{"id":338045,"date":"2024-07-31T07:15:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T05:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=338045"},"modified":"2024-07-31T07:15:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T05:15:05","slug":"green-energy-fail-bottom-lines-from-a-participant-observer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=338045","title":{"rendered":"Green Energy Fail: Bottom Lines from a Participant\/Observer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Harry Blake<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cHubris and corruption have compromised the energy sector and lowered the welfare of its customers (all of us). Only a small subset of people and corporations have gained from their political\/lobbying formula of concentrated benefits, diffused costs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The current green agenda is flawed. I say this as not as a policy wonk or a political partisan but as someone with industry experience as an engineer, management consultant, and interim CTO for a solar company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power grid has been referred to as the world\u2019s largest machine<\/em>; a complex that has improved our quality of life dramatically. Yet today\u2019s \u2018reinvention\u2019 is not from engineering and science from those running it. The grid is being managed by politicians under the influence of lobbyists, not to mention a supporting cast of lawyers, economists, and activists, some well-meaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entrepreneurs are influenced by a \u201cgreen\u201d agenda turning on convoluted tax policy and other \u2018wins\u2019 from lobbying. Consumers are caught in the middle with unsatisfactory results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the qualifications of those supposedly acting as the guardrails? A background search of those serving on committees of our elected officials will find lots of poly-sci majors, some lawyers, and a few who can objectively comprehend what is contained in lobbyist-drafted bills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone who worked on the Hill once commented to me that budgets (salaries) aren\u2019t high enough to hire staffers (experts) who are qualified to actually understand the nuances of any complex issue. So the public is reduced to decision makers who picked a team and (largely) follow the official narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the energy industry is vast and this column brief \u2013 I will present a few examples that I hope reader will objectively researcher further and draw their own conclusions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • The risk and certainty of the California energy crises are well documented. In the name of change, a flawed policy was pushed through by Governor Pete Wilson (R) and then allowed to fester under Governor Grey Davis (D) until it imploded a few years later.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • You might be familiar with the concept of levelized cost of energy (LCOE), a concept that is often sited to justify positions. What is not understood by most is how LCOE is calculated and how policy skews the LCOE results. It has been said that noncompetitive policies need studies, not free markets. Look no further that LCOE studies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Tax Appetite<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The first time I heard this phase I had no idea what it meant, once I understood the concept my first reaction was \u201cthis is legal\u201d. For those of you not familiar with the concept in a nutshell the government grants (gifts) tax credits to specific \u201cinvestments\u201d it deems worthy. And the companies that develop said projects are free to use those tax credits as they see fit, which equates to selling them on the open market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Not sure how many people would be marching in the street under the banner of \u201cSupport Tax Breaks for Wall Street\u201d \u2026 but Madison Avenue and the mainstream media have rephrased it as \u201csaving the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My personal experience with tax appetite involved bundling tax shields for well-known finance firms who got the added (PR) bonus of investing in solar energy and \u201cthe future.\u201d Which made for much better commercials than a public service announcement explaining how companies are purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax avoidance for 70 cents on the dollar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As an added bonus, volatile electric supply means the utility company gets to make rate cases to the public commission for additional expenditures, picked up by the ratepayer (you and me). To (mis)quote George Carlin \u2026 it\u2019s a big club, but you ain\u2019t in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Feed-in tariffs (FIT), Production Tax Credits (PTC), Investment Tax Credits (ITC) are additional mechanisms that distort not only the energy markets but grid operations. Search \u201cfrequency regulation\u201d and other related topics for the issues involved with intermittency with a commodity that must be unfailingly reliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA) opened the flood gate on numerous billion-dollar projects under the guise that they were positive net present value projects (NPV) to ratepayers. But when those number didn\u2019t pencil out, the guise of soft costs were used, arbitrary values drummed to make the math work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You would think a decade later that we would force an honest dialog of why the results didn\u2019t pan out as touted. But instead we hear calls to double down \u2013 or we didn\u2019t do enough. The makes as much sense as being lectured on the importance of good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle but forced to eat 6,000 calories a day of processed food and with a carton of cigarettes in between. And then being told that the weight gain and health issue were caused because you didn\u2019t exercise enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Political Energy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A cynic might say that this is systemic, affecting not just the energy industry but all politically charged (big dollar) industry sectors. Which is further exacerbated by the corruption of scientific research related to the field. We have allowed the scientific method to be replaced with principal investigators chasing funds (grants) demanding