Jeff Heller
Steuben County, New York, Landowner
President, Steuben County Land Owners Coalition

The experience of the European Union, especially Germany, indicates their politically correct move to renewables was too much too soon and fracking is now the only way to get back on track. Will Cuomo learn anything from this? 

A recent article by Stephen Moore, entitles “Europe’s Green Collapse,” and published in National Review should offers some very important lessons for New York’s governor and those of us interested in the fate our state’s Southern Tier region. The European Union, during the 80’s and 90’s, bought into the extreme green-energy vision we hear so much about today, especially among those who would impose the same vision on New York.

EU leaders supported the Kyoto Treaty–enthusiastically–while castigating the US for rejecting it. The EU promised that by 2030 it would reduce carbon emissions by 30 to 40% below 1990 levels. Even though the U.S. Senate defeated the Kyoto Treaty 95 to 0 (now that’s bipartisanship!), the green energy zealots have maintained strong (disproportionate) influence over national and, more importantly, our state energy policies.

Extremism in Defense of Green Energy Is No Virtue

The EU has announced it is dropping its renewable energy mandates. The EU leaders, all of them solid ” greens” in the past, have recognized they cannot survive economically under the extreme policies associated with “green energy” targets that are simply unrealistic.  The economics and energy minister of Germany, the leading economic power in Europe, said recently that reliance on green energy could lead to a “dramatic deindustrialization” of Germany.  With the cost of electric power in EU nations up to 100% higher than in the U.S., the minister said:  “We have reached the limit of what we can ask of our economy.”  Reality has intruded on the fantasy.

Perhaps he noticed European companies (like Volkswagen)  have begun moving plants to the U.S. because of the lower energy costs.

The Europeans also realize what it is that has made low energy costs possible in the US. It is horizontal hydraulic fracturing – fracking!

Fracking is the friendly mouse environmentalists have turned into the would be evil dragon. Friendly talk about fracking sends some environmentalists screaming into the night. It’s the kind of “truth” a guy like Josh Fox finds “irrelevant” and Al Gore finds “inconvenient” (although, to be fair, Gore just endorsed Kathleen McGinty who is running for Pennsylvania Governor and supports fracking).  It forces our own green energy zealots here in the US, who love to suggest we should be more like the EU, into between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Fracking Is the Way Out for the EU

Fracturing that rock and releasing the natural gas energy it contains is now, perhaps, the only way out of the dilemma for the EU and they’re late to the game, having already forced out many industries with their delays of the inevitable. I can’t even imagine what our super sharp governor is thinking as a result of this development. Will he learn anything?

Most governors would also be looking to position themselves to take advantage of the EU’s tactical error while it is shifting gears. Would anyone care to guess how many European industries will be looking to move to New York, though? Our governor says “New York is open for business.” Sadly, businessmen know better and many are leaving the state! Andrew Cuomo, the ultimate follower among politicians, has been so busy appeasing admirers of the kind of nonsense that put the EU into the corner where it now stands, that he’s not even able to capitalize on their mistakes.

Meanwhile, reality continues to intrude. Besides the economic advantages we have witnessed as a result of fracking, we have already seen a huge reduction in carbon emissions – and we have just begun the process of switching our coal plants to natural gas.  The long range environmental benefits of using cheap natural gas in place of coal and oil will in fact be huge;  far more positive than the wildest dreams of the “Kyoto-believers.”  And all of this will be market driven, not regulation driven.  Like it or not, we are living in the beginning of an energy revolution.

We all can agree, to some degree, that it would be “nice” if we could replace fossil fuels with green energy.  However, some of us have already realized, for a multitude of reasons, that it just is not going to happen in the short term and we need natural gas to get us to the future, whatever it may hold in the way of new energy.  Green energy is only remotely viable today with huge taxpayer funded subsidies, and even then, far too many projects have been dismal failures.  Europe has now officially learned this lesson.  The question is, will we learn from Europe?