in the days following a Russian attack on Europe's largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which meets 20 percent of Ukraine's energy needs alone. According to the World Nuclear Association, 440 nuclear power plants across 33 countries generated 2553 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2020, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the global energy consumption.

Musk also went on to say, "nuclear is vastly better for global warming than burning hydrocarbons for energy." Despite this, European countries like Germany are shutting down its nuclear power plants, which experts have warned will make Germany "more dependent on natural gas overall, at least in the short term, and thus also a little more dependent on Russia."

Europe has been experiencing an energy crisis since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With ever-growing sanctions on Russia restricting the flow of energy resources, various European countries' planned phasing out of nuclear energy, including Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland, seems, at best, ill-timed.