This Byron York Xweet this morning dovetailed ever so nicely with a piece I had just started reading, highlighted in WattsUpWIthThat.
I'd almost call it serendipitous.
Check out Mr York's fourth point of order in rebutting whoever the ignoramus is that he's educating.
As concerns Europe, I think there are four:
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 23, 2026
1) Trump told Europe: You're killing yourself with mass migration. Stop.
2) Trump told NATO: You've got to spend more on your own defense.
3) Trump told the EU: You're hurting yourselves with draconian regulations.
4) Trump told… https://t.co/I0dFHmujMl
...4) Trump told Merkel and others: Don't build Nord Stream 2. It's a terrible idea to depend on Putin's Russia for your energy.
I think Trump was right about all of those things.
Between the second point about regulations - their vaunted Green transition, among other onerous rules strangling their economy - and Number Four's reliance on Russian gas to make up for what they willingly destroyed as far as baseload power generation of their own in favor of renewables, Trump had them nailed in his first term.
Those natural gas and nuclear chickens are really coming home to roost this week across the continent and in the equally climate-cult-frenzied United Kingdom.
Why?
Because it's pretty damn cold. Like, Siberian cold.
A mass of Arctic air will become trapped over eastern Europe. 🥶 In #Ukraine, #Belarus, and western #Russia, temperatures will regularly drop to around −20 °C over the next at least 14 days, while daytime highs will be only around −10 °C (watch the temperature outlook for the… pic.twitter.com/pvJQMXsRvd
— Ventusky (@Ventuskycom) January 13, 2026
As if Siberia picked up her skirts and moved into your neighborhood cold.
The Germans are blowing coal dust out of shuttered plants and firing them up because their natural gas stocks are being drawn down at an alarming rate.
It wasn't supposed to be this cold and they are getting close to 'critical' levels. That is a problem in itself, because pressures aren't enough to help pull gas out.
This January is described as one of the coldest in the last 15 years. During such cold phases, German gas consumption spikes drastically (up to a 1.3% loss in capacity per day). Currently (as of January 19) the gas storage level is at 41.8%, much lower than at this time last year (near 64%).
As the current storage levels in Germany continue fall, a critical point approaches: Once storage drops below 20%, it becomes technically difficult to maintain enough pressure for standard withdrawal. According to Stefan Spiegelsperger of Energie & Outdoor Chiemgau, this marks the beginning of a gas shortage situation.
A significant portion of Germany’s stored gas is being used to generate electricity, especially during periods of low wind (which we currently have) or solar output (“Dunkelflaute”). And although LNG terminals are available, many remain underutilized due to a shortage of tanker ships. Moreover, Germany still continues to transit gas to neighboring countries.
One expert believes that gas shortages are inevitable if the cold waves continue, with the very real possibility of the national stockpiles being completely depleted.
...Stefan Spiegelsperger of Energie & Outdoor Chiemgau believes a gas shortage is hardly avoidable at this point, unless the remainder of the winter surprises and turns out to be extremely mild. At the moment, weather models aren’t seeing that scenario.
Spiegelsperger advises viewers to prepare for potential bottlenecks. A small piece of positive news mentioned is the start of gas deliveries from Azerbaijan, though these only cover a small fraction of the total demand.
This dire situation is in large part thanks to Germany’s reckless foray into green energy fantasies.
What have the Energie Wende fanatics been forced to do in order to keep the heat and lights on? As I said, suddenly dirty, old, despised coal is very popular and very profitable.
The coal-fired power plants in Germany are profitable to run again amid surging electricity demand in a cold snap and a plunge in European carbon prices this week.
Coal plants running on lignite, the dirtiest coal, returned to profit after carbon prices slumped by about 8% so far this week, following a jump in the previous week, analysts at Energy Aspects Ltd and LSEG told Bloomberg.
The plunge in carbon permit prices made coal-fired power plants in Germany more profitable to run than gas-fired capacity, according to the analysts.
How ludicrous.
