{"id":531228,"date":"2026-03-18T17:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/531228\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:35:13","slug":"fossil-fuels-no-thanks-why-trumps-iran-war-is-pushing-eu-toward-renewables-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/531228\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossil fuels? No thanks. Why Trump\u2019s Iran war is pushing EU toward renewables. \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBecoming independent of oil and gas is one of the key issues, as is once again evident with the crisis we are facing &#8230; due to the conflict in the Middle East,\u201d said German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider on Tuesday, calling for a faster buildout of renewable energy and power grids.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, his Latvian colleague Kaspars Melnis told reporters: \u201cIf you talk about energy prices, what we can do, it&#8217;s [producing] more and more our own renewable energy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lesson learned<\/p>\n<p>Europe\u2019s push for more renewables \u2014\u00a0and, in some countries, for nuclear power \u2014\u00a0draws from the lessons of the 2022 crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2266672614-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8129645\"  \/>European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen talks to the media in the Berlaymont building in Brussels, Belgium on March 18, 2026. | Thierry Monasse\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s important for me to underline that we are in a much better situation in the EU now than we were in \u201822. Why? Because we have more renewables in our system, because we&#8217;ve diversified our supply in general in our energy system, because there&#8217;s less hours where it&#8217;s gas that sets the price for electricity,\u201d said EU energy chief Dan J\u00f8rgensen on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Von der Leyen, in Monday&#8217;s letter, noted that the share of renewables in the EU\u2019s electricity mix has surged from 36 percent in 2021 to nearly 50 percent now.<\/p>\n<p>While costly gas tends to set the overall electricity price in the EU system, the higher the share of clean electricity a country has, the lower their costs. In renewable-powered Spain, <a href=\"https:\/\/ember-energy.org\/latest-insights\/latest-energy-shock-reminds-europe-of-its-risky-gas-reliance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">research has found<\/a>, energy prices increased far less than in gas-dependent Italy.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBecoming independent of oil and gas is one of the key issues, as is once again evident with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[89178,12,8724,16358,1872,89179,231739,192,12418,35196,105,801,6801,238805,3310,5332,1869,1206,79,3662,1208,21,5102],"class_list":["post-531228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-dan-jorgensen","tag-donald-trump","tag-donald-tusk","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-energy-prices","tag-energy-supply","tag-environment","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-fuels","tag-imports","tag-iran","tag-italy","tag-julian-popov","tag-oil","tag-poland","tag-renewable-energy","tag-russia","tag-science","tag-spain","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}