preconceived results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We would be much better off if energy was much more separated from politics. Removal of federal incentives and bringing more control to the local\/regional level would to make these expenditures less opaque. This is a reason why co-ops are more efficient or at least better aligned to the priorities of their members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I vividly recall years ago an event in Washington DC, where a former Public Utility Commission (PUC) stated as a matter of fact that investor owned utilities (IOU) will do just about anything if granted rate recovery. He also added that because they (commissioners) were required to weigh in on so many different things \u2013 that they don\u2019t have the time dig into the weeds. So as long what was presented (often by industry and lobbyist grounds) sounded persuasive enough (and was popular), they\u2019d approve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    He added that as political appointees and lawyers, they could not expected to understand the intricacies of technical industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Which reminds me of an utility executive gloating on how they used criticism (and customer advocacy) to gain PUC approval for an $600 million project, including guaranteed profit (I was impressed by that one).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For a decade you would hear speakers touted at conferences how regulation needs to catch up to technology. Which was really just a euphemism for how to force policy change to get funding for what they are selling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Climate Industrial Complex is real and exists solely to serve its own interests. No different than the \u201cmilitary-industrial\u201d complex Eisenhower warned about over half a century ago. Big Wind \u2026 Big Solar \u2026 Big Battery \u2026 Big Carbon Offset \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Electric vehicles? The debate over building out public charging stations shows how far this farce has gone. A case where perhaps the most cost effective solution would be for existing utilities to step in. But the green choir changes their tune and promotes the need for \u2018free market\u2019 solutions. Is there no limits to the hypocrisy? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Honest comparisons between different energy generation assets require the removal of false incentives and additional tax burdens. Ancillary costs need to be taken in account upfront, for example all additional costs associated with bringing electricity to load centers. Instead, the trick is to burden ratepayers with these additional costs (via rate recovery) after the fact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Fuel supplies in the transportation section also need to be fairly compared. Burdening one with excise taxes (fuel) while the other is provided incentives equates to more than just a finger on the scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019m just an industry veteran who has directly participated in a lot of this and observed the rest. Hubris and corruption have compromised the energy sector and lowered the welfare of its customers (all of us). Only a small subset of people and corporations have gained from their political\/lobbying formula of concentrated benefits, diffused costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The current green agenda is flawed. I say this as not as a policy wonk or a political partisan but as someone with industry experience as an engineer, management consultant, and interim CTO for a solar company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":338047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691822786,691829913,691825071,691818580],"class_list":{"0":"post-338045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-cost-of-energy","9":"tag-energy-industry","10":"tag-lobbyists","11":"tag-power-grid","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/greenhouse-gases-wind-tur-014.jpg?fit=2560%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1pWl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":218320,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=218320","url_meta":{"origin":338045,"position":0},"title":"Germany\u2019s Spiraling Green Energy Catastrophe: \u201c6 million Jobs at Risk\u201d \u2026\u201d A National Emergency\u201d","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/09\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cIs Putin\u2019s war really to blame for Germany\u2019s energy disaster?\u201d","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/00Screenshot-2022-09-10-203758.png?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/00Screenshot-2022-09-10-203758.png?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/00Screenshot-2022-09-10-203758.png?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/00Screenshot-2022-09-10-203758.png?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/00Screenshot-2022-09-10-203758.png?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":204549,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=204549","url_meta":{"origin":338045,"position":1},"title":"The Energy Poverty Project: \u2018Social Justice\u2019 in Action","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/06\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Robert Bradley Jr. \u201cThe Energy Poverty Project (EPP) is an international organization that advocates for minimizing burdensome regulations, promoting human health, combating energy poverty, and improving the quality of life for all people regardless of their race or community.\u201d Derrick Hollie, head of\u00a0Reaching America\u00a0and host of\u00a0Reaching America on Demand,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0file-20180702-116129-vahewl.webp?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0file-20180702-116129-vahewl.webp?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0file-20180702-116129-vahewl.webp?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0file-20180702-116129-vahewl.webp?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0file-20180702-116129-vahewl.webp?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":294666,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294666","url_meta":{"origin":338045,"position":2},"title":"Are \u2018Green\u2019 Agendas Carrying Governors to Political Cliffs?","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/01\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Pennsylvania Gov. 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