We need more batteries and pumped water storage. It is true that renewables are still undergoing development and China is right now the world’s premier supplier of solar panels. This conservative, national security-based case for fossil fuels and nuclear power has the ring of hard-boiled realism about it. When you are up against Putin’s tanks, so Europe’s critics argue, what you need is not sun and wind energy but gas from a safe source, such as Texas. Little wonder that it is now scrambling to buy liquefied natural gas from around the world. Germany’s decision to shut down nuclear and exit coal, for example, left it dependent on Russian gas and intermittent renewables. History has pronounced its judgment against Europe’s naive and unrealistic ambitions for the renewable energy transition and in favor of fossil fuels as a key element of Western grand strategy and nuclear power as a carbon-neutral power source. They argue that the basic math in favor of fossil fuels is now triumphing over green ideology. Indeed, some hawkish voices in the United States have gone so far as to suggest that the new geopolitical configuration puts the entire European vision of energy transition in question. Moscow’s aggression, on top of deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing, has troubled this outlook. European car producers and engineering companies saw not risk but huge opportunities in China, which is the dominant global force in electric vehicles. The European car industry was setting a course for electrification by the mid-2030s. Costs for clean energy were falling, in part due to the parallel efforts being made by China in the cheap mass manufacture of solar panels.
European utilities are driving sectors such as offshore wind. Spain celebrated a day entirely on solar and wind. Britain recently celebrated a day without any use of coal. Since 2020, Europe has been doubling down on green energy policy, with the Next Generation EU investment program, the Fit for 55 energy transition framework, rising carbon emissions pricing, and a flood of national programs. The crisis struck Europe in the midst of an accelerated energy transition away from fossil fuels, one driven by climate concerns and a program of green industrial policy. The urgent question now is which direction long-term energy security is to be found. The emergency energy programs were short-term expedients. As Russia’s natural gas supplies were cut off and prices surged to record levels, European governments have spent more on subsidizing the energy bills of their populations, stockpiling gas, and bailing out bankrupt energy companies than they have either on their militaries or on supporting Ukraine. But as far as Europe is concerned, the even more urgent priority is energy security.
The most obvious aspect is military security, with the United States and the Europeans ramping up ammunition production and wrangling over tank deliveries. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has led to a reassertion of national security concerns in every facet of Western countries’ policy.
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