AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis
In what has become something of an annual tradition throughout the United States and the West, the cold winter months and increased energy demand once again have proven the unrealistic nature and potentially deadly consequences of the left’s prophesied “green energy revolution” and “net zero” agenda.
Following a blast of artic air which swept across the U.S. in early January, much of Europe also saw unusually cold temperatures a few weeks later. In Britain, some areas saw the thermometer dip as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit, well below seasonal averages.
During this cold snap, it was not wind or solar farms, but rather the U.K.’s last remaining coal-fired power plant which saved the day, increasing output to record levels. Still, British authorities were forced to plead with households to lower their thermostats and refrain from using washing machines, refrigerators, and other appliances to avoid the possibility of a blackout.
Nonetheless, the British government plans to close the plant this September – leaving the country with precious little wiggle room for the next deep freeze.
Across the English Channel, Germany has been forced to rely on coal for one-fourth of its electricity generation this winter – despite decades of relentless efforts to close down the country’s coal plants. In an embarrassing display of just how much Germany’s push for renewables has failed, the German cabinet was forced to re-open shuttered coal plants last September amid a drop in Russian oil and gas exports as a result of the Ukraine war.
According to a report for European lawmakers which I reviewed, Germany is expected to produce about 1.9 gigawatts of energy from coal this winter – enough to power nearly 1.5 million homes.
Despite these drastic measures, many Europeans are still living under the constant threat of blackouts – a prospect which could literally be life-threatening with at least one more month of cold winter temperatures still to go.
“Neither solar nor wind can even be ten percent as reliable as coal, oil, or gas,” Professor Adalbert von Appenwiler, a former physics lecturer at Swiss and German universities and energy policy advisor for Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s government in the early 1990s, told me. “If windmills are so brilliant, why would the fathers of our winning Western industry build refineries and mines?” he asked.
Professor von Appenwiller also added that if the Biden administration and congressional Democrats continued their failed policies, which are modeled after those in Europe, Americans would face the same crisis as Europeans now face. “It is only the beginning,” he warned.
Indeed, while the U.S. has avoided any major blackouts so far this winter, Biden’s obsession with renewables is inching the country dangerously close to catastrophe. On January 15, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) requested that households conserve power since wind power generation was low, a clear sign that blackouts are not too far away.
With the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NAERC) predicting that retail electricity sales in the United States may set a new record this year and the Biden administration continuing to push renewables at the expense of fossil fuels, Texas’s problem is already becoming a national one. A recent NAERC report further predicted that energy demand in the next ten years will rise faster than in the past five.
“We are facing an absolute step change in the risk environment surrounding reliability and energy assurance,” said John Moura, Director of Reliability Assessment and Performance Analysis at NAERC. “The future projection does not offer a clear path to securing the reliable electricity supply that is essential for the health, safety and prosperity of our communities.”
Households in both the United States and Europe are also experiencing soaring energy costs as a result of ill-advised green energy policies – a problem only made worse by exorbitant government subsidies.
Dr. Vittorio Di Stefano, a retired engineer, former special advisor to Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, and observer of U.S. energy policies, told me that Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” – which was in actuality an enormous subsidy package for the renewable energy industry – “exacerbates the problem” of high prices because “it covers the failures of this expensive and inefficient technology.”
“By subsidizing it, the Biden administration is allowing companies to free-ride and avoid market forces that could improve efficiency,” he said.
Dr. Di Stefano also pointed to the recent example of prominent British energy executives asking for more taxpayer money in the form of energy price increases as evidence that even large subsidies will not suffice. “Lowering costs for consumers is not important to [renewable energy companies], only their ambitions to lower global temperatures,” he said. “It is an impossible goal that, if not stopped, will ruin our economies.”
Seeming to confirm Dr. Di Stefano’s assertion, Joe Kaeser, the chairman of Siemens Energy, the biggest producer of wind turbines in the U.K., recently said outright, “I believe that customers need to accept higher pricing for a while.” He did not specify how long “for a while” meant, similar to how the owner of Britain’s largest refinery did not specify how much “a few pence” would be that the British people will have to pay extra in fuel costs to reach net zero emissions.
Professor von Appenwiler warned me that the left’s green energy ambitions are headed for a “big fiasco.” If that is indeed the case, it will be everyday people, not politicians and energy companies getting rich off taxpayer-funded subsidies, paying the price.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
