Tag: energy policy

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crime and punishment folly too much government

Downshifting Before the Cliff

climate, global warming, energy, government

A scenario: You and millions of others are willy-​nilly running toward a cliff.

You don’t want to go over the cliff; like Bartleby, you would prefer not to. But you’re caught in the surging mass. Enough of the stampeders think that it’s the greatest idea ever — long overdue, in fact.

But just as you’re coming within sight of the cliff, the Great Leader leading the charge raises his hand and asks to be heard.

“We have decided that we are running too fast toward the cliff. We need more time to make the transition. We will therefore reduce the speed of our blind hurtling toward the cliff by 11 percent.”

Fiction? No.

The above summarizes the amended policy of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vis-​à-​vis how quickly policymakers will shove Britain’s industrial society over the proverbial cliff in the name of pretending to fine-​tune global climate. Various bans on various things that people need in order to function will reportedly be slightly delayed so that people have more time to … pretend … to prepare.

It won’t become illegal to sell petrol (gas) and diesel vehicles so that buyers of new cars would be stuck with more expensive and impractical battery-​powered cars until 2035. 

Not 2030 as previously stated.

Instead of 100 percent of gas boilers being phased out by 2035, the new goal is 80 percent.

Off-​grid oil burners will now be banned in 2035, not 2026.

Other slight delays of annihilative mandates are also in the works.

British people, enjoy your five-​year and nine-​year reprieves.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly free trade & free markets too much government

Make Them Pay

California, Commiefornia, socialism, electricity

Thanks to renewable-​energy mandates and other regulations, California muddles along with crippled power markets in which rolling blackouts are routine when demand for electricity is high and sun and wind are unavailable.

Apparently, this and other burdens on energy usage in the Brownout State are insufficient to fully immobilize everybody who relies on things that need to function. So the state’s utilities are preparing to also impose socialist billing on its customers.

Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison are proposing that the flat-​rate component of power bills be based on income. Once regulators sign off, there is to be an ongoing transfer of wealth from richer to poorer.

The utilities aren’t acting independently. 

They’re obeying a legislative mandate.

In addition to a flat-​rate component of utility bills that would be $15 for the poorest customers and $85 for the wealthiest customers, there would still be a component based on power consumption. So the impending looting of nonpoor customers could be worse.

The socialism isn’t full bore yet.

But I doubt that initial limits on this redistribution agenda would remain intact were the scheme implemented and to persist.

In addition to other objections, there is also the matter of how utilities will know their customers’ incomes. Will customers be required to report and prove these incomes? The central planners presumably regard this invasion of privacy as not worth fretting about. 

They’re too busy creating perfect equality … of brownouts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

The Energy Trap

madness of crowds, energy policy, electric cars, fuel, oil

After the spectacular failures of the COVID response, “the experts” appear to be on a roll. That is, they are once again not “following the science” but being led by politics, ideology, and the madness of crowds.

The big issues right now demonstrating mass folly on a societal level? Aside from agriculture policy, trade, subsidy, banking and high finance, and “climate change,” the big one — not unrelated to most of the rest — is the power grid.

About which our leaders seem to be nuts.

What we know is the supply of “renewable energy” is nowhere near enough to meet the general demand for energy. California’s a great example, announcing “the end of fossil fuel-​powered car sales by 2035” but sporting a power grid that is already unable to handle demand, which became bitterly funny when the Golden State asked citizens not to charge their electric cars during high-​demand hot days.

“US Power Grid Needs Trillions in Upgrades to Accommodate Renewable Energy Demands,” reads a recent Epoch Times feature.

Trillions.

It’s not as if America is rolling, like Uncle Scrooge, in trillion-​dollar surpluses. As I type these words, the US Debt Clock shows the federal government quickly approaching $31 trillion in public debt.

So now we’ll need more trillions to keep the lights on?

Yes.

Our lives depend on electrical energy, our civilization runs on electricity, but our leaders have been painting us into a corner. Bad policies that hobble efficient fuel sources and pushing inefficient sources have set a trap.

And the only real way out of the trap is one politicians don’t like: admitting they were wrong and reversing their policies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Production, It’s a Gas

Elon Musk

Is this a news story?

“Electric-​car baron Elon Musk calls for increasing U.S. oil and gas [production] to combat Russia.”

It’s news because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (and because gas has gotten awfully expensive) and because Musk is a major industrial figure. But a businessman calling for deregulation of an industry — is that also headline-​worthy stuff?

Unfortunately, yes, given how businessmen so often want liberty for themselves along with ever-​expanding restrictions for competitors (or the same restrictions for everyone as long as competitors end up getting hurt more).

I want a world in which we can make no sense of the word “but” in this opening paragraph:

“Tesla may be the world’s leading seller of plug-​in electric vehicles, but CEO Elon Musk wants the U.S. oil-​and-​gas industry to ramp up production.” 

“But”?

Musk’s statement-​by-​tweet doesn’t help: “Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.”

These words are not super-​clear about what Elon Musk believes the government’s attitude should be toward markets during non-extraordinary times. War or no war, government policies safeguarding markets should not be resorted to only as emergency measures. No matter how much some may welcome sustained efforts to hobble an industry.

It’s rare that our businessmen clearly enunciate the principles of free enterprise that they are thought themselves to practice. We’re lucky if we get a tendency in that direction. 

I guess that’s better, at least, than a fervent statism that seeks to wipe out all economic freedom all the time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Gore’s Gas-​Based Admission

Al Gore gives the impression of someone never willing to acknowledge error if said error happens to be self-serving.

This impression is wrong. 

If I have ever suggested that Gore never admits self-​serving mistakes, I hereby rescind and repudiate that suggestion. He appears more than willing to retire a dishonest assertion … so long as he has another dishonest assertion to replace it with.

Ed Morrissey tells the tale at Hot Air, opining that Al Gore’s revised opinion about the virtue of government subsidies for corn-​based ethanol seems just a little too convenient.

Gore now acknowledges that the energy-​conversion ratios of first-​generation ethanol “are at best very small,” and that corn subsidies probably bid up food prices. He even admits that he pushed for the funding to help farmers in states like Tennessee and Iowa. So it came to pass that taxpayers paid billions, in part to help Gore run for president.

Wait, there’s more. 

Having recanted his support for “first-​generation” ethanol, Gore now wants to use wood and grass to make ethanol. A new and better way, n’est-ce pas? No. There’s this small detail: Grass etc.-based ethanol is even more inefficient than corn-​based ethanol.

Why top a bad blunder at taxpayer expense with an even worse blunder at taxpayer expense? Could this have anything to do with Al Gore’s investment in Abengoa Bioenergy, a firm begging for government subsidies for second-​generation ethanol?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.