Tracking The Demise Of The U.S. Green Energy Transition

From the MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

We’re coming up on three and a half years into the Biden presidency — a presidency which from the outset promised an “all of government” regulatory onslaught to force a transition away from fossil fuels and to “green” energy. And the regulatory onslaught has indeed come forth. But how about the actual transition in energy use? Not so much.

Let’s have a round-up of some recent data points.

On the regulatory onslaught front, on March 7, 2024 Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research put out a list of “200 Ways the Biden Administration and Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas.” The list is chronological, beginning with Executive Orders that Biden issued on his first day in office (January 20, 2021) and continuing right up to the date of the post. Yes there is some duplication and overlap in the list (e.g., separately listing multiple steps toward approval of a single regulation); but even with that, the sheer number of efforts to restrict, hamper, harass and extort fossil fuel producers is breathtaking. You will probably remember most of this stuff, but it’s remarkable to see it all put together in one place. By all means look through the full list, but meanwhile here is a small sample of the more significant items:

• Item 1, January 20, 2021: “[C]anceling the Keystone XL pipeline.”
• Item 2, also January 20, 2021: “[I]ssuing a moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
• Item 5, January 27, 2021: “{I}ssu[ing] an executive order announcing a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on public lands.”
• Item 10, also January 27, 2021: By the same Executive Order, “promoting ‘ending international financing of carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy while simultaneously advancing sustainable development and a green recovery.’”
• Item 14, February 19, 2021: “[R]ejoin[ing] the Paris Climate Agreement.”
• Item 24, April 22, 2024: “[I]ssu[ing] the U.S. International Climate Finance Plan to funnel international financing toward green industries and away from oil and gas.”
• Item 33, September 3, 2021: “[I]ssu[ing] a proposed rule that would update the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Model Years 2024–2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks to increase fuel economy regulations on passenger cars and light vehicles.”
• Item 48, November 12, 2021: “[Issuing] New Source Review . . . regulations target[ing] new, modified, and reconstructed oil and natural gas sources, and would require states to reduce methane emissions from hundreds of thousands of existing sources nationwide for the first time.”
• Item 66, February 18, 2022: “[Updating policy] for assessing proposed natural gas pipelines, adding new considerations for landowners, environmental justice communities, and other factors. In a separate but related decision, the commission also laid out a framework for evaluating projects’ greenhouse gas emissions.”
• Item 75, March 21, 2022: “The SEC [issues a] proposed rule [that] would require public companies to disclose greenhouse gas emissions.”
• Item 95, April 21, 2022: Climate Czar John Kerry announces, “We have to put the industry on notice: You’ve got six years, eight years, no more than 10 years or so, within which you’ve got to come up with a means by which you’re going to capture, and if you’re not capturing, then we have to deploy alternative sources of energy.”
• Item 105, June 8, 2022: “President Biden’s Interior Department announced it will reduce the fees on renewable projects on federal lands after announcing recently that royalty rates and rents would increase as much as 50% for oil and gas projects on federal lands.”
• Item 139, January 17, 2023: “Biden appointee [Richard Trumka] proposes ban on gas stoves.”
• Item 152, April 12, 2023: “[Issuing] new rules to force electric Vehicles on Americans.  The New York Times notes that EPA is releasing rules that are intended to ensure that electric cars represent between 54 and 60 percent of all new cars sold in the United States by 2030 and 64 to 67 percent by 2032—in 9 years.”
• Item 153, April 12, 2023: “[Issuing] new GHG emissions regulations for heavy duty vehicles.”
• Item 156, May 15, 2023: “EPA proposes new regulations requiring power plants to reduce GHG emissions and require carbon capture and sequestration or hydrogen co-firing even though these are uneconomic technologies.”
• Item 167, August 1, 2023: “EPA proposes updated greenhouse gas reporting requirements for the oil and natural gas industry.”
• Item 171, August 7, 2023: “Biden proposed 236-pages of revisions to NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) guidance to make it harder to permit any natural gas, oil, or coal project.”
• Item 180, October 27, 2023: “A proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule on hydrofluoric-acid-based alkylation could spur a round of refinery closures as the cost of replacing hydrofluoric acid based alkylation with alternatives is extremely high.”
• Item 193, January 26, 2024: “Biden halts permitting for new LNG export facilities.”

That’s only 20 of the 200. There are plenty of other significant ones that I skipped over.

At the same time, the Biden Administration has dramatically ramped up subsidies and other favors and incentives for so-called “green” energy. The badly misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” of August 2022 alone contained over $400 billion of subsidies and handouts to the green energy industry.

So with the double whammy of endless restrictions and harassment of fossil fuel producers, and subsidies for the wind and sun, undoubtedly oil and gas production must be shrinking rapidly? Not at all. In fact, domestic production of both has just recently hit all-time records. Here is a chart of U.S. crude oil production from the EIA, with data through January 2024:

Production reached an all-time record of 13.29 million bbl/day in December 2023, before having a small down-tick in January. The current production level is well over double where it was when Barack Obama took office in 2009. You really have to hand it to these oil and gas producers for somehow getting around whatever the government throws at them.

And here’s another chart from the same source showing natural gas production through December 2023:

From EIA: “U.S. natural gas production grew by 4% in 2023, or 5.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), to average 125.0 Bcf/d, according to our Natural Gas Monthly.” There had also been increases in 2023 and 2022.

Well, but surely the transition to electric vehicles is taking off? Maybe — but the latest data would seem to indicate that the electric vehicle market is suddenly in big trouble. For an overview, Robert Bryce has a long post at his Substack today, titled “Tesla In Turmoil: The EV Meltdown In 10 Charts.” You may know that Tesla has just announced that it is laying off 10% of its workforce. Bryce concludes: “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it one more time: Electric vehicles are The Next Big Thing, and they always will be.”

Here’s a chart not from Bryce, but from Statista, on Tesla sales by quarter:

Does it seem that Tesla is going gangbusters? It does until you look closely. Tesla sold 485,000 cars in 4Q 2023, and only 387,000 in 1Q 2024. That’s rather a sudden and dramatic decline. Elsewhere in the EV biz, the story is the same. From Cox Automotive, April 11:

Sales [of EVs in the U.S.] in Q1 rose 2.6% year over year, but fell 15.2% compared to Q4 2023.

Do these declines represent a one-quarter blip, or an accelerating trend. I’m betting with Bryce that this is the trend. My prognosis is that the EV market is close to saturated. I have no interest in buying one of them, let alone paying a premium to do it. Do you? But meanwhile the large automakers (except Toyota) have all made big, big bets that the government can make its mandates stick. If consumers don’t go along, this could be the end of Ford and GM, let alone Audi, Mercedes and BMW. Tough luck, guys.

Our current rulers think that they have infinite ability to tell the people how to live, and infinite money to force the people to change their ways. They are wrong, and reality will catch up to them, if only gradually.