A symphony of panic

EC President Von der Leyen is calling for “massive investment in renewables”. A German utility just closed a 20-year supply contract with Venture Global LNG. President Biden is about to announce a federal gas tax holiday.

Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria are restarting coal power plants. And the UK is investigating how petrol prices got so high so quickly. Welcome to a symphony of panic. If only Beethoven was alive to write it.

Official government sources have put a lot of effort into convincing their voters that the energy crisis currently gripping the European Union was all the result of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Indeed, the invasion, and the EU’s response to it, was a big part of the reason why we are where we are, which is a place with not enough oil, gas, or renewable energy.

Yet as those with a functioning episodic memory will remember, the energy supply problem in Europe first emerged last year as the weather began to get colder ahead of winter.

The crisis effectively began in September when the UK and Europe first raised the alarm for tight gas supplies. It’s been downhill all the way since then. But we still need to invest massively in renewables. Because fossil fuels are bad and dirty, even when we need them to literally keep the lights on.

Yet the news that Austria was reopening a mothballed coal-fired plant to avoid blackouts this week combined with news that Germany was lifting restrictions on its own remaining coal plants and so was the Netherlands for a sobering reality cocktail this week.