Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
On April 18, 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced his new energy policy. His speech included the following predictions of a dire future unless we repented of our evil ways:
I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it will get worse every day until we act.
The oil and natural gas we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about six percent a year. Imports have doubled in the last five years. Our nation’s independence of economic and political action is becoming increasingly constrained. Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil that it can produce.
The world now uses about 60 million barrels of oil a day and demand increases each year about five percent. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every nine months, or a new Saudi Arabia every three years. Obviously, this cannot continue.
…
Now we have a choice. But if we wait, we will live in fear of embargoes. We could endanger our freedom as a sovereign nation to act in foreign affairs. Within ten years we would not be able to import enough oil — from any country, at any acceptable price.
If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source.
…
Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.
If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.
SOURCE Carter’s Speech
His conclusion was that “We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.” So he started throwing money at the problem. His “solution” involved inter alia:
• A “gas-guzzler” tax on automobiles
• A rebate on electric vehicles
• A gasoline tax
• Subsidies to buses
• Taxes on aviation and marine fuel
Sound familiar? It should, as these are all parts of the current war on fossil fuels.
A year and a half from now, it will be the 40th anniversary of President Carter’s prophecies of catastrophe. And it will also be the 40th anniversary of the start of the subsidization of the solar and wind power sectors. These subsidies have currently reached astounding levels. Table ES2 from the US Energy Information Agency gives the subsidies of all types (direct expenditures, tax expenditures, R&D, rural utilities subsidy) for 2013, the most recent year available. Here are the results:
In 2013, coal was subsidized about a billion dollars. Natural gas and oil, about $2.3 billion. Nuclear got about $1.7 billion. Total, about $5.0 billion dollars.
Now, how about renewables? Solar energy alone, at $5.3 billion, gets more subsidy than all the fossil fuels put together plus nuclear. And wind energy alone, the recipient of an even larger $5.9 billion dollar subsidy, also is larger than all fossil plus nuclear. In total, the renewable sector got about $15 billion dollars in subsidies, three times that of fossil fuels plus nuclear. More than two-thirds of that went to wind and solar.
And it is getting worse. Despite years of people saying that the solar and wind power were market ready and competitive and all that, in 2010 solar and wind got a total of $6.5 billion dollars in subsidies … and by 2013, the subsidies were up to $11.2 billion dollars.
$11.2
Billion.
Dollars.
Note that this $11+ billion dollar subsidy was just for 2013, and does not include the billions and billions of the past 36 years of solar and wind subsidies since Jimmy Carter. It also doesn’t include the billions upon billions of dollars that the Europeans have poured into solar and wind subsidies of all types. And importantly, it doesn’t include the subsidization of expensive renewable energy sources through “renewable energy mandates”. It also only includes US Federal Government programs, so it doesn’t include any State programs.
It also doesn’t include the implicit subsidy of renewables from the penalties imposed on fossil fuels (Carter’s gasoline taxes, “cap-and-trade” programs, the Kyoto Protocol, “carbon taxes”, and the like).
So we’re talking a playing field which has been tilted in favor of solar and wind energy by something on the order of at least a hundred billion dollars … how’s that going?
Well, yesterday I noticed that the new 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy had been released. So I thought I’d investigate the massive progress that the hundreds of billions of dollars of solar and wind subsidies in the US and other countries had bought us. Here’s the latest global data, read’em and weep …
Figure 1. Global consumption of all forms of energy (blue line) in millions of tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE). SOURCE: 1.6 Mb Excel workbook
I bring all of this up for three reasons. The first is to show just how little our ~ hundred billion dollars in solar and wind subsidies has bought us. If that was supposed to be our insurance policy, it’s not only a failure, it’s a cruel joke. It’s cruel because that amount of money could provide clean water for everyone on the planet …
The second reason is to highlight the continuing failure of these “We’re all DOOOMED!! We’re running out of energy!” kind of prophecies. President Carter was neither the first nor the last of these serial failed doomcasters.
The third reason is to highlight the ludicrous nature of the claims that solar and wind are making serious inroads into the global demand for energy. They are not. Solar and wind are a rounding error. Despite almost forty years of subsidies, despite renewable mandates, despite carbon taxes, despite cap-and-trade, despite a hundred billion dollars spent on this Quixotic quest, solar and wind have barely gotten off the floor. Look at that chart, and give me a guess for how long it will take for solar and wind to catch up with fossil fuels.
Then give me a guess how long it would take if we removed all subsidies as we should.
Here’s the bottom line. It’s not just that solar and wind can’t replace fossil fuels.
It’s worse than that. Solar and wind can’t even keep up with just the increase in fossil fuels … fail. Massive fail.
As far as I’m concerned, giving one more dollar to either solar or wind subsidies is a crime against the taxpayer, as well as against the economy … after almost forty years of fruitless subsidies, they’ve had their chance and they still don’t measure up. Time to stop throwing good money after bad.
Best regards to each of you,
w.
