Analysis: Push for Green Energy Not Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Driving up Oil Prices, Threatening Security

The website oilprice.com posted an analysis about how the push for green energy years before Russia invaded Ukraine – and on steroids since Joe Biden became president – is to blame for soaring oil prices and foreign policy weakness.

The analysis begins with a story about a team from MetalMinder, “the largest metals-related media site in the U.S.”, on a trip to Germany in 2018 where they discovered people’s health suffered from coal pollution because after the Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster it began shutting down its nuclear energy operations.

“In hindsight, that decision by Germany appears both foolish and ironic,” the team concluded. “Foolish because Germany has lost its negotiating power (pun intended) with Russia for which it relies.  It’s ironic because the country already had ‘clean energy’ but now must turn back to dirty energy to avoid blackouts.”

The Associated Press reported in January on Germany’s nuclear power legacy, including now-former Chancellor Angela Merkel shutting down operations across the country:

Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002. His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany’s nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down.The three reactors now being shuttered were first powered up in the mid-1980s. Together they provided electricity to millions of German households for almost four decades.

The world is watching, the analysis said, to see if the sanctions against Russia will work. They don’t think they will, especially because while Biden has almost singlehandedly shut down the once flourishing domestic fossil fuel sector Putin is being allowed to continue his lucrative oil exports — including to the United States.- READ MORE