Published in: Archiv der Mathematik (2021), 117, 277–289.published online, July 24, 2021.https://doi.org/10.1007/s00013-021-01618-9Let k be a totally real number field. We show that the ``complexity'' of Greenberg's conjecture (lambda = mu = 0) is of p-adic nature and is governed by the torsion group T_k of the Galois group of the maximal abelian p-ramified pro-p-extension of k, by means of images, in T_k,of ideal norms along the layers k_n/k of the cyclotomic tower; these images areobtained via the algorithm computing, by ``unscrewing'', the p-class group of k_n (Theorem 5.2). Conjecture 5.4 of equidistribution of these images, finite in number, would show that Greenberg's conjecture, hopeless within the sole framework of Iwasawa's theory...