The EPA Announces War on Solar and Wind: Best of Luck

650bf2f84c22663de95634f9ec19d1ecc5d23b1b8b7dbe51c986dfc5c09095aeScott Pruitt, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is involved in two major offensives aimed at helping huge corporate polluters profit at the expense of the environment.

The first is the repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan that subjects all forms of electricity generation to emission regulations, including greenhouse gases. Because of the toxins emitted from coal-fired power plants that would need to be scrubbed, this would make it difficult for coal to compete with natural gas, nuclear, and renewables.

The second offensive, as discussed here, more directly intensifies the war on solar and wind, by revoking all subsidies for them.  (As you read the article, note that Pruitt doesn’t mention the tens of billions of dollars of subsidies that taxpayers dole out annually to the fossil fuel industry.)

God bless Pruitt for his tenacity and his shrewd legal mind.  Before joining the Trump White House and mission to promote toxicity, he sued the EPA on 14 different occasions, at the behest of his clients in fossil fuels.  He’s single-minded, he means business, and he knows how to get things done.

Here’s where he’s going to fail, however.  And it’s not environmentalism; as we’ve discussed at length in places like Bullish on Renewable Energy, the ultimate victory for clean energy doesn’t reside in people’s concern for the world around them, or even for their own personal health.

Rather, it lies in pure market economics.  There are 6.5 million jobs (worldwide) in the solar energy industry alone.  30% of Iowa’s electricity comes from wind, and the enormous workforce that has made that happen. Iowa is a bright red state, but what do you think its governor is going to say when he’s told to support massive job loss for his constituents?  “Gee, Scott, I don’t think I’ll be doing that. Voters here are strange; they like to eat.  Sorry I couldn’t help you out here.”

Like so many other horrors for which the Trump administration is battling so ferociously, killing renewable energy isn’t a reality; it’s the sadistic fantasy of a morally bankrupt and corrupt politician.

It’s like Jeff Sessions and his dream of ridding our nation of the scourge of marijuana, criminalizing a drug prescribed by doctors (76% of whom support legalization) to alleviate the suffering of over 1.5 million patients with cancer, glaucoma, epilepsy, MS, HIV/AIDS, alcoholism, and over 50 other conditions.  As I wrote about Session, quoting The Wizard of Oz, “Rubbish!  You have no power here. Now be gone, before someone drops a house on you too.”  While you’re at it, lawyer up and try to keep your sorry butt out of prison after you’re indicted on perjury charges.

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9 comments on “The EPA Announces War on Solar and Wind: Best of Luck
  1. Cameron Atwood says:

    In every age, there are entrenched interests that resist enlightened progress. Sometimes they “succeed” – for a time. Sometimes they bury ideas, and even realities – for a time. Sometimes they start wars. Humanity suffers.

    Poor old Galileo comes to mind. Only nine nears after being personally praised by the pope, he was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” (for merely believing his own and others’ observations – that Earth orbits the sun… aka Copernicanism, or heliocentrism).

    The Inquisition sentenced him to imprisonment. This was commuted to house arrest, under which he remained confined as he slowly went blind, and died another nine years later, never again wholly free.

    The fiction of Earth as the center of the solar system persisted yet a little longer. Oddly, in rather a post-mortem mockery of the great intellect’s crushed defiance, the middle finger of his right hand remains erect and on display in the city of his birth. I wonder if it faces the Vatican.

    Oil was once a wonder resource. It fueled massive explosions in technologies and capability, and in population and economic activity. Now, our growing numbers and needs are helping it to fuel lethal effects – on our own personal biology, and on our global climate (not to mention our wallets).

    For a very long time here in the US, we’ve been spending some 700 billion a year on foreign oil. We get much of our foreign oil from the American continent – Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Yet much of our bloated “defense” budget is devoted to controlling global access to resources under other people’s feet – particularly in the Middle East. That’s where we still get one in eight barrels, and where the vast bulk of known reserves still sits.

    Oil is expensive upfront, as well as in the hidden costs – like the “Department of Homeland Security” and the tattered Constitution, for instance. Then, there are those billions the fossil subsidies we’re all paying.

