“In my period at Cato (1990–present), “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’“, is probably our most important Policy Analysis in the energy/environment area. Bradley’s thorough review and analysis (60 pages, 325 footnotes) was a real pushback against the viability of ‘green’ energy in theory and practice.”

– Jerry Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director, Natural Resource Studies, Cato Institute, 2012

On the fifteenth [25th] anniversary of “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’” (yesterday’s post), I recall, with pride, a lot of hard work that went into supplying the author with information about California’s wind and solar experience.

At the time I was working in the belly of the beast, the California Energy Commission (CEC) in Sacramento. The Commission was a major proponent of all things renewable, almost to the point of fanaticism.…

[Ed. note: On August 27, 1997, the Cato Institute published Policy Analysis #280, which criticized the government push to subsidize politically correct renewable energies. This review by Jon Boone, published ten years ago, is reprinted below.

“The policy implication of [a thorough examination of renewable technologies] is, stop throwing good money after bad. All renewable energy subsidies from all levels of government should cease.”

Such is the conclusion voiced today by a rising chorus of energy experts, economists, even politicians, after many years of failed renewables projects and more expensive utility bills in the growing shadow of a $16 trillion national debt ($140,000 per taxpayer). But, remarkably, fifteen years have passed since Rob Bradley crafted this statement for the Cato Institute as the bottom line of his comprehensive six-part policy alarum, Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’

An Opening Shot

Few knew about or shared Bradley’s concerns at the time.…

“The propensity of government intervention to have unintended consequences and expand from its own shortcomings has taken over a vital U.S. industry. It is time for fundamental free-market, classical-liberal reform with electricity.”

For some time, I have questioned the work of electricity specialist Lynne Kiesling in regard to classical liberalism, market process economics, and Public Choice theory. She dons the mantle of all three traditions; I believe her approach is the opposite.

There are hidden assumptions and views that she does not want to talk about: climate alarmism; forced energy transformation. (Why?) And down under, her premise is that a “market failure” exists with electricity that necessitates government intervention. And with this intervention, she has fallen into a central planning approach that begs for a classical liberal autopsy and policy reversal.…

“Bad Profits, rent-seeking, resource misallocation–it’s an upside down world, turning Ayn Rand’s dis-utopian world in Atlas Shrugged into reality one step at a time.”

“Manchin-Schumer leaves no special interest unrewarded,” wrote Robert Bryce. “The legislation is so broad and has so many carve outs that it has been lauded by Exxon Mobil and the Natural Resources Defense Council.”

The new law’s “lollipops” (Bryce) go to wind, solar, EVs, ethanol, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen–all money losers on a real free market. Bad Profits, rent-seeking, resource misallocation–it’s an upside down world, turning Ayn Rand’s dis-utopian world in Atlas Shrugged into reality one step at a time.

It is a sad day when ExxonMobil, once a bastion of climate and energy realism and good business, goes all-in with the Inflation Reduction Act
of 2022.…