THAT SEEMS TO BE MOST OF THE TIME, ACTUALLY: When Green Dreams Beget Brown Nightmares.

Germany’s energy revolution—its energiewende—was supposed to blaze a trail, and show off a new way countries could meet their energy needs without wrecking their environment or the climate. It was an audacious experiment, but it’s hard to read much success out of it these days.

Yes, renewable energy is booming in Germany, after guaranteed long-term above-market rates called feed-in tariffs were offered to wind and solar power producers, but the costs of those subsidies have been passed along to consumers in the form of green surcharges. For businesses, that affects bottom lines, and many German firms are looking to site production abroad, where energy is cheaper (in the shale gas-rich United States, for instance). For households, that’s been a kind of pernicious regressive tax, as the poor are more likely to notice their ever-rising electricity bills.

But accompanying the growth of renewables in Germany’s energy mix has been a renaissance for a decidedly brown energy source: coal. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Germany began phasing out its nuclear reactors. Berlin took from that crisis that it ought to eliminate nuclear, an effectively zero-carbon energy source, from its energy mix, despite the fact that Germany is situated far away from the fault lines that threaten Japan’s reactors. Solar panels and wind turbines can’t replace nuclear energy; they supply two distinct kinds of energy. Nuclear can be relied on to supply grids consistently, 24/7, 365, while solar and wind can only contribute when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. To meet its baseload energy needs, Germany turned to its domestic deposits of lignite, an especially dirty form of coal. As the Wall Street Journal reports, that’s how the supposedly green-minded energiewende has rejuvenated German coal use.

One thing you can count on: The Greens will never accept the blame. But if you’re seriously concerned about the environment and carbon emissions, you’ve got to support nuclear power. If you don’t, you aren’t serious about the environment, you’re just lying to advance another agenda.