Opinion: Europe is descending into climate lockdowns due to reliance on wind and solar

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To be sure, Russia is throttling gas supplies, but what they won’t mention is how Europe became enthralled to Russia and its vast natural gas reserves in the first place. The fact is, Europe spent decades replacing fossil fuels with intermittent, unreliable renewable energy, largely from wind and solar.

By Michael Bastasch

If energy is life and the lack of energy is death, then Europe’s dismantling its own energy security is the equivalent of civilizational suicide.

Europe is once again on the brink of lockdowns — though their goal this time around is not to “stop the spread” of a virus. This time, European Union members, and even the UK, are imposing energy rationing schemes in an attempt to keep people from freezing to death this winter.

In Germany, they’re no longer heating public pools, traffic lights are being shut off and turning off city fountains. Hungary instructed schools to look into wood-burning to keep warm. The Netherlands is urging citizens to shower less, and Spain is literally regulating people’s thermostats.

The UK is not only bracing for potential blackouts, but also for eye-popping electricity rates. Power bills are set to hit $5,000 a year, which one group warned, will drive one-third of households into “fuel poverty.”

Heavy industry is also facing restrictions, if not outright shutdowns as electricity prices fly off the charts and inflation soars. Some chemical, fertilizer and steel plants are already shutting down as this new, economic contagion spreads.

Of course, the Euro elites who lord over the continent will tell you this is all Russia’s fault. To be sure, Russia is throttling gas supplies, but what they won’t mention is how Europe became enthralled to Russia and its vast natural gas reserves in the first place.

The fact is, Europe spent decades replacing fossil fuels with intermittent, unreliable renewable energy, largely from wind and solar. For years, Europe’s political elites ignored, dismissed and even mocked those who sounded the alarm on their “green” indulgences.

The pitfalls of this misguided policy were obvious — wind and solar power need tremendous amounts of backup fuel sources given their intermittent nature. Hence why Europe, Germany in particular, became addicted to cheap Russian gas. The more renewables they dumped onto the grid, the more reliant they became on Vladimir Putin’s energy.

Nowhere is this more obvious than Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany. Under former Chancellor Angela Merkel, the country embarked on the so-called “Energiewende” to transition to “green” energy, like wind and solar.

Germany sank hundreds of billions of dollars into this green fantasy while closing baseload coal plants and eschewing the potentially bountiful natural gas reserves right under their feet. Merkel even began the patently insane policy of closing nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The current government is only now reconsidering that disastrous course.

The result of this green transition? Germany’s economy is teetering on the brink of ruin, and officials are concerned about social upheaval and widespread unrest if things really take a turn for the worst this winter.

And they very well could… but why should Americans worry? Besides the obvious economic and geopolitical fallout, it bears reminding that despite Europe’s blunders, many on the political left still see them as model states when it comes to climate policies.

Europe has long been a bellwether for where the American left is headed, whether it’s calls for socialized medicine or the Green New Deal. Indeed, the Biden administration joined Europe in committing to the laughable goal of “net zero” emissions in the coming decades.

It turns out “net zero” really just refers to what will be left in your bank account as energy prices skyrocket. While gas prices have come down, they’re still unnecessarily high thanks to President Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels.

Despite the president’s half-hearted pro-oil production rhetoric, there’s zero indication he will substantively change course when it comes to implementing climate policies similar to the ones that enthralled Europe to Russia.

Except in our case, we won’t become Russian serfs. Instead, we’ll become dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for the critical minerals to power Biden’s “green” revolution.

China’s malfeasance already brought about a COVID lockdown – it would be a massive, unforced error to let it happen again.

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6 thoughts on “Opinion: Europe is descending into climate lockdowns due to reliance on wind and solar

  1. No one in Liberal VT see’s the irony? ALL that has happened in Europe/Germany, has been done by VT! Enviro Indoctrination. VT closed it’s nuclear plant, so did Germany. They closed some fossil fuel plants. So did VT…BTV is burning feel good, air polluting, wood chips. But wood chips come from Tree’s and tree’s absorb CO2. So VT is causing climate change BY BURNING TREE’s that save CO2 and burned, later pollute the air. VT fights to ban any new fossil fuel pipelines. VT fights to halt expansion at Coventry landfill for renewable methane electricity.. VT Socialist Enviros fight wind towers in NE Kingdom because they are unsightly, noisy and kill birds? Vt Dem Enviros will fight any new large hydro power dams because they harm fish habitat.. Some Enviros’ are angry now at solar panels, because to get any REAL power “scale”, it will take up much of the pristine VT landscape. Is that what Tourism industry wants? And this! THANK GOD, the idiots in VT were the FIRST state to ban “fracking”…and did it even when there IS NO OIL or GAS to drill for VT..But they sure do “feel better”…. What idiots they all are.

    • Jeff,
      Great comment.

      But many enviros are chasing the ver profitable, vote-buying, subsidy gravy train that gives ratepayers solar electricity at about 20c/kWh, and negotiated rates of 13 c/kWh for special offer, applicable to mostly larger systems

      All of NE has about 5000 MW of solar systems installed, 50% of which are in Massachusetts. They produce about 4000 MW, at around noon time, ONLY ON A VERY SUNNY DAY.

      The output of wind and solar is minimal from 5 am to 10 am, ALMOST ALL DAYS OF THE YEAR, per ISO-NE website.

      The output of wind and solar is minimal from 5 pm to 10 pm, ALMOST ALL DAYS OF THE YEAR, when peak demands occur.

      If you build twice as much wind and solar systems, 2 times a minimal quantity is still a minimal quantity

    • Merkel appears to have been a sleeper agent whose political career was started by a former STASI agent. Many of her actions were done to appease the extreme left wing while at the same time forming an energy alliance with Russia.

      Looks like Trump saw all this and was not afraid to tell them (in front of the UN) where they were headed. Just add it to the long and ever growing list of his accomplishments.

      • Merkel was the major instigator of NORDSTREAM 2, a set of pipelines directly from Russia to Germany, which was added to the 10-y old NORDSTREAM 1 set.

        Together, they could transmit 110 BILLION CUBIC METER PER YEAR.

        Only NORDSTREAM 1 is in operation, but at only 20% of capacity.

        Russia is converting much of that gas to LNG and shipping it to China, India and other East Asian countries, AT A DISCOUNT.

        Natural gas pricing increased by a factor of 6 in Europe, due to sanctions backfiring, by a factor of 3 in the US, due to Biden exporting our oil and gas and coal.

        The stupidity of it all is off-the-charts.

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