“Green”: A Slow-Motion Train Wreck

Around the world, “green” energy is failing with consequences that soon will be catastrophic. From the U.K.: “Ireland freezes power exports to UK as energy costs rocket tenfold.”

Shockingly, if you depend on wind energy you are in trouble when the wind stops blowing.

Ireland has been forced to freeze power exports to the UK to prevent a shortage which could have sparked blackouts as surging energy prices continue to cause chaos across Europe.

A toxic combination of low wind speeds and a severe squeeze on the supply of natural gas sent power costs jumping tenfold on the British mainland on Thursday to as much as £2,300 per megawatt-hour, a new record high.

If my arithmetic is correct, that is around 21 times the average cost of electricity in the U.S. at current exchange rates. The U.S. has the resources to offset a squeeze on natural gas supplies, but the Biden administration is opposed to domestic gas production.

Ireland’s Single Electricity Market Operator had issued an amber warning on Thursday morning, alerting the public to a “general shortfall” of electricity which could result in power cuts.

The cost of energy has been spiralling across Europe, due in part to calm weather which has drastically reduced the availability of renewable power.
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The spiralling prices will prompt further concern among officials who were earlier this week forced to fire up coal-based plants in an effort to cope with tight supplies.

In Spain, day-ahead electricity prices hit a record €152.32 a megawatt-hour according to Bloomberg. In France, the benchmark power price for delivery next year was at a record €99.50.

This is not some kind of “green” growing pains. This is the inevitable and permanent consequence of depending on inherently unreliable, and intrinsically expensive, energy sources. Other than, perhaps, Critical Race Theory, “renewable” energy is the West’s worst self-inflicted wound. But many voters won’t realize this until the lights start to go out.