    Fossil fuel has lost its competitive edge in an ethical market, even without factoring in any of the lethal devastation to our troops suffer, psychological and bodily – nor the exorbitant and extortive costs (hard and soft) of the occupations, the drones, and the hundreds of foreign bases.

    Instead of losing blood and treasure to fuel terrorist recruitment, we could be building ten thousand Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants, each a mile square – completely proven power generation technology – dotted along our Sunbelt from Southern California to Georgia. What a fabulous centerpiece in a cornucopia of sustainable energy resource development – wind, hydro, distributed PV – all ultimately fed by the power of our modern sun.

    Using our proven storage technologies – molten salt and pumped hydro are examples – and transmitting power over High-Voltage Direct-Current (HVDC), those CSP plants will provide all the electricity currently consumed all across the entire continental US.

    This system will also scale up nicely to fill public and individual transportation needs. Advances in battery technology will also very soon compete in the grid energy storage arena.

    Those 10,000 plants will cover less than a third of one percent of the land area in the lower 48 states, and at $600 million per square mile, those ten thousand CSP plants will total $6 trillion (plus a few hundred billion for infrastructure improvements).

    It sounds like a lot of cash, but that’s just nine years of our longstanding foreign oil expenses (and that’s without even mentioning any of the military savings). Think of it – a permanently maintainable and renewable system that provides cheap, clean and sustainable energy for all our nation’s electricity.

    “If that’s true,” you say (and it is true), “why aren’t we doing it?”
    Ask why seat belts took decades to become a required standard in cars.

    Ask why US vehicle fuel efficiency still drags behind Japan and Europe, and even they both of them are still far behind the benchmark that we ourselves achieved decades ago during WWII.

    American broadband speed and coverage are yet further examples of the willful restraint of technology that’s been inflicted on us by entrenched vested interests.

    Unless they’re forced by law to behave otherwise, corporations can only be relied upon to do that which increases profit, no matter the wider harm to humanity and the biosphere. When it comes to fossil firms, that profit suffers by an accelerated replacement of their entrenched profit centers. Should it surprise they’ve fueled denialism?

    CSP is completely doable and is, in fact, inevitable. It’s already pouring energy into the grid in California, Arizona, Spain and the United Arab Emirates, and a growing number of other places around the globe.

    The vast majority of the material needed is concrete, steel and glass. The present barriers against this elegant solution are not technical nor resource-based, nor even financial – they’re purely political barriers erected and reinforced by bribery, and by the fossil interests that do the bribing.

    Isn’t it about time that We the People stood up, got together, and put an end to bribery – and an end to the ruin it spreads across our society and our world?

    The GOP leadership owns the present administration, with it’s high-wire embarrassment of adolescent flailing and faux-populist scheming, not to mention giving our top foreign policy seat to Big Oil, and our top environmental seat to a fierce fossil fuel shill. (…What? Shhh…) The Democrat leadership owns the smooth incrementalism and hypocrisy of the prior administration, and the resulting GOP “victory” (such as it is).

    It’s been observed that the Republican leadership is “wholly owned” by the economic power elite… while the Democrat leadership are merely “rented.” The Red Pope preaches faith in an economic myth that’s painted to cover a bio-economic abyss; the Blue Pope promises a land of milk and honey while driving us toward the same dead end.

    This isn’t even about the children anymore. It’s about our parent’s kids. We need to get together, stand up, and step around the wool-dyed popes and their sectarianism. We need to school them both that this is plain non-negotiable physics, not politics or religion – and that their bacon is on the fryer just like everyone else’s.

  2. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    You puzzle me. You really must decide if you want to be an environmental advocate, or a PR lobbyist for particular industries!

    The US oil industry does not receive “tens of billion” in US subsidies, with most people that’s just a myth, but since you know that’s not true it must be concluded that you told a deliberate canard!

    Reducing subsidies from an industry is not the same thing as “declaring war ” and you know it, so again you are seeking to perpetrate a canard.

