Tag: green energy

The Crippling Economic Costs Of Green Energy Subsidies

The green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have been justified by the Biden Administration as a booster of U.S. economic growth and jobs.  But when the subsidies are tallied and the overall impacts evaluated, the IRA is a job and economic growth killer. 

Under the IRA, the lion’s share of subsidies will be paid to wind and solar developers.  The subsidies will not expire until electric industry carbon emissions fall by at least 75% below 2005 levels, after which they will gradually decrease.  Even the most optimistic forecasts prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that this will not occur until at least 2046.  Thus, the subsidies for wind and solar will continue unabated for decades.  In total, the subsidies will far exceed what the U.S. government spent in today’s dollars to combat the Great Depression.

The single largest subsidy is the federal investment tax credit (ITC).  Most wind and solar projects will be able to claim a minimum 30% ITC, plus be eligible for an additional 10% credit if the projects rely on domestic manufacturing for components.  

The EIA’s optimistic forecast projects about 900,000 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaics, 350,000 MW of onshore wind turbines, and 24,000 MW of offshore wind by 2046.  If all of this generation is built, it will result in direct ITC subsidies totaling between $500 billion and $1 trillion, depending on construction costs.  The greater the costs, the larger the subsidies.  Although wind and solar proponents still claim costs are falling, the reality is the opposite.   Offshore wind developers, especially, are clamoring to renegotiate contracts they signed previously, including guaranteed price adjustments for increasing costs, and relaxing the domestic content requirement so they can claim the additional 10% ITC.

Despite spiraling deficits – almost $2 trillion in the fiscal year that ended this past October – green energy subsidies will be financed with still more government debt.  With the increase in interest rates to normal levels, financing costs will soar, adding an estimated $500 to $800 billion to the bill costs, almost as much as the subsidies themselves. 

The envisioned spending and subsidies for green energy, several hundred billion dollars annually just for wind and solar generation, will distort energy markets.  First, they will crowd out more productive private investment in the energy sector and reduce the resources available for more efficient forms of generation, especially small modular reactors.  Second, as the deficit increases further, higher interest rates will crowd out private investment in more productive private sectors of the economy.

Along with the Administration’s push to “electrify” the economy, such as higher vehicle mileage standards that act as a de facto mandate for electric vehicles and proposed bans on natural gas appliances, the result, as has been experienced in Europe, will be soaring electricity prices.  Those higher prices will reduce economic growth and employment, far more so than the green energy investments can boost it.  Although the subsidies will benefit wind and solar developers, but the overall economic impacts for the country will be crippling.

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New documentary ‘proves’ building offshore wind farms does kill whales

The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say.

Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry. 

But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by director and producer Jonah Markowitz, which I executive produced, proves that the US government officials have been lying.

The film documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths

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Scottish Govt Axes 16 Million Trees To Clear Way For ‘Greener’ Solutions

Since 2000, the Scottish government has felled around 1,700 trees on a daily basis, all to make way for “green” initiatives. Leave it to the government and their leftist abettors to harp on the “destruction of the environment” then chop down literal trees to create barren wastelands—all to make room for obtrusive, industrial, inanimate behemoths that obliterate all sorts of animal populations, and create massive amounts of environmental pollution (in production, maintenance, and disposal).

According to an article by Frank Bergman and posted to Slay News yesterday, the Scottish government’s scheme of systematic deforestation was implemented to “meet the goals” of the climate agenda. Is that not one of the most ludicrous and asinine things you’ve ever heard? Or perhaps, the move is right in line with the climate agenda, because the goal isn’t environmentalism… but rather communistic destruction?

From Bergman:

A Scottish government official has admitted that almost 16 million trees have been cut down in Scotland to make way for ‘green energy’ farms.

The trees were growing on public land and were chopped down so the land could be used for wind turbines.

The admission was made by Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon, a member of the ruling left-wing Scottish National Party (SNP).

She estimated that 15.7 million trees had been cut down since 2000 on land currently managed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS).

Bergman also reported that Gougeon said:

‘Where woodland is removed in association with development, developers will generally be expected to provide compensatory planting in order to avoid a net loss of woodland.’

“Generally”? Seems rather vague and subjective; unsurprisingly, “No information has yet been provided regarding any trees that were ‘replanted,’ however.”

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Eco-activists trying to kill green tech that could eliminate emissions from fossil fuels

Although the United Nations states that carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), equipment that enables fossil fuel producers to sequester emissions to mitigate global warming, is needed to meet emissions reduction targets, multiple climate activist groups oppose its development as they believe CCS entrenches the oil and gas industry.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that governments and other entities must employ CCS to remove greenhouse emissions from the atmosphere and store them underground in order to limit global temperature increases below 2.7°F, compared to pre-industrial levels, according to an April IPCC report. However, climate activist nonprofits like the Sierra Club, which has previously referred to the IPCC’s work as the “gold standard” for climate science, argue that CCS is a “false” climate solution that is designed to help the fossil fuel industry.

“It comes from a fundamental hostility to traditional sources of energy and anything that comes from fossil fuels,” Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation, a free-market think tank, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Their focus is just to get coal plants or other facilities shut down regardless of whether carbon capture is going to be part of the energy transition or not.”

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Nazis Started Forced Renewable Energy Transition, Expert Says

The first political party to have a renewable energy program was the Nazi party in the 1933 Reichstag elections. Their goal was to transition to wind power, and use the wind to produce hydrogen,  according to Rupert Darwall, a senior fellow at RealClearFoundation.

The catalyst for this energy revolution in the Nazi party was an “us versus them” mentality and was a fundamental reaction against the “original sin of the Industrial Revolution.” A revolution that significantly increased living standards for humanity and was made possible by coal, Darwall told Paul Greaney of NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, in an interview.

But when the Nazi party fell, the Nazi and Neo-Nazi environmental leaders had to find new ways to further their “energy revolution.” Thus, they assumed leadership positions in an up-and-coming environmentalist party in Germany and joined in protesting nuclear energy during the Cold War.

That party later officially became Germany’s Green Party in 1980, which led to the “greening of Germany,” the eventual “greening of Europe,” and is based not on science, but on “insane green ideology” and control, Darwall claimed.

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‘Eco’ power station in tree-felling storm: Wood-fired plant that takes billions in green handouts is hacking down Canadian forest, TV probe alleges

Britain’s largest renewable power station is cutting down carbon-rich forests while receiving billions in green- energy subsidies from UK taxpayers, an investigation claims.

Panorama tonight reports how Drax, which generates 12 per cent of the UK’s renewable electricity by burning wood pellets at its Yorkshire power station, bought logging licences to cut down two areas of forest in western Canada.

The company claims it only used leftover sawdust and waste wood from the forests but the BBC film, titled The Green Energy Scandal Exposed, shows logs from the forest being loaded on to a Drax truck and then unloaded at one of its pellet plants.

The programme says that Drax’s power station burned more than seven million tonnes of imported wood pellets last year and that documents on a Canadian forestry database show that only 11 per cent of logs delivered to two of its pellet plants are the small, twisted or rotten timber the company says it uses.

Drax has already received £6billion in green energy subsidies even though burning wood gives off more greenhouse gases than burning coal, Panorama emphasised.

The two areas of environmentally important forest – in the Canadian province of British Columbia – where Drax bought logging licences have never been logged before.

One of the sites includes large areas that have been identified as rare, old-growth forest. Drax’s own responsible sourcing policy says it ‘will avoid damage or disturbance’ to primary and old-growth forest. However, satellite pictures show Drax is now cutting down this forest, according to the BBC.

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