David Wallace-Wells, an opinion writer for the The New York Times, is warning of a possible apocalyptic winter scenario for Europe in terms of meeting their energy demands, noting the continent is facing a “very touch and go” situation with their energy infrastructure.
Wallace-Wells predicts possible energy rationing in Europe this winter, largely due to Russia’s stranglehold on natural gas supplies in the region.
“I don’t think many Americans appreciate just how tense and tenuous, how very touch and go the energy situation in Europe is right now,” he wrote. “In recent weeks, the prospects have begun to look darker.”
Dr. Tatiana Mitrova, a research fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, put it even more starkly: “It is wartime,” Mitrova remarked on a recent episode of the “Columbia Energy Exchange” podcast.
“This is something that European politicians and consumers didn’t want to admit for quite a long time. It sounds terrible, but that’s the reality. In wartime the economy is mobilized. The decisions are made by the governments, not by the free market. This is the case for Europe this winter,” Mitrova explained.
“We are not actually talking about extremely high prices, but we are talking about physical absence of energy resources in certain parts of Europe.”
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden agrees.
“It will be a really tough winter in Europe. Some countries will fare better than others but we will all be facing a very significant escalation in energy prices,” van Beurden said in July.
The extremely “green” nations of Europe appear to understand that they’re in for a tough winter. In June, Germany announced plans to fire up coal — that most hated of fossil fuels — plants, at least for the short term to help meet power needs.
Germany’s Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck, a member of the country’s Green Party, lamented that fact while announcing measures to restrict the use of natural gas:
With the law, we are setting up a gas replacement reserve on demand. And I can already say: We will call off the gas replacement reserve as soon as the law comes into force. That means, to be honest, more coal-fired power plants for a transitional period. That’s bitter, but in this situation it’s almost necessary to reduce gas consumption.
And in the United Kingdom, energy costs have grown so out of control that “Don’t Pay UK,” a group protesting the steep increase in energy prices, has garnered more than 100,000 citizens who vow to not pay their energy bill unless the government acts to make energy more affordable.
Bit if Tatiana Mitrova is right, Europe is facing not only extremely high energy prices this winter, but an actual availability crisis.
It’s all Vladimir Putin’s fault, if you believe the words of former Obama advisor Jason Bordoff, whom Wallace-Wells interviewed in his piece:
It’s increasingly clear that Vladimir Putin is using gas as a weapon and trying to supply just enough gas to Europe to keep Europe in a perpetual state of panic about its ability to weather the coming winter. Europe has been finding all the supplies that it can, but governments are realizing that’s not going to be sufficient. There are going to have to be efforts taken to curb demand as well and to prepare for the possibility of really severe energy rationing this winter.
Of course, Wallace-Wells and Bordoff seem to believe that the drastic situation in Europe has been caused solely by Vladimir Putin and his war with Ukraine, and certainly Putin’s use of Russian gas supplies as a weapon is a contributing factor in the situation.
However, one thing Wallace-Wells, a prominent climate hysteric, fails to point out is how Europe’s reckless switch to unreliable “renewable” energy sources such as wind and solar, and its shutting down of reliable sources of energy such as coal and nuclear, has made the continent ripe for the very type of blackmail that Putin is engaging in.
Neither wind nor solar is capable of powering Europe (or anywhere else) in the long term. Europe put the cart before the horse regarding its power grid. They listened to the hysteria espoused by climate fanatics and renounced fossil fuels, and now their citizens are in for a potentially very cold winter.
And Joe Biden and the Democrats seek to do the same thing to the United States.
