Environmentalism Gone Beserk

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that because of the unusually cold winter in Europe and the reliance on green energy, there are major power shortages in Europe.

The article reports:

European Union nations, including Greece and Hungary, hoarded power due to the cold winter weather. That hoarding triggered shortages that cut off electricity to tens of thousands of homes and sent power prices soaring to record levels.

Temperatures across southern Europe are expected to drop below freezing again next week. The continent has been unable to meet electricity demand, as green energy tends to go offline in the cold. Solar power, for example, tends to produce less energy in the winter because the days are shorter.

“What I see in the Balkans is clear evidence that everybody first secures its own consumption and only then, if they’re in a position to do so, they’ll help the others,’’ Andras Totth, the deputy CEO of the Hungarian utility MVM, told Bloomberg.

The transition to green energy (if that is possible) will happen when governments stop interfering in the free market and let the industry grow without government help. Just as a baby chick needs to break the egg it is in to gain strength to live in the outside world, the free market will allow the most efficient and inexpensive technologies to gain strength and survive. When the government picks winners and losers and attempts to move to a technology that has not yet been fully developed, we all lose.