"Hard to believe, but politics sometimes exhibits a pull toward the rational, especially when voters find it difficult to pay their bills, heat their homes and keep their jobs.

That’s happening in Europe now thanks to home-heating and electricity prices up 300% at the wholesale level since last winter. In a quote echoed across the continent, one of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s parliamentary allies warned on the weekend of “catastrophic” damage to the government: “Elections are won and lost in people’s wallets.”

Europe’s mess has been framed as a story of many influences—the proverbial perfect storm. But it’s really a story of one thing, coal, plus hypocrisy.

By undiversifying its base-load power supply away from dirty coal while also dumping nuclear, Europe has invited all the consequences you read about: ill-advised reliance on Russian natural gas, frantic bidding wars with China for liquefied-gas shipments, fear of rolling blackouts whenever a French nuclear plant needs maintenance or the wind dies down or the sun goes behind a cloud."

Renewables have made a mess of Europe's electric grid, its member states subservient to a foreign autocrat. Who could have seen this coming??