Worth adding that in EU this is largely German public opinion. And somehow the tail wags the dog.

Angela Merkel was a disaster in this regard. The nation went collectively insane after Fukushima and she cowed to the public to win the next election rather than try to calm the public ignorance.

Instead, Germany funded Russia's NordGas II pipeline to replace the nuclear power they turned off with gas. Insane stupidity.

As stupid as this policy was, it wasn't started by Merkel. She just sped it up.

The previous chancellor Schröder, now a foreign Russian energy minister, set the schedule into motion for nuclear shutdown.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relation...

No, Germany did not fund Nordstream 2.

"Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall will each provide loans covering 10 per cent of the €9.5bn cost of the pipeline, with Gazprom providing the remaining 50 per cent."

Source: Financial Times, https://archive.vn/pirwk

Also, clean energy is a long way off and Europeans are still going to have to heat their houses. Personally, I'm happy that we're doing business with Russia, rather than being locked into more expensive, US gas imports.

> US gas imports

The US has huge natural gas reserves. Are they really importing natural gas?

I mean imports from the US to Europe.

It's a good idea to have multiple suppliers.

IMO, Trump's sanctioning of Nordstream 2 was mostly economic warfare against an ally (Europe), disguised as geoplitical concerns about Russia.

And they put back up many coal power plants which creates an insane amount of air pollution.

That's not true. There is an exit strategy for coal in germany and at least for now it's still going. Next year they will shutdown the remaining nuclear plants. That will be the moment of truth.

And continue with their coal mines and turbines too…

Is it so? Constituting a quarter of the gdp, Germany doesn't seem to qualify as "the tail".

Is public opinion weight a matter of GDP? Should it?

I'm afraid it usually is - just think of ways to sway it. Now, I would love to agree it shouldn't be, but there is no concrete system I can think of that could decouple it well. Ownership of media by the state oftentimes makes it a propaganda arm of whichever party is ruling. Private ownership, even in case of heavy subsidies, implies ownership by capital...

Germany is also the most populated country in the EU.

That's 26% of EU population. Still less than 50%.

Hasn’t Bill Gates done a lot with nuclear reactor design?

Yes. But it's not ready for production yet, they don't have a demonstrator.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

Yes: https://www.terrapower.com/