Comment by jillesvangurp
2 days ago
It helps to have stable bi-lateral relationships between countries that choose to connect their grids and economies. This kind of stability is a good thing. The current instability with long relationships being questioned and falling apart is a bad thing. And where you say cost, I say investment. Because energy is a valuable commodity and being able to buy/sell energy via cables has value.
Most renewable energy investments have decent, easy to calculate returns on investment. That's why this stuff is so popular with investors. And that's also why I don't think current policy changes in the US matter long term. It just slightly increases the time to a return on investment. But you still get a return. So, companies will continue to look at batteries, solar, and indeed cables with or without government support. And even a little bit of tariffs (aka. taxes) won't stop that.
Recent history is a very, very good reminder that political relationships between countries (or more generally political powers) are extremely fragile and the only reliable constant in these kinds of systems is change and stability isn't permanent, unfortunately.
Even the EU with it's very tight integration between member states is seeing a lot of pressure to tear itself apart again from the inside, despite the very real costs thĺis would bring.