Let’s Not Imitate Europe’s Disastrous Energy Policies

Remember when Americans couldn’t afford to heat their homes in the late 1970s, and President Jimmy Carter urged everyone to buy cardigan sweaters and burn wood in their fireplaces? That is pretty much where Europe is today, as reported in the Telegraph: “‘Unprecedented’ gas price surge threatens national crisis, suppliers warn.”

Energy chiefs have warned that Britain is facing a deepening national crisis after gas prices soared to record levels following a sharp fall in European imports from Russia.
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The energy price cap for households is expected to climb above £2,000 in April in the wake of the surge, up 56pc on current levels and 75pc higher than it was in September in a blow for millions of consumers.

Meanwhile 26 UK retail energy suppliers have gone bust since August because the cap prevents them from passing higher costs on to their customers, while a host of other businesses in energy and beyond are struggling.

Price fixing: always the worst response to any economic crisis.

Nigel Pocklington, chief executive of household supplier Good Energy, said: “This is a national crisis. Wholesale gas and power prices have increased to unprecedented levels over the last three weeks … no-one in the industry is immune.”

Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of Energy UK, said: “As the energy sector has been warning for weeks now, the unprecedented and alarming cost of gas across Europe will be the biggest issue facing the UK economy in the spring.

“We need action from the UK Treasury on this huge inflationary risk to business and economic security, and for all the ordinary people who will be facing a 50pc increase in their bill.”

Philippe Commaret, managing director for customers at EDF, one of the UK’s largest suppliers, said: “The situation is critical this winter, and unfortunately this is only the beginning.”

Europe’s energy crisis results from a lack of domestic natural gas sources (although I am not sure what is going on with Norway’s vast North Sea reserves) and a consequent reliance on Russia to heat homes and keep the lights on:

Russia has been accused of adding to pressure on prices by withholding extra spot market supplies, with the amount of gas piped to Europe down a third from 2019 levels this month.

You might think that nothing could be stupider than turning over to Vladimir Putin your citizens’ ability to heat their homes, but you would be wrong. Here in the U.S., we are doing something even dumber. We have more oil and gas than any other country, including Russia, and for a brief shining moment during the Trump administration we were fully developing those resources, and we became energy independent with a healthy export business.

Under Joe Biden, things are different: our government is shutting down oil and gas production wherever it can, while at the same time begging the oil companies to continue fueling America’s economy for just a little while longer before they are driven out of business.

Instead of petroleum, the Biden administration wants our economy to run on solar panels, wind turbines and mythical batteries–a pipe dream that will never come true, as the laws of physics don’t permit it. But in the meantime, the Biden administration means to turn over energy production, and thus our economy, to the Chinese Communist Party, which dominates production and processing of the products and materials needed for the electrified economy that liberals say is the future.

So don’t scorn the Europeans for turning their economies over to Vladimir Putin. What we are doing with the Chinese Communist Party is worse. I don’t think that Joe Biden is a Communist Chinese agent, if only because he is not smart enough for that, and I think it is unlikely that he is being blackmailed by Chairman Xi, although that is possible. I think it is more likely that Biden is so clueless, and the Democratic Party’s funders are so concentrated in the “green energy”–i.e., Communist Chinese Party–sector, that they simply don’t know or care about our country’s future.