    More disingenuous than a canard, you quote the figure of 6.5 million employed in the global wind industry, however you don’t mention that less than 6000 are employed in Iowa’s wind industry !

    So gee Craig, I don’t think the Governor has much to worry about when it comes to “massive job losses ” !

    Curiously, that’s less than the same number employed by Iowa’s Coal industry! Coal’s share of net electricity generation in Iowa declined from 76% in 2008 to 49% in 2017, but coal is still the state’s largest source of net electricity generation.

    The Iowa wind power industry is well suited to a basically farming state of only 3 million people and lacking high power consumption industries. The great prairie is also very windy.

    While folks in Des Moines, Ceder Rapids and Davenport generally support the development of Wind power in Iowa, that’s not true of all the folk who have to live with, or near wind farms.

    There’s a growing tide of resentment from farmers and country dwellers concerning the wind industry and wind generation.

    These people also vote and they’re bitterly opposed to wind turbines. Farmers like Kelly Ney, a fifth-generation farmer who complains the turbines sounds like a tornado bearing down on his home and claims the once tranquil prairie has become a windmill landfill.

    Others complain of restrictions to grow trees or even erect barns. Damage to water tables etc.

    Complaints about winking red lights atop the turbines that disturb sleep and turn rural living into an urban environment.

    But the most popular opposition raised, is the much publicized 30 to 40% of power production claim. Many analysts argue this figure is only reached if all output is included without allowing for dumping.

    Opponents, and even supporters, argue the economic success of wind is largely a fraud. The economics distorted by government subsidies, distorted accounting and mandates.

    With all the $ billions, politics and huge corporations involved, it’s hard to arrived at any conclusion.

    Unless that is you are an ‘uncritical’ fan of Wind Power. (Which is where I guess I came in).

  3. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    Then perhaps you should read ;

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/drillinginfo/2016/02/22/debunking-myths-about-federal-oil-gas-subsidies/#14eed18e6e1c

    This is a fairly comprehensive analysis of subsidies available to the US oil Industry, which incidentally is the largest US taxpayer, both by rate (45%) and actual revenue.

    Tax deductions which are available to all taxpayers, are not “subsides” , nor are Tax deductions involving the cost of doing business.

    According to a 2015 estimate by the Obama administration, the US oil industry benefited from subsidies of about $4.6 billion annually. When challenged to substantiate that figure by fact checkers , President Obama revised his estimate to $2.7 billion.

    This was confirmed by Terry M. Dinan, senior advisor at the Congressional Budget Office, when testifying before the Subcommittee on Energy.

    Your reliance on outdated and inaccurate claims seems to be sourced from a flawed and long since retracted 2009 study by the Environmental Law Institute which covered the period 2002–08. The study estimated that subsidies to fossil fuel-based sources totaled ‘about’ $72 billion. (Still not 10’s of billions per year).

    The Environmental Law Institute has since admitted the flaws in this report admitting it’s data didn’t separate general business opportunity credits available to all US businesses, and subsequently revised it’s estimate with a reduction of 60%.

    The report was still flawed as like President Obama’s people the Environmental Law Institute erroneously claimed government subsidies provided to the oil industry for Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Energy infrastructure security etc as “subsides for the Oil companies” instead of compensation payments.

    In fact the US oil industry receives almost no subsidies, those that remain are very small and mostly available to small companies. Even then, most of the remaining subsidies are reaching the end of their sunset clauses.

    I can accept that when you wrote your books and conducted your interviews you were misinformed. What I find hard to understand is your insistence on knowingly repeating outdated and erroneous information.

    It also show a flaw in your research methods. I would have thought when writing a book you would carefully research material from many sources in order to acquire an accurate, balanced and objective conclusion ?

    In contrast, in the same testimony in 2015 the spokesperson informed the Congressional Committee the US renewable fuels sector had received more than $ 176 billion in direct subsidies over the previous 6 year period with the two main beneficiaries being Wind and ethanol ( Wind receiving nearly $41.6 billion).

    (It should be noted that so far the US Wind industry is yet to become a significant US taxpayer).

