In a post on October 23, I noted that, during this election cycle, “energy realism” has suddenly become a positive electoral issue for Republicans. The positive electoral effect comes from pointing out that a forced energy transition increases consumer costs, limits choice, and destroys jobs. Examples cited included President Trump’s use in his campaign in Michigan of the Biden-Harris regulations restricting combustion vehicles, and his use in Pennsylvania of Harris statements that she would ban fracking.
But there is another approach out there to the subject of energy realism, which has been taken up by many Republican candidates and energy think tanks. That approach goes by the name “all of the above.” The idea is that the government’s policy should be to allow and/or support all forms of energy development. After all, won’t allowing or supporting all forms of energy maximize consumer choice? And, to the extent that some renewables get into the mix, we could also “reduce emissions,” at least by a little. It’s a win, win!
Actually, not. In practice, “all of the above” is code for continuing and growing government subsidies to energy schemes that don’t work and the drive up consumer costs and impoverish the people. Under that banner, we’re growing huge corrupt industries of uneconomic energy producers dependent on the endless continuation and increase of destructive subsidies. Ending the subsidies could put these industries out of business overnight, so you should not be surprised that they are prepared to spend billions to buy politicians to keep the gravy flowing.
A leading example of a think tank pushing the “all of the above” agenda is Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, or CRES. CRES characterizes itself as “a right-of center non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that engages policymakers and the public about responsible, conservative solutions to address our nation’s energy, economic, and environmental security while increasing America’s competitive edge.” CRES’s own website doesn’t provide many details about who might be behind it. Wikipedia provides at least a little useful information, including that it was founded by “Republican grassroots organizer James Dozier” in 2013, and that it received a $1 million grant in 2018 from the MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation doesn’t sound very “right-of-center.”
At the CRES Annual Report, we learn about their “Vision” and their “Mission.” Here’s the Vision:
Our goal is to lower global emissions through U.S. policymaking to maintain a clean environment and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
And the Mission:
CRES engages Republican policymakers and the public about responsible, conservative solutions to address our nation’s energy, economic, and environmental security while increasing America’s competitive edge.
Perhaps you are starting to see why these guys might be more a part of the problem than a part of the solution.
The President of CRES is Heather Reams. On October 30 Reams published a piece at RealClearEnergy with the headline “Keep Conservative Climate Champions in Congress 2024.” The gist of the piece is to advocate for the “all of the above” energy policy, and to support Republican Congresspeople who adopt that messaging. Excerpt:
Electing members of Congress who champion an all-of-the-above energy approach to reducing emission should be a no-brainer. That’s why CRES endorseda slate of 40 House and Senate Republican candidates ahead of the November election. These proven leaders have consistently shown a commitment to addressing climate change through American innovation, clean energy advancement and thoughtful policy discussions.
So what, in Reams’s conception, does “all of the above” encompass? In this piece, she first mentions some members who have advocated for “nuclear, geothermal, and hydropower.” So far so good. But it quickly goes downhill from there. Next up is advocacy for “green energy tax credits.”
And over at the CRES website, it goes from bad to worse:
- “CRES Applauds Funding Awards for Carbon Capture”
- “CRES supports efforts to reduce industrial emissions,” including by federal subsidies to “decarbonize chemicals,” “decarbonize steel,” “decarbonize food and beverage products,” “decarbonize paper and forest products,” and so on and on.
- “CRES endorsed the [package of four bills to support the adoption of hydrogen technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions] because hydrogen technologies are critical to U.S. efforts to lower global emissions, promote an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and leverage domestic manufacturing to create American jobs.”
- “CRES commends Congress for working together to pass record federal energy research and development funding.”
And those are just a sample. They completely buy into the idea that the source of the people’s wealth is the distribution of federal handouts and subsidies, and that with enough federal funding we can have an energy system consisting of whatever the powers in Washington want it to be.
