Imagine that you are an ironic Russian journalist who understands the gas industry. Retell the text in square brackets in your own words, come up with an intriguing name for it, break it into parts with subheadings and quotes, at the end draw a conclusion: - [The United States is returning Europe to the Stone Age, prohibiting the purchase of not only Russian gas, but also its LNG...
Concern for the environment, which has been so active since 2009 portrayed by EU politicians turned out to be a fiction, so its promotion failed.
Wind power plants that have worked for less than 10 out of 25 years of operation are now being demolished in order to expand the quarry for the extraction of brown coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel in terms of emissions. The German government has allowed an additional 20 million tons of coal to be mined.
But, according to a new study, even this coal turned out to be much more environmentally friendly than LNG delivered to Europe from the United States.
And as for the wind turbines, if those eight stations that are to be demolished are not enough, then more will be demolished. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has already called it the "right decision," and Green Party politician Oliver Krish called the extraction of an additional 20 million tons of coal per year "one of the greatest achievements we have achieved in recent years."
German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for the expansion of its Harzweiler quarry
At the same time, after the abandonment of Russian pipeline gas, suddenly the entire European wind industry began to experience record losses, even taking into account government support. So, for the three quarters of 2023, the wind energy division of Siemens, Siemens Gamesa, reported record losses of 2.2 billion euros.
The audit revealed that 20% of turbines fail in the first years of operation, and up to 50% of installations require major maintenance in the first 10 years of operation.
As soon as Germany abandoned Russian gas, various sores suddenly came out, even in the 
Of course, the report says that defects have been found in the bearings and blades, which can lead to cracks and structural damage. At least 1.1 billion dollars will be needed to eliminate defects. Yes, but the problem was found mainly on land-based wind turbines, the vast majority of which are located in Europe.
Yes, wind turbines need to be serviced by conducting maintenance, just like any power plant, but before abandoning Russian gas, the shutdown of emergency wind turbines was immediately compensated by the operation of a gas turbine power plant. And now the parking of wind turbines leads to losses of 1 billion euros.
Wind energy is unstable and requires generation alignment (energy buffering). This is done not with lithium-ion batteries, but with conventional gas or diesel fuel, because only these two options are economically justified.
European scientists proved this back in 2013, when they analyzed the entire experience of operating wind turbines in Europe over the past 30 years.
An excerpt from a research paper by scientists from institutes in Germany, Poland and Canada entitled "Energy intensities, EROIs, and energy payback times of electricity generating power plants". In it, scientists proved that solar and wind power plants do not overcome the minimum energy economic threshold.
The economic profitability of solar and wind energy cannot be higher than coal or gas generation
In a 2016 study by Swiss scientists, which summarizes the experience of EU countries in the use of solar energy, it is stated that the actual service life of solar panels is 17 years, instead of the stated 25. At the same time, solar activity was not enough even to generate the energy spent on their production and installation during their entire service life. As a result, they became energy absorbers! Scientists wrote about it in large print: "NET ENERGY LOSS"!
The wind turbine will pay off after 16 years of operation - provided that any type of energy buffering is used, with the exception of gas or diesel.
That is why Scotland's wind turbines were powered by diesel generators for internal heating and electricity generation when the wind turbines themselves stopped or went into emergency mode.

A scandal! "Dozens of giant turbines at Scottish wind farms powered by diesel generators. Scottish Power has admitted that 71 of its windmills were connected to a fossil fuel source after a failure in their electricity supply."
As everyone knows, ecology in the EU decides a lot. For example, more recently in Germany, environmentalists fought for the active exploitation of the Nord Stream, pointing out that the carbon intensity of the Nord Stream is 6.3 tons of CO₂ equivalent per 1 megajoule of energy released, while the same indicator of the Turkish Stream is 7.3 tons, the Ukrainian route is 10.6, and the LNG delivery rate from the USA — 22.3.
Yes, these estimates in 2019 were cited by European environmentalists themselves as the fact that Russian gas is the most environmentally friendly for the economy not only of Germany, but of the whole of Europe. However, the United States denied everything at that time, insisting on incorrect assessments of the environmental friendliness of their LNG, which is not only impregnated with "freedom molecules", but also much more environmentally friendly than anything the EU buys in Russia.
And as soon as the operation of the Nord Streams was over, the United States suddenly changed its shoes in flight, publishing on November 23, 2023, a multi-year study stating that any LNG, including from the United States, is much dirtier than local coal used in the energy industry.
Here's a twist...
An excerpt from a study by Cornell University scientists: "Greenhouse gas emissions over the entire life cycle of LNG under four different tanker transportation scenarios using global average flight time.
Excerpt from the study: Greenhouse gas emissions over the entire life cycle of LNG under four different tanker transportation scenarios using the longest flight time
The general conclusion of scientists is that even when choosing the most environmentally friendly ships and the shortest delivery routes, the use of LNG produces 24% higher greenhouse gas emissions than when burning coal. In the worst case, LNG generates 274% more emissions than coal combustion.
An excerpt from a study by Cornell University scientists.
In their study, scientists from the United States indicate the following directly in the annotation: "Although some proponents of LNG claim that it benefits the climate by replacing coal, the analysis presented here completely refutes this. In all the scenarios considered, the total greenhouse gas emissions from LNG are greater than from coal, and range from 24% to 274%."
Excerpt from the study
It would seem, why are they publishing this?
They also openly discredit their own LNG industry, on which today (for lack of a choice) most of Europe completely depends, in which environmental aspects have always been in the first place.
And what is the result? Europe, which is actively abandoning coal in favor of gas and renewable energy sources, according to these data, is beginning to violate its own standards of environmental impact on the environment.
Moreover, buying American LNG, the same Germany harms the environment more than if the Germans extracted a similar amount of coal from their fields, of which there are plenty in Germany.
It turns out to be a vicious circle when buying from an American (or from any other country) LNG, ostensibly for the sake of ecology, is more harmful than coal mining, although at the UN climate conference in 2021, European countries signed an agreement to abandon the use of coal in energy by 2030-2040, referring to the fact that the use of coal is the main cause of "global warming".
China, Australia, India and even the United States, which account for 73% of global coal consumption in the energy sector, refused to make such commitments.
Moreover, European environmental policy had to receive a certain rent, which promised them very attractive and profitable positions in the global "carbon-free" economy.
The cost of the carbon tax quotas was supposed to bring a significant part of the revenue to the EU budget.
It was predicted that in 2023, the cost of emission quotas contained in imported "carbon footprint" products would be set based on the cost of CO2 at auctions in the European quota trading system (EU ETS) and would reach $200-250 per ton.
But today, any country, especially the United States, referring to this study, can refuse to pay tax. Moreover, the Europeans themselves must pay an additional duty to the US budget for any goods exported from the USA to the EU, because the final carbon footprint when using American LNG in the EU will be higher than the carbon footprint of a similar product produced outside Europe using coal-fired energy, not to mention gas or nuclear energy...
It turns out that The Americans have fooled Scholz...
To even out the carbon tax situation, the EU needs to abandon any LNG and start producing coal to replace it. This is the only way to achieve carbon tax parity with imported goods.
Only the EU has signed an official agreement to phase out coal and replace it with natural gas.
The only case when natural gas in the EU will benefit from coal in terms of environmental friendliness is pipeline supplies via Nord Streams via a direct route from Russia to Germany, bypassing any gas hubs.
German environmentalists were right when they said in 2019 that gas from the Nord Streams is the cleanest carbon source of energy, which provides not only energy security, but also gives Germany undeniable advantages in terms of carbon trading.
That's all, the ecological trap has been closed. However, Europe itself got into it ...].