“Not accepting a mistake is a bigger mistake.”
Robert Half
PARIS.- In much of Europe today there is a crisis due to high fuel prices. There are supposedly temporary factors, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and other long-term factors, such as global warming, but the mistakes of European governments have made this crisis inevitable.
The most notable example has been Germany’s decision to shut down its nuclear power plants. It was originally taken in 1998, in the government of Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, who was pressured by the Green Party.
Then-Christian Democrat opposition leader Angela Merkel described the move as “a destruction of national property” and said she would reverse it if she came to power. In June 2011, however, after the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, and again under pressure from the Green Party, Merkel herself, already as chancellor, decided to close eight nuclear plants in the following years and the remaining ones gradually until 2022.
This decision opposes another of the same German government to reduce its carbon emissions to moderate global warming. Nuclear electricity, which in 2000 accounted for 29.5 percent of Germany’s generation (cleanenergywire.org), emits no pollutants into the atmosphere. Although Germany has made an enormous effort to replace these plants with renewable energy, a significant part has been replaced by coal, one of the most polluting fuels.
In 2021 nuclear power plants still accounted for more than 13 percent of German electricity, according to the Fraunhofer Institute, but by the end of the year three of the six remaining nuclear plants were closed. The rest must be closed by the end of 2022.
The consequence is that Germany is more dependent than ever on Russian gas, which Moscow is threatening to cut off. France, on the other hand, has been more intelligent. Not only does it maintain its nuclear power plants, but it has already announced the construction of several new ones. Currently 70 percent of French electricity is nuclear.
Oil and its derivatives have similar problems. Throughout the continent, the prices of gasoline and diesel have skyrocketed. The sanctions against Russia and the responses from Moscow are the main reason, but the situation is also the product of the refusal of European governments to allow the extraction of hydrocarbons by hydraulic fracturing. Does fracking have environmental risks? Definitely. All extraction techniques have them, but fracturing operations have generated fewer environmental problems than, for example, large offshore platforms.
It should be added that, in an effort to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere, European governments have made it virtually impossible for oil companies to carry out any new prospecting and development on European territory. This decision has also made the continent more dependent on Russian oil and gas.
Global warming is a reality. There is no doubt that the world must reduce its carbon emissions. The development of renewable energies is essential, and it is advancing, but it cannot be achieved by decree, without attending to market conditions or technology. One of the consequences has been to make the region more dependent on Russia. Another is a huge rise in energy prices, which is impoverishing Europeans and could lead to social unrest. We already saw it with the yellow vests. Mistakes have consequences.
Persecution
The CRE of Mexico wants to collect a stratospheric fine of 9,145 million pesos from Iberdrola for having sold clean and cheap energy to companies that were not in their original self-supply permit. Ideology now becomes persecution.
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