Ha Ha!

This is the kind of “well, duh!” headline that sends me to the bar early:

Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing.

The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind.

Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.

The wind “stops blowing.” Who would have thought that might happen? Funny how when “green energy” gets into trouble, the backup is always those evil fossil fuels that can be turned up quickly, scale up large, and dispatched where needed on the grid.

Meanwhile, out here in California, to avoid rolling blackouts because of high electricity demands, the state has waived air pollution emission limits so that diesel generators can make up the shortfall.

And yet we’re still on course to close our last nuclear power plant that provides almost 10 percent of the state’s total electricity. PG&E (who are lying corporate socialists) say they can make up the loos wholly from wind and solar power. But I’ll bet they are secretly lining up lots of backup diesel generators.

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