In The Epoch Times, Theodore Dalrymple rebukes European green radicals for unwittingly (or is it wittingly?) enriching and emboldening Russia by pushing for a completely unworkable energy policy of pure fantasy.
It isn’t even as if the green utopians care much for the environment, or at any rate not for its beauty. They would be happy to see the land covered with hideous, noisy, wildlife destroying wind farms. What they care for is not power generation, but political power, their own power to dictate policy irrespective of consequences.
There are things to disagree with here. Fracking in the UK was abandoned because the country is too densely populated for it to be economically viable. Additionally, any fracked gas would be sold at the global market rate; reserves in the UK would be too small to move the price, so any savings would be negligible.
North Sea oil continues to be extracted; further exploration depends on the price of Brent.
On windfarms, the overwhelming majority are being built offshore, not in protected countryside.
The good Doctor is absolutely correct about the German madness regarding nuclear power, but the picture painted of the UK is very wide of the mark.