...The cold snap, soaring demand, and faltering renewable output, especially solar in the winter, have resulted in coal and gas plants meeting almost half of Germany’s electricity demand this week, per data from Fraunhofer ISE cited by Bloomberg.
German leadership from the party of Mutti Merkel has acknowledged jettisoning nuclear power was a 'serious strategic mistake.'
🇩🇪 German Chancellor Merz: It was a serious strategic mistake to exit nuclear energy. Germany has the most expensive energy transition.
— Velina Tchakarova (@vtchakarova) January 15, 2026
Gas power plants will be built to correct this strategic mistake.
Velina‘s strategic foresight stands undefeated. pic.twitter.com/zMiSRMluFR
Apologies don't keep anyone warm.
The even crazier Green grifters who run the British version of the renewable transition have denied the British people even the comfort of knowing they could fall back on the old reliables if they had to. The last of Britain's coal-fired plants was shutdown two years ago at the ripe old age of 57 years, ending 142 years of coal keeping the lights on in the UK.
The Brits were quite proud of themselves for being the first G7 country to switch completely away from coal, which is all well and good as long as the new baseload generation was up to snuff to take over.
It's not. It's nowhere near.
👆 Wanton destruction of a power station by Tory Alok (Lord) Sharma … ⬇️https://t.co/6RvDPzwCzr
— Neil Harrison (@NeilHar38005083) January 23, 2026
UK militant Net Zero czar Ed Miliband is not the most popular fellow in the country right now.
“Only stupid people buy windmills”
— 🙏🏻Karma 🇬🇧 (@Senior453601K) January 22, 2026
- Trump pic.twitter.com/mXBqVpIJU8
He's right about the cost, and Trump's all about return on investment. The deal has to be good, or he doesn't make it.
Trump was right about depending on gas from Putin.
And he's right about stupid people who believe in windmills...
Update on Battery Capability
— Latimer Alder (@latimeralder) January 23, 2026
Very roughly if we took all the batteries ever made in the whole world for grid level storage and used them just for UK, they'd keep our UK's lights on for just about half a day.
But wind goes on strike for days at a time.... https://t.co/ANmXbMokAs
...and the magic batteries that keep all the good stuff for when you really need it but can't get it.
Trump's been telling the Europeans for years, and they still don't get it.
It's 23° in Berlin right now, snow for the weekend, in the low 40s in the south of England, and the largest snowfall in 60 years just buried the city of Kamchatka, and those people know snow.
Sometimes it's better to do the painfully prudent thing, no matter how much it hurts to admit the other guy was right.
Danged if it doesn't frostbite you anyway.
Beege ADDS: I swear - it's as if commonsense is baked into every Pole as they're born. No one has to lecture them on how to 'replace coal' efficiently.
Replacing Poland’s obsolete coal power fleet is a top political priority for the country, both for environmental and energy security reasons. But even as it steps up renewable energy plans, Warsaw is also pushing hard for new gas and nuclear plants to fill in the gap.
Poland has big ambitions when it comes to wind power in the Baltic Sea. “We are primarily betting on offshore,” said Henryk Baranowski, CEO of Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), a state-owned public power company.
“We want to have around 3 GW in offshore wind farms by 2030,” Baranowski told EURACTIV on the sidelines of the Polish electricity industry association’s summer event, organised in Brussels on Wednesday (10 July).
...That process is likely to take decades, however. And while offshore wind will play an important part in displacing coal, other sources of energy are also required to fill the gap.
“Of course, they cannot switch everything to renewables,” said Christian Egenhofer, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “If you want to have this [energy] transition, you need everything, including natural gas,” he told EURACTIV in a recent interview.
After energy diversification, Warsaw’s second priority is to develop its electricity grid, Egenhofer said. “And that tells you where they’re heading – it’s very much consistent with their planned development of offshore wind,” he said.
In June, PGE made a decision to build two gas-fired power units of 700 MW each. Those will be located in Northern Poland, close to the Baltic, where they will act as back-up to offshore wind farms.
