By Alan
Caruba
In his
state of the union speech in January President Obama claimed that the U.S. was
closer to “energy independence” than ever. He was referring to solar energy
while ignoring that his administration has been the most anti-fossil fuel energy
than any previous one.
The U.S.
has the greatest energy reserves, coal, oil and natural gas, of any nation in
the world, but Obama has been waging a “war on coal”, delaying the construction
of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, and
slow to issue permits to explore for new sources of energy reserves on
federal lands. The impact on the economy is incalculable, but it is driving up
the cost of energy for everyone and every industry.
Meanwhile,
Obama keeps talking about “green jobs” and doubling the nation’s supply of
renewable energy in the next three years.”
This another fantasy to which he clings.
As Taylor
Smith, a senior policy analyst for The Heartland Institute, points out “Despite
years of favorable public policy, including renewable power mandates and
billions in subsidies, solar power still produces only about 0.2 percent of the
nation’s electricity. The National Conference of State Legislatures says power
from most large, utility-scaled solar installations still costs about 35
percent more than electricity from natural gas plants; many other experts
estimate the levelized cost is even higher.”
U.S. Energy
Information Administration reports that the United States is producing less electricity now than it did when
Obama took office even with the inclusion of wind energy.
From 2008
to 2012, U.S. electricity production declined by 1.7 percent. That’s what happens
when Environmental Protection Agency regulations force coal mines to close along
with coal-fired plants that previously produced 50 percent of the nation’s
electricity.
Suffice to
say, Obama is the enemy of fossil fuel production and the energy it provides
for electricity production and our transportation needs. That makes him the
enemy of the American people.
In
February, the National Review had an article, “Europe’s Green Collapse”, by
Stephen Moore in which he noted that “Not long ago nearly all the nations of
Europe bought into this same dream of a green energy free lunch as they
legislated tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for solar and wind power
while directly and indirectly taxing and capping carbon-based energy.”
That
policy was set in motion by the United Nations Kyoto treaty in 1997. It was
based on the global warming hoax that called for a reduction in so-called
“greenhouse gas” emissions. The U.S. did not sign onto the treaty and Canada
withdrew from it in 2012.
The Earth,
however, has been in a natural cooling cycle for going on seventeen years, the
result not of any manmade gases, but because of the Sun has been producing
lower levels of solar radiation. The hoax is based largely on the utterly false
claim that carbon dioxide warms the Earth when, in fact, it plays virtually no
role whatever in the Earth’s climate. The Earth is likely to remain cooler for
decades.
That fact
has been brutally clear in Europe where the cold has been comparable to the
temperatures the U.S. has been encountering. Moore reported that “In January
Brussels announced with little media fanfare that the European Union is
ditching their renewable-energy standards.” It is a matter of economic survival
for Europe.
What is
astonishing is the way both the U.S. and Europe adopted renewable energy
production because it is unpredictable and mindlessly expensive. A major factor
why the global warming hoax is collapsing, it has cost everyone here and in
Europe billions in loans and subsidies. Both solar and wind require a backup
from traditional power sources that utilize coal, oil and natural gas.
“Thanks to
about $33 billion a year in government subsidies, Germany currently gets 25
percent of its electricity from wind and solar power, and that is scheduled to
rise 40 to 45 percent by 2025.” Watch Germany abandon its plans. “The EU admits
that the cost of electric power in member nations is often 50 to 100 percent
higher than in the U.S,” noted Moore. “Manufacturers are starting to move
plants out of the EU and even to, of all places, the U.S.”
“Here is a
textbook case of how centralized industrial planning—or ‘government investment’
as we now say—usually leads to catastrophically wrong bets.” In the U.S. it
began in the 1970s when President Carter spent billions on renewable energy and
projects like the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a predecessor of Solyndra and
other companies that went bankrupt shortly after receiving loans during the
Obama administration’s first term in office.
Under
Obama’s “stimulus” program, 83 percent
of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Acts Section 1705 loans went to solar
energy projects with wind receiving 11 percent of the funds.
“What
saved the U.S. economy from replicating the Euro-industrial malaise was the
entirely spontaneous oil-and-gas boom driven by technology and billions in
investment by wildcat entrepreneurs…”
That’s called capitalism. The sooner we get the U.S. government out of
“investing” in such nonsense, the better.
As with
everything else Obama has to say, his advocacy of renewable energy, like
Carter’s, has proven to be a massive, costly failure.
© Alan
Caruba, 2014
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