It’s a little late for this election cycle, but I would highly suggest that it is time to ditch this nonsense. Renewables (and carbon capture, and hydrogen) either don’t work or are hugely too expensive or dangerous or all of those things. That’s the winning message.
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It should be self evident that ‘all of the above’ should NOT include stuff that doesn’t work. Stuff that doesn’t work includes renewables and carbon capture.
good for exposing CRES.
Right. And the other exposing of the CRES, and similar pretend organizations, is the total failure to analyze the cost of Mitigation versus Adaptation, you know, just in case the CAGW theory isn’t correct, and a lot of mitigation funds are sunk and lost.
Mitigation, like Ecosystem Based Management, both sounded reasonable if you understood the mechanisms well enough which has turned out that we don’t. This necessity has been known for decades back when pollution was a serious problem in developed countries. Even when we do like the massively researched oysters which have proven too faulty in applications as successful fisheries operations for millennia have been replaced with more “environmentally suitable,” ironically called “sustainable,” functions and questionable economic solutions. One important example as some have pointed out is the necessity of the use of more difficult but lacking night research for too much management. Even oysters do different things at night. Part of this is recreational versus commercial businesses where obviously incomplete economic applications occur favoring the former, the depth of which is still beyond my comprehension. These factors help explain why solutions run into each other, not a new engineering problem.
Adaptation is the most practical method to deal with climate, our family executed our fight against climate, to move south to a warmer climate. That was 5-1/2 years ago, some results, much lower energy costs, with a side effect of lower taxes.
All-of-the-Above seems to me to be a pragmatic political formulation to combat powerful anti-fossil fuel activism and allow the development of next-gen nuclear.
It’s unrealistic to think that the electoral majority will accept the reality that there aren’t any technically feasible intermittent energy sources. At the same time, it is even more unrealistic to expect that the majority will dismiss the whole concept of catastrophic climate change (even though they should).
As the author recognizes, wind and solar are not cost-effective compared with fossil fuels. The same holds for Gen 3 nuclear. That statement holds if and only if we are correct that the true social cost of carbon is very low (which I certainly do believe, since it’s probably negative). Therefore we can’t prevail in the argument unless we can conclusively prove that CO2 emissions are harmless/beneficial/minimally-harmful, but there is no silver bullet to prove that point.
Given the political realities, it seems to me that compromise is necessary if we hope to change course away from the disastrous current policy. A potentially viable approach is to commit to funding research at a fairly high level but to stop all new subsidies and sunset all existing subsidies, explicitly to control consumer costs.
Let the market dictate which technologies are used for commercial energy production. Unless there would be dramatic technical breakthroughs from research, such an approach would gradually remove all of the intermittent generation that depends on subsidies.
It should be clear to everyone that next-gen nuclear would be technically feasible and to most of us that there are approaches that can lead to cost-effective next-gen nuclear.
Government spending on research grants would be a reasonable compromise to a purely market-driven approach. If government took action to reduce unnecessary regulation and to make the process more predictable, that alone might give the market approach a great deal of support. Government could also facilitate development of a skilled workforce needed to support the research programs.
It should be feasible to fund research into storage technologies rather than to subsidize deployment of ever more and larger wind turbines. Let the condition for commercial deployment simply be that it can compete financially with alternative sources. If all intermittent sources could be efficiently stored for long time periods, then perhaps existing technologies could be commercially viable. I don’t think so, but at least we would be open to the possibility.
In a sane world, we would abandon wind and solar except in niche applications and rely on fossil fuels while removing all unnecessary regulatory hurdles to next-gen nuclear. In our sanity-challenged world we need to find ways to address imaginary catastrophic risks in a less expensive way than current policy.
P.S.
A further thought about this…
The lying Left have gotten away with the absurd claim that wind is the cheapest form of energy. A formal evaluation process around the economics of all forms of energy could blunt their sophistry.