My Usual Request: If you disagree with me or anyone, please quote the exact words you disagree with. I can defend my own words. I cannot defend someone’s interpretation of my words.
My New Request: If you think that e.g. I’m using the wrong method on the wrong dataset, please educate me and others by demonstrating the proper use of the right method on the right dataset. Simply claiming I’m wrong doesn’t advance the discussion.
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“… is a crime against the taxpayer, as well as against the economy…”
But the biggest crime is against ecology itself! Cutting down trees for solar and wind “farms” is destroying wildlife habitat! These charlatans are destroying the very thing they claimed was somehow in jeopardy by burning FF – earth’s environment.
My 1985 Buick was a much better friend to the forest than an electric car could ever be because not only were 100’s of acres of trees not cut down to power it, it also produced plenty of what trees actually like – CO2.
Great post!
In the midst of all the talk about ‘renewable energy and ‘limitless’ power from sun/wind, I wonder if anybody’s looked at just how renewable the rare earth minerals are that are required for all this magic (for the motors, magnets, batteries, etc) enviros have been talking forever about running out of conventional fuels, but what about the stuff that enables ‘green’ energy? Where is it, how much is commercially recoverable, and how much is needed to achieve some of the goals being proposed. I don’t have the data, but somebody must, and I think it would make an interesting model.
Seems to me the writer is missing some important data. After Reagan, there were no real sizable investments in solar or wind power in the USA for a very long time. It is only after about the year 2000 that I began to notice any sizeable investments at all in the solar energy field in the USA,. So saying we have had 38 years of solar and wind power build up is a blatantly false statement. It has been very sporadic.
Willis, from 1/14.(Thanks, Mike, for the information. I agree with you regarding the importance of water vapor, and the fact that CO2 is most active at the cold end of the thermal spectrum.
One minor point is that you say:
Starting at 13 we get CO2 absorption but that wavelength corresponds to temperatures below even that of the south pole.
It sounds like you are saying that CO2 has almost no effect above 13 microns. In fact, CO2 absorbs strongly from about 13 to 18 microns. And although you are right that water vapor is the biggest player, the total absorption by CO2 is substantial.)
Yes it is, but was his point not that at -50C, whether it’s 5, 15, 50 or 200 W/m^2, CO2’s effect’s going to make very little diff. to the temperature?
GG
If Carter, who had a general BS in science degree from Navy, had stayed on in the nuclear sub program, and not returned to his father’s peanut farm, perhaps he would have learned about or better comprehended what had been developed at Oak Ridge and cancelled by Nixon (who was clueless). Maybe we would have had the thorium age a long time ago and we wouldn’t be arguing over the keystone pipeline or fossil fuels.
Anything that brings on the thorium age sooner than later, is fine with me (and I lots of stock in Exxon).
own lots of stock
Willis, wonderful post, as usual. I’d be curious if you know how much (% or dollars) of the $5 billion fossil fuels/nuke received in subsidies in 2013 was from reducing taxable income by deducting ordinary operating costs that are unique to energy but effectively no different than amortizing capital equipment (e.g. well abandonment/closure, amortization of plant/equipment, etc.) vs. direct expenditures (grants), tax credits, etc. given to wind/solar that have nothing to do with deducting operating expenses?
Also, as other readers have pointed out, a follow up note demonstrating the actual energy received/dollar of subsidy would be very instructive and telling, especially if denominator is actual energy produced (vs. plate/rated “capacity”).
Keep up the great work!
More data to support Willis:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/19/climate-alarmists-demand-obama-use-the-rico-act-to-silence-critics/#comment-2032288
Wind Power is what Canadian warmists typically embrace – Canada has squandered billions of dollars on worthless grid-connected wind power schemes that require life-of-project subsidies and drive up energy costs.
Some background on grid-connected wind power schemes:
The Capacity Factor of wind power is typically a bit over 20%, but that is NOT the relevant factor.
The real truth is told by the Substitution Capacity, which is dropping to as low as 4% in Germany – that is the amount of conventional generation that can be permanently retired when wind power is installed into the grid.
The E.ON Netz Wind Report 2005 is an informative document:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
(apparently no longer available from E.ON Netz website).
Figure 6 says Wind Power is too intermittent (and needs almost 100% spinning backup);
and
Figure 7 says it just gets worse and worse the more Wind Power you add to the grid (see Substitution Capacity dropping from 8% to 4%).
Same story applies to grid-connected Solar Power (both in the absence of a “Super-Battery”).
This was all obvious to us decades ago – we published similar conclusions in 2002.
Trillions of dollars have been wasted globally on green energy that is not green and produces little useful energy.
Regards to all, Allan
Actually, the gasoline tax was a standby meant as one person put it to applied if the American people misbehaved by using too much (in Carter’s view) gasoline. Carter also began programs to help commercialize solar hot water systems–a program which had the effect of largely bankrupting the solar industry…twice.
All of this history is described in my book, U.S. Energy Policy and the Pursuit of Failure (Cambridge University Press 2013). Willis, if you would like a copy I’d be happy to send you one,