Burning oil warehouse in Saudi ArabiaImage: keystone
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Mar 19, 2026, 4:27 p.mMar 19, 2026, 4:27 p.m
We are currently living through difficult times. You can complain about it – but you can also use it to look within yourself and ask yourself a few fundamental questions.
For example these:
Do we really want to be dependent on the brain chair of the current US president?
Do we really want to be dependent on decisions made by future US presidents?
Do we really want to be dependent on the amateur Napoleon from Leningrad?
Do we really want to be dependent on the political spin in Nigeria and the authoritarian regime in Kazakhstan? About the unstable situation in Libya? From the dictator in Azerbaijan?
Do we really want to be dependent on regimes like Iran’s? That of Saudi Arabia? That of the United Arab Emirates?
We really want it every year import fossil fuels for twelve billion francs (instead of paying this money to Swiss energy producers)?
Do we really want to place the foundation of our modern life in such foreign hands?
Can I even call myself a patriot if I don’t support the expansion of Swiss renewable energy?
The answers to all questions are no. The current world situation is no coincidence. There is no guarantee that things will get better from November and the midterms – on the contrary. One can assume that the current turbulence is only a harbinger of when the effects of climate change really unfold and fewer and fewer mega-corporations pool more and more power.
Wind turbine in California. Donald Trump hates wind power – that should be a sign to us.Image: keystone
Switzerland would do well to take its fate into its own hands and minimize its dependence on foreign countries, especially when it comes to this issue of national security. We currently import 70 percent of the energy consumed in Switzerland. We won’t be able to completely eradicate this dependency – but our goal should be to keep it as low as possible.
There is a solution for this too: Swiss renewables.
Switzerland could generate 30 TWh from wind power alone – 19 TWh of which in the winter half of the year. 19 TWh is what all of Switzerland’s nuclear power plants will produce in 2025.
But the potential is untapped.
- In 2025, the 50 Swiss wind power plants produced a measly 0.165 TWh.
- There are 1,500 wind turbines in Austria.
- In Bavaria 1150.
- In Baden-Württemberg 782.
- There are 2,608 in the neighboring French regions.
With just 1000 systems we could produce 9 TWh – 5.7 in winter. This raises the next question:
How long will we be so stupid as to let this potential go unused?