Some people will never accept that reality or will say that it doesn’t matter because of the costs of catastrophic climate change, but what we need to do is to consistently convince about 60% of the electorate. I don’t think that even 40% of the electorate would agree that it’s reasonable to pay double and triple for electricity on the justification that it avoids future catastrophic climate change. After all, who is willing to pay that knowing that China and India will negate any theoretical benefit?
An All-of-the-Above energy policy with a focus on research to solve the economic problems of ‘renewables’ would still be a waste of money, but in the same sense that advertising is a waste. By definition, if research is needed, then the ridiculous claims are proven false. If research is being funded and that establishes the fact that current technology doesn’t cut it, it should be easier to make the case that we should continue working out the problems before deploying any more failed projects.
Some may object to the idea that we tacitly acknowledge the ‘risk of catastrophic climate change’. I am fairly well convinced that there is a near-zero risk of net harm from a warmer climate, so I get that. But let’s be honest. None of us is 100% certain. We can in good conscience say that we personally think that there’s a very low risk or no risk at all, while still agreeing in a democratic society to humor our fellow citizens in trying to find a cost-effective solution to the problem that they perceive.
There is no simple answer to any of these big complex political issues. One thing is clear to me. Our side has failed miserably to come up with a politically viable strategy.
You used the word “sophistry.” Thank you.
I can’t think of an economical/ecological application for windmills.
My gun club uses small solar panels to keep lead acid batteries charged for sporting clay thrower power. This niche application works due to the requirement to have power out in a natural environment that gets moved for providing different shooting profiles.
Wind and solar are not suitable for large scale power generation with solar only good for niche applications.
Carbon capture efforts for a few hundred coal power plants that are located within the cocoon borders of America remain oblivious to the non-existent carbon capture efforts for the other 2,400+ coal plants outside the borders of the USA that represent more than 90% of the world’s coal plants.
The EPA carbon capture rule only applies to less than 10% of the coal plants that are in America.
The only certain outcome from this carbon capture madness is more expensive electricity and a waste of energy resources to do all the separation, compressing and pumping.
Carbon capture. Another conflated definition.
Most coal plants today do carbon capture. The scrubbers capture the particulate carbon and prevent that form of polution.
CO2 is not carbon.
Carbon capure and hydrogen are ploys to divert funds from renewables and keep fossil fuels afloat. People won’t go back to zero renewables. So “all of the above” is the best thing ff can hope for. This infighting is quite amazing to watch.
As far as “renewables” clap really loud, or Tinkerbell will die!
Where are they viable? The Spanish Canaries was a fair test, and it failed.
Funnily enough, “zero renewables” is effectively what we have in the UK right now.
British Electricity Live @ur momisugly 22:00 GMT
https://www.mygridgb.co.uk/dashboard/
14.3% 4.7GW of Nuclear
5.3% 1.7GW of Wind*
0.0% 0.0GW of Solar
1.6% 0.5GW of Hydro
58.6% 18.8GW of Gas
8.1% 2.6GW of Biomass
11.9% 3.8GW of Imports
But it’s all OK, we are in safe hands;
Miniprick says UK electric will be mainly ‘low cost renewables’ by 2030 !!!
So mind the exhaust from flying pigs.
Update – 25 hrs later
British Electricity Live 23:00 GMT
17.6% 4.7GW of Nuclear
5.3% 1.4GW of Wind*
0.0% 0.0GW of Solar
0.5% 0.1GW of Hydro
0.0% 0.0GW of Storage
61.6% 16.4GW of Gas
9.3% 2.5GW of Biomass
5.7% 1.5GW of Imports
And we have at least another 5 days of blocking high to give
moreless of the same.The guaranteed output for all wind and solar farms is ……. ZERO.
Nothing can change that fact.
Wind and solar energy extractors in combination with battery storage for a 100% WDG system is coal intensive . Such a system will use more coal than it saves over just burning the coal to fuel a steam plant.
Subsidies and mandates are ploys to divert funds from RELIABLE energy supplies to erratic unreliable wind and solar.
