“Offshore wind is not cost-effective, and the forecasts of rapidly declining costs through increasing economies of scale are unrealistic. Absent continued subsidies … it is unlikely that any offshore wind facilities will be developed.”

“The experience with offshore wind projects in Europe over the last decade has demonstrated that newer, larger turbine technologies have been accompanied by significant reliability and maintenance issues, causing the amount of electricity that these turbines generate each year to decline by almost half over 10 years.”

An important data source for offshore wind is a new study by Jonathan Lesser, “Out to Sea: The Dismal Economics of Offshore Wind,” just released by the Manhattan Institute.

This major study reviews the history of offshore wind, the subsidies to date in the Northeastern U.S.,…

“If we believe that somehow the market is going to take care of this, that you put a price on carbon and everything will sort itself out, or that we can shame companies into doing it, then I think we’re kidding ourselves. This needs a very significant interventionist approach and all industries have to be part of the intervention.”

– Ben van Beurden, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell. Quoted in Akshat Rathi and Laura Hurst, “Look Who’s Talking About Zero Emissions.” (Bloomberg: June 9, 2020)

Enron’s Ken Lay. BP’s John Browne. Duke Energy’s James E. Rogers. T. Boone Pickens. GE’s Jeff Immelt. And now Shell’s Ben van Beurden.

Welcome to the swamp of political correctness when industry leaders morph into apologists for mineral energies and endorse open-ended government intervention for forced energy transformation from dense, reliable energies to dilute, intermittent ones.…

“Maybe Hunter Biden can be the new CEO [of ACPA], reporting straight to Dad in a Biden presidency. Surely Robert Hunter learned much about energy (still searching) in his previous life.”

This above headline will not be the name of the new powerhouse renewable energy trade group. Instead of ‘crony’ there is ‘clean,’ as in the American Clean Power Association (ACPA).

Here is some background:

Renewable energy companies are looking to strengthen their lobbying muscle in Washington, and they’re creating a new trade association to do it.

More than 30 companies, including GE Renewable Energy, Invenergy, Google, and NextEra, have been working throughout this year to form the American Clean Power Association. The American Wind Energy Association has helped to lead the group’s creation and plans to merge with the new group, according to a statement from the wind energy group Thursday.

“Speaking truth to Greenout Power substitutes economic correctness for political correctness…. Go Chevron! The global and U.S. market share of fossil-fueled energy is 84 percent and 80 percent, respectively.”

The loaded title: “Chevron’s Answer to Climate Change Is to Keep Drilling for Oil” (August 13, 2020). The condemnatory subtitle from Bloomberg Green’s Kevin Crowley and Bryan Gruley: “The energy giant believes it can still wring years of profits from fossil fuels while its European rivals embrace renewables.”

Go Chevron! The global and U.S. market share of fossil-fueled energy is 84 percent and 80 percent, respectively. And these percentages could well increase, not decrease, due to strong consumer demand for dense, reliable energies–and taxpayer fatigue for inferior substitutes (wind, solar, ethanol, batteries/EVs).

Fossil-fuel optimism is not only realistic but a great story.…