The costly fallacy of green energy

last updated 8 January 2015

Robert Bryce

The Wall Street Journal

For years, greens have relentlessly insisted that replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy “will create jobs and stimulate the economy,” said Robert Bryce. Europe is proving that “it was all bunk.” The European Union and Germany recently announced they were rolling back huge subsidies for solar, wind, and other renewables because of “staggering costs.” In Germany alone, renewable energy subsidies and rising energy prices are costing consumers and the industry about $32 billion a year—enough to risk “dramatic deindustrialization,” according to Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel. Meanwhile, across the Continent, steelmakers are now paying “twice as much for electricity” as their U.S. competitors. In Germany, a foolish decision to shut down eight nuclear reactors has led to a boom in coal use. Now compare Europe’s plight to America’s shale gas revolution. Natural gas production is injecting billions into the U.S. economy and producing tens of thousands of jobs. By weaning the U.S. off coal, fracking has cut carbon dioxide emissions by 10.9 percent since 2005. Greens who continue to hawk renewables “are the real deniers.”