Some Russian soldiers in Ukraine are withdrawing from support for Vladimir Putin’s nefarious war, but his hasty withdrawal does not mean the leader is capitulating. In fact, last week he opened up a whole new front in the war: energy.
Putin thinks he’s found a Cold War he can win. He will literally try to freeze the European Union this winter [do hemisfério Norte]cut Russian oil and gas supplies to pressure the bloc to leave Ukraine.
His predecessors in the Kremlin used freezing winters to defeat Napoleon and Hitler, and it’s clear that Putin sees this as his greatest asset, defeating Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who told his compatriots: “Russia does everything in the 90 days of winter.” “to break the resistance of Ukraine, the resistance of Europe and the resistance of the world”.
I wish I could say for sure that Putin will fail that Americans will produce more energy than he does. And I wish I could write that Putin will still regret his tactics, because over time it will result in his country being transformed from Europe’s energy czar into China’s energy colony a country that Putin now credits with much of its oil sold at a discount to compensate for the loss of western markets.
Yes, I wish I could write all these things. But I can’t unless the US and its allies stop living in a green fantasy world that says we can just flip a switch and go from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy.
This column has been dedicated to advocating clean energy and climate protection for 27 years. I remain deeply and wholeheartedly in favor of these goals. But we cannot achieve them just because we want them to happen unless we have also created the means to do so.
Despite all the investment in wind and solar power over the last five years, in 2021 fossil fuels still accounted for 82% of the world’s primary energy consumption (needed for things like heating, transport and power generation), down three percentage points in five years. In the US in 2021, 61% of electricity was generated from fossil fuels, while 19% came from nuclear and 20% from renewable sources.
In a world with a growing, energyhungry middle class, it takes massive amounts of clean energy to make even a small difference in our mix. It’s not about turning a knob. We have a long transition ahead of us. And we will only do that if we urgently switch to a smart, pragmatic way of thinking about energy policy which in turn leads to more climate and economic security.
Failing this, Putin could still seriously harm Ukraine and the West.
Before the war began, Moscow supplied almost 40% of the natural gas consumed by Europe and half of the coal. Last week it announced that it was suspending most supplies until Western sanctions were lifted. Putin also pledged to suspend all supplies if the West goes through with a plan to cap its payments on Russian oil.
The Financial Times reported that without enough affordable alternatives to natural gas, some factories in Europe will have to close “because they can’t afford the cost of fuel”. Energy bills, already up 400% in some countries, are “pushing consumers into poverty”.
For some, you have to choose between heating the house or eating. The situation is forcing governments to offer huge subsidies and skew their budgets in hopes of avoiding popular backlash and pressure to persuade Ukraine to surrender to Putin. And some have already returned to burning coal.
If we want to keep oil and gas prices down to reasonably low levels to boost the US economy and help European allies escape Russia’s iron grip, while accelerating clean energy production (the energy triad), we need this plan and economic security.
Biden just gave clean energy production in the US a huge boost with his climate law, which also promotes cleaner production of gas and oil, by incentivizing them to reduce methane leaks and making them invest more in carbon capture technologies.
But the most important factor is giving clean energy companies (and the banks that finance them) regulatory reassurance that the government will help them build the transmission lines and pipelines to get their energy to market, when they invest billions.
Greens like solar panels but hate transmission lines. You will hardly be able to save the planet with this approach.
To win Senator Joe Manchin’s support, Senate Democratic leaders, led by Chuck Schumer, struck a secondary deal: They backed legislation that would obliterate, but not eliminate, environmental and regulatory overhauls that often make it difficult to pass the Construction to authorize lines, transmission and gas pipelines. If our main path to decarbonization is through vehicle electrification and renewable electricity generation, we need more transmission routes and more natural gas systems to rely on when it’s not windy or sunny.
For these reasons and others, Biden and nearly all Democratic senators want this package passed. Schumer plans to attach it to a bill that Congress must pass to keep the government going past the Sept. 30 fiscal yearend. Unfortunately, Senator Bernie Sanders is opposed to the package, as are more than 70 Democrats. It’s unclear how many will go so far as to block the text, but at least some will.
Lobbyists were soon urging Republican lawmakers to vote in favor of the legislation to offset progressives who say “no.” But the Republican Party urged the oil companies to pull themselves together. Acronym lawmakers will do nothing to give Biden another win.
I don’t know who is more irresponsible: the arrogant progressives, false moralists who want a flawless overnight green revolution, with solar panels and wind farms but no new pipelines or transmission lines; or the cynical, fauxhardline Republicans who would rather see Putin win and energy companies lose than do what’s right for the US and Ukraine, which Biden agrees.
American energy policy today must be the arsenal of democracy to defeat petroPutinism in Europe, by providing allies with the oil and gas they desperately need at reasonable prices so that Putin cannot blackmail them. America’s energy policy must be the engine of economic growth that produces the cleanest, most affordable fossilfuel energy we can use as we transition to a lowcarbon economy.
And it must be at the forefront of the process of multiplying renewable sources to move the world towards that lowcarbon future as quickly as possible. Any policy that fails to maximize these three factors will leave us with less health, less wealth, and less security.
Translation by Clara Allain
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