Europe’s Suicidal Energy Policy

This article originally appeared at the Washington Examiner.

More than 100,000 Russian troops are positioned along the Ukrainian border. Unfortunately, Ukraine isn’t the only nation Russia is playing hardball with. Europe could be facing the biggest energy crisis in decades.

That's because 40% of Europe’s energy supply comes from Russian natural gas. And while it was once thought to be out of the realm of possibility, the Kremlin is considering slowing the energy faucet down to a slow drip.

While this move is designed to ensure that Europe has a severely restricted ability to act in Ukraine, the effects would bleed into the economy and everyday life of Europeans. European officials are now rushing to secure U.S. natural gas supplies to prevent catastrophe. While it’s easy to blame Russia for this impending crisis, we see much more at play when we pull the curtain back, particularly on the part of European officials. Just earlier in the month, Germany decommissioned its last nuclear plant, celebrating it as a "green" victory and a step toward sustainability.

The great irony in this move, however, is that it isn’t "green." Instead, it is making the European continent severely dependent on the very Russian natural gas responsible for this energy crisis.

Decommissioning nuclear plants hasn’t been a step toward sustainability when you look at Germany’s energy portfolio, which has seen an increase in shares of coal and natural gas and a decrease in renewables. In other words, nuclear power is being replaced with coal and natural gas much of the time. This makes sense given how much power a nuclear reactor is capable of producing compared to a windmill — nuclear is very scalable, and renewables aren’t.

The idea that Russia would never restrict its natural gas supply was foolishly used by bureaucrats to ignore the real problems facing the continent. Even if the United States is capable of using its ample natural gas supply to bail out Europe, it’s not a reliable way to ensure the security of free countries. There are critical lessons to be learned for Americans and Europeans alike. First and foremost, Russia is not to be trusted. It will disrupt our societies and economies to pursue its own imperialist ambitions.

A crisis like this one should also serve as a reminder of the importance of U.S. energy dominance. The U.S. is blessed with an abundance of energy resources such as oil and gas. And while the Biden administration has restricted this production by suspending oil and gas leases and closing down critical pipelines, the Trump administration recognized the importance of leveraging American energy to protect our interests. We must replace Russia as the world’s chief exporter of natural gas.

While European leaders have enjoyed the political benefits of closing nuclear plants and attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies for wind farms, they’ve been depleting Europe’s ability to supply their countries with natural resources and combat geopolitical threats.