Europe's Other Power Crisis: Energy

Just published here at The Commentator (UK) and here at Energy Tribune (US). And re-published here at Fuel Fix (Houston Chronicle) and here at the UK Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Here's a taster:

What’s the difference between the European Union and the Titanic? Answer: the Titanic was holed by a single immovable object and took minutes to sink. The EU, another allegedly “unsinkable” project, is taking a little longer. As if Eurozone crisis and keeping Greece afloat wasn’t threatening enough, the next crisis is looming: energy – a crisis entirely of the EU’s own policy-making.

The EU’s ideologically-driven Energy Road Map prioritized ‘green’ renewable energy, diverting away from Russian natural gas dependency and harmonizing energy and environmental needs. The result: a devastatingly inept screw up that threatens continent-wide power outages even, as Die Welt recently reported, in Germany as early as next winter.

In short order, EU energy policies have created an unsustainable, publicly-subsidized, market-skewing ‘green’ energy bubble, eschewed a cheap fossil fuels policy and realistic alternatives to Russian gas imports. Together those failed policies have resulted in the double double-whammy of soaring of energy prices and, as is now being reported, diminishing European industrial competitiveness.