“Carbon capture” is one of the most stupid and moronic wastes of money every thought of by the anti-CO2 cult. It will make absolutely ZERO difference to atmospheric CO2
The atmosphere need MORE CO2 not less
Fossil fuels will continue to be by far the main electricity supply around the world until nuclear becomes the norm.
Yes bnice, but they are primarily grifts. None of the politicians really care about ‘the people’ when they spend someone else’s money, but they do hope to get a bit kicked back for their next election cycle. Isn’t that how all of the congress critters in the USA become millionaires on a $190K salary in 2 years? That and AIPAC?
Gotta love the spin. Extracting and “sequestering” atmospheric CO2 is not capturing carbon.
CO2 is not carbon.
Wind-up #94
Spoken like a true statist (or crony capitalist), notice how transfer payments are assumed to be just an established economic reality as if they have always been and always will be embedded in the energy market — revive the free open competitive energy market.
Ironically I agree with Lusername on the practical political reality. Because too many mind-numbed robots like he/sh/it are out there with a vote, we’re forced to acknowledge an irrational constraint on what can be achieved in the real world.
And yes, we do need a ‘ploy’ to prevent the forced shutdown of fossil fuels. (Not to keep them ‘afloat’ as if they had become cost-prohibitive, but to combat the irrational policies that Luser’s team has been foisting on us).
CRES is typical rent seekers. Texas has had problems with wind subsidies distorting the investments in generation, and supporting bad choices is silly.
Again, Culturist-Marxist move: infiltrate both sides (opposing parties, alternative coalitions, labor and management) then play them off against each other until there’s no real opposition left.
It is a difficult balance to strike to screen your allies with the same skepticism applied to your opponents, but not eliminate a potential comrade to help man your side of the barricade, should it come to that.
I wish all of the above actually meant no subsidies and no mandates. Along with sales taxes on gasoline that are no higher than sales taxes on any other product. Gasoline taxes are now higher than all other products except cigarettes in every state except Alaska.
gotta agree with you this time
Does the USA have a part of that petrol tax as “road tax” which is “meant” to got to the building and maintaining of major roads ?
Bingo – fuel taxes fund roads, not to mention a lot of other stuff that shouldn’t be funded.
Use to be that gas taxes were dedicated to those purposes. In modern times, it is just another line item in the budget to be used at the whims and vagaries of the legislatures.
Much like property taxes were originally used to fund the schools. Now?
And tolls were to payback the loans that funded the road. Now? They pay the toll collectors’ wages. When they go to electronic payments, that is just cash in the kitty.
I didn’t realize that US policy making would lower global CO2 emissions. We’ve already lowered our emissions in the US by 26% in 40 years. I think CRES forgot that China and India do not conform to US Policy, which makes their goal ridiculous on the face of it.
“These proven leaders have consistently shown a commitment to addressing climate change through American innovation”.
Eh, no.
These proven leaders have consistently wasted their time and effort trying to address a problem that does not exist, as there is no such thing as man-made climate change.
The liberal/progressive/democrat/socialist playbook from 1989 remains in force:
The late Stephen Schneide made the statement, “…we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of the doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Stephen Schneider made that statement in an interview with Discover Magazine in October 1989. Detroit News Editorial, 22 November, 1989
Totally unethical corruption and we’ve had 35 years of it. We are long past the time for the media to expose the farce that has degenerated into fraud .We know the corrupt DOJ won’t do it.
‘We are long past the time for the media to expose the farce that has degenerated into fraud.’
As a major support / component of the Left, the media has no interest in exposing the irrationality of any of the Left’s weapons. This would all change, of course, if the Left and it’s media enablers were to lose their popular / economic support.
It started in the 50s when a couple of socialist groups got together and determined they needed something to get the public afraid. Their choice? The environment.
Not as snappy as “all of the above” but better: “All energy sources that are economically competitive without subsidies and without excessive regulations.”
““a right-of center non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C”
Oh, so a RINO organisation. !
