The United States - Leading Europe once again

Smartest tools in the shed:

The closure of nearly two thirds of Europe's gas-fired power generation facilities by 2016 will lead to regional price hikes and make outages inevitable, Cap Gemini has warned.

UK households are already feeling the squeeze of soaring energy bills but a particularly cold winter this year could mean that 1970s style blackouts start to become a more regular occurrence again.

The consultancy's annual European Monitoring Centre for Energy Markets briefing encapsulates much of the crisis in European energy policy - one almost entirely of its own making.

Aggressive "Green" (read: "unreliable") energy targets and subsidies for the same have led to the impending shutdown of much of the UK's natural gas fired generation plant as non-economic.  Translation: government subsidies to alternative energy is so enormous that the fuel that powers fully a third of the US grid is withering on the vine in Old Blighty, as electricity prices skyrocket.

Philosopher Kings in action, right there.

But that's not the part that's so shadenfreudalicious.  This is:

Cheap gas in the USA has had a related consequence in Europe, the report notes.

"With this low price, gas has replaced coal as fuel in fossil fuels creating a surplus of coal in the U.S. market. This surplus was exported to Europe resulting in lowering coal prices by 30 per cent between January 2012 and June 2013. This decline has promoted the competitiveness of plants coal in Europe which has resulted in a much better utilization than gas-fired plants".

UK "Green" energy targets combined with the US boom in shale gas has led to where the UK is reverting to coal - with its higher CO2 output.  So "Green" policies designed to reduce carbon emissions have led not just to much higher electrical costs, but to increased carbon emissions.

Philosopher Kings.  But pay no attention, Citizen.  All will be well when these sorts run your health care.  And we have always been at war with Eastasia.  Fortunately, the chocolate ration was just increased ...