“The modern history of wind power and on-grid solar power can be summarized in four words: economically incorrect, politically correct. U.S. companies invested heavily in renewable energy technologies in the 1970s/80s only to suffer losses and, in most cases, to exit. Only massive taxpayer and consumer subsidies in the 1990s reversed these market verdicts, leading to today’s government dependence.”

Last week, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) published my research paper, The Economic Fall and Political Rise of Renewable Energy. This study is drawn from chapter 13 of Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years, 1984–1996, which reviewed Enron Corp.’s game-changing forays into solar power (1995), wind power (1997), as well as in other alternative energies.

Major Points

The Press Release made these five points:

• Renewable energy had almost a 100% market share throughout human history until it was replaced by more affordable and efficient mineral, carbon-based energies that powered the industrial revolution and vastly increased living standards.

“The Trump folks seem to believe that anything that has Obama’s fingerprints on it, no matter how sensible, they’re going to rescind, revoke and demolish, and it makes no sense at all.”

“[The climate conundrum] is scary and I’m not sure we’re gonna be able to turn it around.”

– John Holdren, December 2017.

This is Part II of a transcribed interview with John Holdren, leader of the energy/climate Malthusian school, by Climate One. Yesterday’s post critically assessed Holdren’s views on federal energy research and development, the Paris withdrawal, and China’s energy policy. Today’s post looks at his views on most other issues in the “energy sustainability” debate.

Holdren quotations are below in red, followed by my rebuttal comments indented in black (subtitles added).

Technology Boom in Renewable Energies

“… there have been huge improvement in battery technology.…

“This is potentially a $3 trillion tax,” [C. Boyden] Gray said, “which is pretty steep in the best of times, and poison in the worst of times.”

“… in trying to assemble a majority to pass it, Mr. Waxman and Mr. Markey dished out a cornucopia of concessions and exemptions to coal companies, utilities, refiners, heavy industry and agribusinesses. The original simplicity was lost, replaced by a bazaar in which those with the most muscle got the best deals.”

– John Broder, ‘Cap and Trade’ Loses Its Standing as Energy Policy of Choice, New York Times, March 25, 2010.

The carbon tax is less a cat with nine lives than a dead cat with nine causes. Higher immediate energy prices for one. Border tariffs, equity adjustments, federal control, global government makes five.…

“Beyond rent-seeking, a corporation can engage in other behaviors long decried by classical liberals, behaviors that might be characterized as contra-capitalism.”

Cronyism … Rent-seeking … Regulatory capture … Special-interest politics … Strategic uses of government intervention … Many terms have described business lobbying within the up-for-grabs socioeconomic system of political capitalism where the political means replaces the economic means. [1] It results in what classical-liberal entrepreneur Charles Koch calls bad profit. [2]

But beyond rent-seeking, a corporation can engage in other behaviors long decried by classical liberals, behaviors that might be characterized as contra-capitalism. Importantly, the corporation might not recognize these behaviors as an explicit strategy (Enron did not; Tesla does not). These separable behaviors are complementary.  And now, with a term, what was implicit can become explicit for the public policy and corporate-governance debate.…