“The Green Course” is such a European modernization project where Europe realized that we are far behind the USA and China in various innovations and investments, and we have to change something,” said Jānis Brizga, an environmental scientist and head of the “Green Freedom” association, in the TV 24 discussion “Voice of the Climate”. On the other hand, Saeima MP (non-partisan) Aleksandrs Kiršteins believes that the “Green Course” is a big scam.
The “Green Course” is not just about climate changethere is a lot about agriculture, the use of resources, the amount of waste, because it is clear that Europe is very dependent on natural resources, energy resources, we have very few internal resources, we have already used a lot. According to J. Brizga, the last crises have proved it very well, even the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rise in the prices of energy resources, that we have to move away from fossil energy resources, and not only because of the climate.
“And this also happens – in Latvia we have given up on Russian gasbut we are trying to replace this gas with some other gas, from elsewhere, but we should think more about how we could use our internal resources”, J. Brizga believes.
“The ‘Green Course’ is of course a big scam because no one calculates how much energy is used to produce all these magnets and generators, lithium and lithium batteries for wind farms,” said A. Kirstein.
If we talk about Europe, we should not forget that there are countries where the population is growing very rapidly. And if we take countries where technology is developing very rapidly, for example, the United Arab Emirates, then if Dubai once had hundreds of thousands, now it has millions of inhabitants. It all runs on seawater desalination plants, which require a huge amount of energy that cannot be produced by solar panels, they need fossil energy. And if we talk about gas, then it is the most ecological, cleanest fuel for the time being, relative to the cost compared to wind parks, and gas reserves are actually infinite, said A. Kirstein.
When asked where he sees the fraud, A. Kirstein answered that we do not import gas from Russia, now we import it from Norway and Qatar. At the same time, our biggest ally, the US, is building huge terminals to export liquefied natural gas, which will be very cheap. And if Latvia will have a huge storage where we can pump for 2.5 – 3 years, then we can do it, the member of the Saeima is sure of that.
However, A. Kirsteins urged not to forget that renewable energy requires a large burden of side expenses, which are parallel networks, balancing, expensive conversion, converters from alternating current to direct current and back. This is a huge expense.
J. Brizga did not agree that “green course” is a scam, but admitted that any change is difficult, people are not ready for change, they want stability. Also, the environmental scientist did not agree that nothing was calculated, because he is full of such studies.
It is quite clear that solar and wind win per kilowatt-hour of energy production compared to fossil energy resources. The profitability of nuclear energy depends on what safety risks are incorporated into the projects, and the results can vary greatly, but the problem is that nuclear waste “lives” for thousands of years, and there is no such country or company that would take the risks of storing it, because it will not exist for that long, J. Brizga reminded.
