The EU would rather eat bugs than be real about its energy problems

It seems to have dawned on the EU’s energy commissioner that the bloc has a bit of a dependency problem. “There’s a growing concern, which I share, that we risk replacing one dependency with another,” Dan Jorgensen said of the switch from Russian to US energy. You wish, bro! Truth is, they haven’t even managed that much.

“Switching” dependencies implies the existence of a dependable alternative source – that they’ve grabbed securely onto the second branch before letting go of the first. In reality, they’ve mostly just landed on their backside with a pile of energy bills crashing down upon their own citizens.

Worse, when a blast of Arctic weather hit both the US and Europe earlier this month, it turned out that the US wasn’t exactly in a position to gallop across the Atlantic to Europe’s rescue, because it was busy trying to keep its own citizens’ heaters running.

The EU has long had a habit of sailing confidently into the middle of the ocean, spotting no land in any direction, then lighting its own sails on fire in service of whatever ideologically charged ambition happens to be in fashion, and saying, “Well, guess we’ll just figure out how to get back to shore. Fingers crossed.”

Meanwhile, EU citizens are yelling about how monumentally dumb it is, while being reassured by their overlords that they’re actually winning big. Even as daily life keeps suggesting otherwise.

Now the EU bureaucracy itself has started yelling at the unelected executive that sets policy for the bloc. Remember that much-hyped energy transition to renewables that Brussels promised to lock in by 2030? The one they keep mentioning in between warnings that Putin is supposedly about to roll into Europe at around the same time?

Well, it turns out that the bloc’s own European Court of Auditors has taken a look and said, hey bozos, this renewables transition has about the same odds of materializing by 2030 as a herd of purple unicorns. Why? Well, the title of their report kind of gives it away: “Critical raw materials for the energy transition – Not a rock-solid policy.” Translation: you don’t actually have a large, stable supply of the minerals needed to build batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels.

As it turns out, the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, passed in 2024 to address shortages across 26 different minerals, was made non-binding. In other words, optional. Which, as everyone knows, is the surefire way to ensure that something gets done.

Fourteen agreements in five years, half of them with countries that have “low governance scores,” meaning the corruption is pre-baked into the contract. Which might explain why imports have gone down instead of up – by HALF.

The legislation also aimed to source 25% of these minerals from “recycled sources.” Literally turning household appliances into high-tech weapons, just like the EU once claimed Russia was doing in Ukraine. But that’s not even happening either, actually. Recycling rates sit between a dazzling 1% and 5% for a handful of minerals, according to the report.

So yeah, that 2030 target isn’t looking too good. Has anyone told Queen Ursula von der Leyen? Because just a few days ago, she was lecturing the rest of the planet on how to pull it off. “All continents will have to speed up the transition towards net zero and deal with the growing burden of climate change… Its impact is impossible to ignore… From decarbonizing to nature-based solutions, from building a circular economy to developing nature credits, the Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope for all humanity. So Europe will stay the course and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming,” said the unelected European Commission chief.

Since renewables aren’t remotely ready to match the EU’s fantasy projections, it’s lucky that Russian gas is still flowing – specifically through the Turkstream pipeline – jumping 10 percent in January compared to last year, according to Reuters, even as the EU congratulates itself for cutting off its Russian supply.

But who needs boring, reliable energy sources like gas – or nuclear – when you can run an economy on happy dreamies for greenies while pretending that because of your efforts, Putin has downgraded from caviar to instant noodles?

Hang on. The Belgian Prime Minister has something to say. “We’ve made dogmatic choices against nuclear energy, which was the stupidity of the century. We are still there now. We’re trying to come back… We’re far,” says Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

Excuse you, sir! This is the next Industrial Revolution you’re talking about! And change doesn’t come cheap, mister!

It also doesn’t come with an iron stomach, apparently. One of the other renewable ideas that the EU has been pushing is getting people to eat bugs for protein, since insects, unlike cows, don’t blast out planet-destroying flatulence and deuces.

The problem is that eating bugs is, scientifically-speaking – how do you say it… Oh yeah, freaking disgusting to most people. Which would explain why Hollywood stars like Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. were trotted out to promote it.

Here’s Iron Guts – er, Iron Man – trying to get you psyched about eating bugs during a chat with Stephen Colbert five years ago: “Well, that’s an insect-based premium protein… The company is called Ynsect… This is a powder derived from the mealworm and it’s an insect protein. Just been approved by the EU for human consumption… The making of it is severely reducing the amount of emissions it takes.”

That French company, Ynsect, with a Y, which stands for, “Y the hell am I having bugs shoved down my throat?”, shut down last December. It had been around since 2011 and still couldn’t make it work. Shocking. Maybe it was the whole “insects are yummy” pitch?

And if the product itself wasn’t gross enough, after the shutdown, employees started talking to French state media about how the horror show began on the factory floor long before any product reached a plate. One former employee said, “There were so many moths that we were breathing them in, and they were getting into our noses and mouths.” I guess that’s like eating Big Macs when you work at McDonald’s.

Anyway, chalk up another massive success for the EU ideologues. €600 million in investment – including around €150 million in public money – gone. To save the creepy-crawly cuisine industry, its lobby is now reportedly pushing the EU to force public institutions, like school cafeterias and other public facilities, to mandate minimum purchases of “innovative, circular bio-based products.” If you’re wondering, that’s lobbyist-speak for bugs after a branding workshop. Hey guys, how about “micro-livestock”? That’s a freebie. You’re welcome.

“If the plebes won’t eat da bugs, then let’s just force feed them to the masses!” I’m sure that’ll go over well. The EU’s grand plans for the future usually boil down to hoping against all odds that reality, like its own citizens, just falls into line and swallows whatever dodgy dogmatic fodder that it’s fed.