Europe is in for a long winter. Germany is buying all the natural gas it can from the US. We are exporting as much as the liquid natural gas ships can carry. Germany was producing a lot of their power with natural gas because it is cleaner than coal. All the windmills in the North Sea haven't been installed or on line yet. Germany shut down it's coal plants BEFORE all the wind and solar was installed. Higher electric prices, maybe brownouts.
England just brought on line the biggest Nuke plant in Europe so they may be OK. However due to high prices 25% of Britons say they will not use their heat this winter.
Electricity in Europe costs an average of $0.92 a kilowatt hour. My electricity in Alabama costs $0.12 a kwh. In California it is $0.28 a kwh, the highest in America. Still way lower than Europe. In Europe it now costs more to charge an electric car than to buy gasoline. Norway is $1/kwh. Norway is 98% wind and hydro power.
Europe is in a bad drought, worst in a few hundred years. Hydro isn't working and there is a danger in France of having enough water to cool their nuclear reactors, which is about 80% of France's power production. They are trying to lean more on wind.
Europe shut down their coal BEFORE all their wind and solar was installed. So they relied on Russian natural gas, now it is shut down to Germany.
Russia claims they need valves and compressor parts from the West and the West's exports are cut off to Russia. Catch 22.
Going whole hog on wind and solar before they are built and before they are cost effective is proving dangerous to Europe. We are trying to do the same thing. Texas has enough windmills to produce 1/3 of their power but can get only 8% of the power to East Texas where it is needed. The grid has to be built, transmission lines and battery backups for when the wind don't blow. The Green New Deal is going to try to do the same thing building 100's of windmills off the East Coast. What is the wind don't blow? What if there is another hurricane Sandy? Some windmills are designed to withstand 200 mph wind by folding up, if that is the kind they are going to install. Offshore wind is usually always blowing, but the North Sea windmills didn't get enough wind this past summer to help Europe much, especially England, Scottland, and Norway.
Alternative energy is ok, but it has to be overbuilt, and battery storage is needed for low wind conditions. Then the batteries only last a few days. Nuclear is the only clean air steady energy source right now.
