It’s beginning to look like the government in Germany is the gang that can’t make up its mind. Barely two weeks after seeming to kill off nuclear energy, politicians are reconsidering again. As long as they also impose speed limits on the country’s famous Autobahn highways, that is.

This is what passes for an energy-security debate in Berlin these days. Politicians and some pronuclear media outlets are floating the idea of a grand horse trade (Kuhhandel, or “cow trade” in German) that would see the lives of the country’s three remaining nuclear reactors extended after all, in exchange for introducing a highway speed limit to save gasoline and diesel.