AYN RAND DIDN’T INTEND FOR THE RETURN OF THE PRIMITIVE TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: High Electricity Prices Have Europe Facing Deindustrialization; Don’t Let It Happen Here.
Deepening Europe’s crisis, the Biden administration has announced a pause in liquefied natural gas export license approvals. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm claims the pause won’t affect the country’s “ability to supply our allies in Europe, Asia or recipients of already authorized exports.” But the market for LNG exports is global. With global demand increasing, and Europe particularly desperate for more LNG since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a restriction in U.S. exports anywhere will raise LNG prices for all importers. U.S. allies in Europe and Asia may soon be accusing President Biden of waging economic warfare against them.
Desperate to cushion the blow of soaring electricity prices, Germany is now plowing more than 4 percent of GDP into energy price mitigation for households and businesses. That’s almost the entire U.S. budget deficit in an average year. Decades of German fiscal discipline have vanished in a single energy shock, along with the ability of its industries to compete globally.
Great Britain is facing a similarly dire situation. In a devastating new report, Rupert Darwall notes that British businesses are paying almost five times more for electricity now than in 2004, and in 2022 paid 2.3 times what American businesses paid. Britain’s electricity prices would be even higher, but for its anemic GDP growth in the last two decades. That represents a lost generation of economic growth due in part to Britain’s self-destructive energy policies.
America has thus far been spared similar pain, but alas, it is headed down the same road. Buffeted by the anti-fossil fuel policies of the Biden administration and states such as California and New York, average electricity prices in the U.S. have risen 30 percent since the start of 2021. That has contributed to cumulative inflation of 25 percent since President Biden’s inauguration, wiping out a generation of wage gains for American workers.
Making matters worse, Biden’s proposed electric vehicle mandates would significantly add to electricity demand, and his new power plant rules would force many coal and natural gas plants to shutter. If implemented, the new rules would wreck America’s electricity grid and make American electricity prices even more expensive than Europe’s.
Those nutty “Progressives in a hurry” in Cuba are really taking a crash course on deindustrialization and its aftermath right now: Island-wide blackout sweeps Cuba after power plant failure.
Cuba’s electrical grid shut down on Friday, plunging the whole country into a blackout after one of the island’s major power plants failed, according to its energy ministry.
In a statement on X, the ministry said “the failure” of the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant caused “the total disconnection of the National Electrical System” from 11 a.m. ET on Friday.
In Havana, motorists on Friday tried to navigate the city where no street lights appeared to be working and only a handful of police were directing traffic. Generators are a luxury for most Cubans and only a few could be heard running in the city.
The country’s health minister, José Angel Portal Miranda, said on X that the country’s health facilities were running on generators and health workers continued to provide vital services.
This week, Cuba’s increasingly energy-strapped government called for draconian measures to save power, including telling many workers to stay home.
The Biden-Harris administration is probably taking notes right now: Are you ready for the climate lockdowns?
Related: “Roll the country back to more oil and gas:”
