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Page added on May 20, 2007
Media Ignore European Energy Politics to Advance GW Alarmism
Clearly, Russia was saying to its European neighbors that it can do whatever it wants with total impunity if they expect to receive oil and natural gas from the country with one of the world’s largest reserves.
But this only scratched the surface. On May 10, Dr. Ing. Hildegard von Liechtenstein of the Thomas More Institute published a paper entitled “‘From Russia with Gas’: Forthcoming Political disasters for Europe in Energy Supply.” This should be required reading for all those interested in geopolitics, macro-economics, and advancing solutions to so-called climate change (h/t Benny Peiser, emphasis added throughout):
In order to describe our present situation it is important to keep in mind the following related facts:
1) The global consumption of raw materials and energy is proportional to the demographic and economic evolution.
2) Facilities for the production of both raw materials and energy supply are highly equipment intensive i.e. any increase in capacity raises the current demand for raw materials.
3) The production of raw materials is highly energy-consumptive. It therefore follows that the growing shortage of raw materials, including primary energy, will increase not arithmetically but exponentially for a long time to come. Timid efforts by developed industrial states to reduce energy consumption are hopelessly over-compensated by the demand of the so-called emerging countries.
To think that the quite unrealistic aim of reducing the yearly European growth of energy consumption from 2.1% to zero—or even achieving negative growth—will solve our problems any time soon is absurd.
Is it beginning to become clear why such discussions in our media are verboten? Can the press advance climate change solutions while they report serious energy problems in Europe?
The paper continued:
The growing shortages in Europe in the transmission and production of electricity will amount to around 1800 TWh (Terawatt hours) by 2030, which is equal to ninety times the Swiss power gap (20 TWh). In a few years, France will require all its power generation capacity for its own needs, and what is more, none of the remaining Western European countries will be able to produce sufficient power to cover their own national needs. It is absurd to hear the ministries responsible for energy supply in virtually all EU countries reckoning with importing electricity to cover their capacity deficits.
Interesting problem ahead for Europe, wouldn’t you agree? Yet, possibly more fascinating is how the causes of this dilemma are quite analogous to America’s energy issues:
a.) Emotions in internal politics.
These are based on non-information, disinformation and fear. Those fears are willingly raised by two groups with their own agendas: politicians and political parties, willing to be elected, and NGOs such as Greenpeace. Stirring fear is a powerful instrument—comparable to envy—to acquire public support (votes) or to raise funds. Fears regarding nuclear energy and greenhouse gases are successfully stoked. Both anxieties contradict each other and have fatal consequences on our European energy policies, bringing serious planning to a standstill. Salvation is then sought after in methods of generating energy which exclude both nuclear and fossil fuels. Emotions dangerously frustrate rational decisions and lead to a gigantic misallocation of funds and efforts. For instance: solar or wind power, although useful for specific solutions, will not solve the overall problem, but have a feel-good effect. Energy reduction measures would be more helpful, but very costly and they require 10 to 15 years to generate a substantial cut down of energy consumption.
At any rate, the so-called 2000 Watt society is not possible, if we don’t consider accepting the living standards of 100 years ago for example without one’s own car, non-essential air travel, PC, washing machine, tumbler, dish washer, TV set, aluminium products etc.
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