The Earth is dying! We need to be responsible with technology and fuels! You’ve heard the narrative. Whether or not you subscribe to global warming and everything related is probably best saved for another discussion, but it can be hard to argue against the call for better fuels.
After all, technological innovation is typically a good thing. When it comes to fuel and power, the truth isn’t so naive. Climate change alarmists are pushing an agenda that is far costlier than you might imagine.
Present Day Expenses
There is only one reason the world doesn’t run on solar, wind or another “clean” source of energy: it’s expensive. Generally, power production is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh), and even the wealthiest nation in the world can’t afford the most environmentally friendly solutions without subsidies. After accounting for subsidies, here’s the breakdown of relative fuel costs:
- Coal – $0.095/kWh
- Natural Gas – $0.070/kWh
- Nuclear – $0.095/kWh
- Hydroelectric – $0.08/kWh
- Biofuel – $0.10/kWh
- Wind – $0.20/kWh
- Solar (PV) – $0.125/kWh
- Solar (Thermal) – $0.24/kWh
The only clean source that is cost effective is hydroelectric power, and it is implemented everywhere it can be. Outside of that, even after subsidies wind and solar power cost several times as much as traditional fuel options. Until there is a renewable energy source that is cost-effective, no industrial nation can abandon fossil fuels without tanking their economy. So, obviously research is the answer. Right?
Federal Spending
The environmentalists regularly clamor that we aren’t investing enough in renewable energy. Apparently, spending $4.36 billion a year in private-sector research isn’t nearly enough. The additional $10 billion a year spent through defense contracts and military research is also insufficient.
Never mind the fact that the Obama Administration has spent $115 billion on research that has provided exactly zero tangible results. We should invest further. Since nothing is produced or purchased by this money, it doesn’t circulate back into the economy well, but that’s not a problem either. Oh, and the $90 billion a year in subsidies is also nowhere near enough.
Ok, let’s check the sarcasm for a minute. The U.S. is spending a combined total of more than $100 billion per year on renewable energy, and it hasn’t yielded any benefits. Financial decisions like this really explain why the economy has been so stagnant for the last eight years. Now, none of this is intended to say that energy research should be completely abandoned, but perhaps the spending should be reassessed and distributed in meaningful, impactful ways. Sadly, this is still the good news.
Poverty
Discussing the efficiency of renewable energy sources is all well and good, but those are the small problems. The dark truth is that climate change alarmism is literally deadly. The alarmists will tell you (in stark contradiction to the data) that the entire world needs to reduce carbon emissions by orders of magnitude, right now, or else everyone is doomed.
Despite the fact that the most accurate model to date overestimated measurable impacts of climate change by more than 90 percent, this is the narrative. What it blatantly ignores is the primary source of carbon emissions in the world: heating.
You see, industry, vehicles and all of the technology you associate with carbon emissions only account for 27 percent of manmade greenhouse gasses. The rest comes from cultivating land, livestock and good old fashioned fires.
The top two producers of carbon dioxide are China and India, and their rates are also rising faster than any others on the planet. While it would be easy to pick on them as the destroyers of the Earth, the bulk of their production simply comes from people burning fires to cook food and not die in the cold.
There is a powerful correlation between poverty and carbon dioxide production, and it’s very easy to follow. When poverty is extreme enough, efficient heating isn’t available. Electric heaters, automobiles and everything else modern that produces carbon dioxide is pristinely engineered and filtered to minimize environmental impacts.
Conversely, the destitute people of the world have to burn anything they can find, without the benefits of engineering. In order for the world to fall in line with alarmist plans of action, roughly 80 million people in China and another 179 million in India would have to stop burning fires to cook their food and combat the cold. You can easily imagine the death toll.
The Verdict
There is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing innovation in any field. The problems in this case arise when the well-being of hundreds of millions of people is sacrificed to innovations that have failed to happen for 60 years, despite consistent and expensive research.
A proper “responsible” approach to the industry is not one that incites panic to push poorly constructed ideals. Instead, it requires a measured view of the full range of stakes. Killing the world’s poor to avert inaccurate models would fall into the opposite category.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
