Is America Doomed To Replicate Europe’s Energy Crisis?
- What is happening in Europe—including the UK, by the way, one of the most active energy transitioners—right now is a cautionary tale of magnificent proportions.
- Europe was in no particular rush to top up its gas reserves at the time, and neither was Asia.
- The quick deterioration in the energy situation in Europe should make anyone planning major energy system overhauls think twice before following the exact same scenario that Europe did.
For weeks now, there has been virtually no other news but the energy crunch that surprised Europe in September and has since then gone on to roil every market and industry and spur fears of blackouts, astronomical utility bills, and rising food prices.
The official version of events is that rising energy demand coincided with tight energy supply. The unofficial version has to do with Europe’s energy transition agenda and the possibility it may have rushed to it without enough long-term planning. And now, the U.S. has basically an identical agenda, focusing on boosting wind and solar power generation capacity, reduce demand for oil and gas, and encourage people to buy EVs instead of cars with internal combustion engines.
David Blackmon wrote earlier this week for Forbes that “The energy crisis in Western Europe this summer has been brought on by premature retirements of hundreds of coal and natural gas power plants in favor of massive over-reliance on wind power and, to a lesser extent, solar.”
He went on to note that, “Ironically, this crisis is taking place just as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats attempt to ram through their massive $3.5 “budget reconciliation” bill that is in large part designed to recreate the European model in the United States.”
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