Very nice Francis, excellent work as usual. Sounds like the fox is in the hen house. Wind and solar do not work, storage does not work, there is no need to move to a fossil fuel free society because CO2 is not the control knob for our climate. Fossil fuel and nuclear clearly work, they are affordable, they are clean, they aren’t a threat to flora and fauna, they have a small foot print, they generate the power we need when we need it in the amounts we need, they are compatible with the grid and both have the capacity to become even better. Let’s get going building more fossil fuel and nuclear generators.
Grid scale, yes, and that is the real issue.
Niche applications, they do work, but the scale is microscopic compared to what they are pushing.
green energy
The Miliband deception or perhaps the Miliband delusion.
Stop building wind turbines and photovoltaic fleets – period.
In 15 years, all will be debris to be recycled into farms and ocean views again.
BUT, continue to build these fleets exponentially – and humanity will be bankrupted long before the fleets are completed. Then, only a few oligarchs will have (nuclear) power (plants).
The climate justification for wind-PV fleets is a delusion. In 50 years since the scenario was propagandized, NOTHING has happened to justify blowing up working fossil fuel energy plants to replace them with ones that do not and cannot replace them. Wind and PV cannot provide dispatchable, reliable, affordable, nor sufficient energy.
They do NOT add up.
Zero 2050 does serve the interests of bankers by governmental guarantees of loans at 12%, quickly repaid, for short-lived, inadequate systems that do not achieve NZ-2050 goals.
It is NOT too late to end wind-PV and start nuclear plant construction.
Howsabout we build lots of windmills and stick them where nobody minds?
The World’s Largest Wind Farm has a Tiny Problem
Well here in sunny Adelaide my new replacement 6.64kW nameplate north facing solar panels have just completed 2 years of output and from the inverter record and the anniversary that works out to 28.02 kWhrs/day average. Bearing in mind when the sun is shining daily output can vary from an absolute maximum of 44kWhrs to a measly 1.8 on a wet drizzly overcast July day I’ve seen.
So that 28.02 daily comes down to 1.17kW per hour over 24 hours or 17.5% of nameplate. In other words in an ideal Mediterranean climate you need to install 5.7 times the nameplate just to achieve that 6.64KW maximum. Even then that will hide a multitude of marginal sins without battery storage and its 2 way losses just as they and the solar panels are degrading to boot.
A panel of experienced engineers peer review Minister Bowen’s wet dreams with offshore turbines-
‘Very big concerns’: Civil engineer slams offshore wind plans
Wind and solar are either good ideas or not. The evidence to date is that they are a drain on resources, on land and environmental quality and a diversion from the things we should be doing to better society and the world we live in.
Their only public excuse for existence is the reduction in CO2 emissions – a mythical benefit given the vast mining, manufacturing, installation and maintenance they require – almost all based on fossil fuels. That issue is moot since all the evidence to date shows that mild warming and rising CO2 in the atmosphere has only done good and raised the amount of thriving life on planet Earth.
The more private benefit is the obscene amount of wealth they allow privileged elites to suck from the public coffers without the consent of the taxpayers. This is why “all of the above” is like saying we’re perfectly content to have mass murders run amuck in society so long as there are also lots of good contributing citizens as well.
Ironically, “all of the above” is what China is doing on energy.
But China is a very different situation than the US.
1) China has to import almost all forms of fossil fuels other than coal
2) China’s electricity demand growth is stupendous
In this context, plus China’s world dominant manufacturing, all of the above makes sense. The West’s subsidies reduce the cost of alternative energy manufacturing and research and development but coal and nuclear generation proceed apace.
In contrast the West – at least the US – has massive fossil fuel resources.
Electricity demand has been falling although AI is touted to change that (personally I’d take the opposite bet).
The West has some manufacturing but relatively little – subsidies for “home grown” alternative energy manufacturing has failed miserably for the most part.
But I have long since given up hope that the Western elites will develop any form of wisdom, foresight or even prudence.
And China has vast tracts of land that can’t be used for much other that wind and solar.