    (It must be said, the Environmental Law Institute doesn’t hold itself out to be unbiased. It’s an advocacy organization that expects it’s propositions to be challenged.)

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436228/wind-energy-subsidies-billions-and-billions-your-tax-dollars

    Unlike you, when I cite sources, I try to be fair and objective. You may have noticed I didn’t include the $214 billion provided in the form of federal loans or loan guarantees.

    Although these incentives and faculties are a form of “subsidy” and the exact sum could be monetized, I don’t consider such policy incentives true subsidies since the object is to establish an industry for the national benefit.

    Warren Buffett,explained to shareholders the real reason his companies are in the wind business.

    “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them,” he said. “They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

    The real cost to the US taxpayer of establishing and operating the US wind industry over the last 10 years has been a staggering $5 trillion dollars !

    This figure includes the cost to federal revenue of Tax credits given to companies like JP Morgan, Apple, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, and a huge list of International companies who have received cash grants ($450 million to Google alone) or massive tax credits for investing in Wind Power.

    Sums like $1.9 billion in subsidies given to bankrupt SunEdison etc.

    None of this would matter, if Wind Power was now profitable and paying tax. But it’s not. Like Ethanol, it looks as if Wind Power will never produce real profits and pay tax without continuing government mandates and assistance.

    Sooner or later, the US will discover the bills can’t be continually paid by an increasingly abused oil industry.

    The US is $23 Trillion in debt. The US is living on it’s credit card. Without the revenue from the Shale revolution created with fracking technology, the US economy would have collapsed.

    President Trump’s tax plan hopes to attract back real taxpaying economic activity and industries to the US.

    The rantings of impotent fringe dwellers like Cameron can be dismissed as have no influence, but advocates and business advisors like yourself have a responsibility to be accurate and objective.

    Your voice is important, and if it’s to remain credible, you need to constantly reassess your position in light of new information and shifting perspectives.

    A balance must be struck between maintaining a strong competitive economy and environmental progress. The concept of justifying every uneconomic, ill-conceived, unprofitable, uneconomic technology on environmental grounds isn’t viable.

    The US government doesn’t possess a money tree (well, it does, it’s called oil). At some stage national governments, like ordinary citizens, must learn to live within their means.

    The North American Oil and Gas industry being largely domestic, contributes over $2 Trillion dollars to the national economy on both a state and federally. These industries also provide billions in “value added” export revenue assist the disastrous US trade imbalance.

    In contrast, Wind and Solar contribute nothing to federal revenue, little in the way of export,add to America’s debt and trade imbalance and may prove to become a gigantically expensive environmental nightmare two decades from now.

    These are unpleasant truths. Sooner or later, these emerging facts must be addressed. Governments can’t continue spending other people money from fear of upsetting ideologues for long.

    The comes a time when ‘other people’ have no more money to steal.

  4. Cameron Atwood says:

    In the early 1970’s, Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki tribe member from the Odanak reserve northeast of Montreal, observed:

    “When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.”

    It’s not a new observation. In 1894 the importance of conserving natural resources was recognized and expressed in a report by the State Fish and Game Commissioner of North Dakota. The report cautioned against short-term thinking and narrow monetary motivations by much the same reasoning:

    “Present needs and present gains was the rule of action, which seems to be a sort of transmitted quality which we in our now enlightened time have not wholly outgrown, for even now a few men can be found who seem willing to destroy the last tree, the last fish and the last game bird and animal, and leave nothing for posterity, if thereby some money can be made.”

  5. Cameron Atwood says:

    marcopolo – “rantings of impotent fringe dwellers like Cameron can be dismissed as have[ing] no influence” – wow, your reliably repetitive return to ad hominem emerges yet again.

  6. marcopolo says:

    Cameron Atwood,

    “Ad Hominum” often occurs because your comments contain no relevant facts or information.

    You offer no constructive alternatives, just vague homilies (sorry about the pun).

    In the absence of any meaning to the sermon, it’s only natural the preacher receives the criticism.

  7. Cameron Atwood says:

    marcopolo – “no constructive alternatives” ?? – it appears you failed to read my comment.