Parts of Europe descended into darkness Monday — whether it was the Dark Ages or Third World afflictions, you can decided.
Spain, Portugal and parts of France experienced a massive power outage, leaving passengers stranded and nearly shutting down hospitals. This happened because Europe is now being lead by a 22-year-old Greta Thunberg, who has shoved “renewable” energy down everybody’s throats.
So much for saving the environment — not to mention Greta’s future.
The so-called “Net Zero” goal producing energy from non-fossil fuels is to blame. Spain has increased dependence on solar and other renewable sources and decreased its dependence on coal. When cloudy days (and other caprices of Mother Nature) decrease the output, the power grid can drop to dangerously low levels, as it did Monday, and collapse entirely. How inconsiderate of Mother Nature!
“One of the problems was that there wasn’t enough firm power, like gas and nuclear and hydro storage, to handle the sudden fall of power generation,” Reuters quoted an industry source said, in reference to the drop in solar generation. (The possibility of a cyber attack is also being investigated.)
Spain is one of Europe’s biggest producers of renewable energy, relying on wind and solar for 43% of the total, well above the global average, data from think tank Ember shows.
Meanwhile, China opened two new coal plants per week in 2023 — and nobody notices the obvious: it’s the same air. While Europe is “saving” the planet, China is destroying it in its mad-dash to leapfrog Western economies.
“Climate alarmism has clearly reduced energy freedom and, hence, prosperity and national security across western Europe,” remarked US Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “Climate alarmism has reduced freedom, prosperity, and national security. The clarion conclusion from economic studies of climate change is that net zero 2050 is absolutely the wrong goal. Not only is it unachievable, but the blind pursuit of it will cause, is causing, far more human damage than climate change itself.
“When you hitch your wagon to the weather, it’s a risky endeavor,” he adds.
Shops closed. People got stuck in elevators. Trains and planes stopped. Without stoplights, traffic snarled.
It looked like the Venezuela, a socialist utopia. Except this was Europe. An estimated 60M people were hamstrung for hours due to no electricity.
Europe in the Dark Ages.
Ironically, as environmentalists push the modern world to reduce its energy dependency, energy needs have exploded — thanks to AI, which gobbles immense amounts of energy. So on the one hand, elitists push to conserve energy and push to use energy. What’s it going to be?
Fusion, which promises clean and abundant energy, is still decades distant from being a reality. Trump restored production of coal plants, point to advances in clean-burning technology.
Instead of leading the world, Europe, having fully drunk the Kool-Aid, is falling behind the world. Renewables are more expensive for consumers. The result has been decimating for the economy: 15 years ago energy cost the same, comparing the U.S. to Europe; their economies each shared 25% of the global GDP, Wright pointed out.
Then, Europe went all-in on renewable energy. Energy bills shot up. The U.S. now produces 28% of the global GDP, while Europe has fallen to 18%, Wright says.
“The entire nation of Spain and the entire nation of Portugal are without electricity right now — completely unprecedented,” one online commentator posted. “Spain wants to keep shutting down their local coal power plants, so they can please Greta Thunberg.”
