The billions living in developing countries ARE NOT benefiting from Government subsidies.
Guest essay co-authored by Ronald Stein, Oliver Hemmers, and Steve Curtis
When governments go into business, citizens start to suffer. When governments support laws that promote a level of economic playing field for all in a free enterprise system, citizens prosper. A good example of this is the United States. Under the free enterprise system, this small coalition of little more than 13 disparate colonies grew to become the most imposing industrial power in the world in just over 100 years.
Under the current system, in which government spending picks winners and losers in the business world and hires massive numbers of people, we have amassed an unsupportable debt of more than $100,000 per person. This is beyond the personal debt that is burdening our citizens today. Yet, we still have advocates who want to transfer personal debt to national debt and further burden our posterity. This cannot end well.
The poorest Americans are richer than most of humanity. Of the eight billion people now on this planet, more than five billion live on less than $10.00 a day, almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day, and billions have little to no access to electricity. This is the benefit of dictatorships and oligarchies disguised as democratic republics controlling these disadvantaged people.
The most important commodities we have today are the products and fuels made from fossil fuels that did not exist 200 years ago. Oil produces raw materials for more than 6,000 products manufactured by different industries, which are demanded by the 8 billion people on this planet. Without oil, all of our products would cost much more.
The fossil fuel industry also provides transportation fuels. Today, we have more than 50,000 merchant ships, more than 20,000 commercial aircraft, and more than 50,000 military aircraft that use fuel manufactured from crude oil. The fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of jets moving people and products, the merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military and space programs are also dependent on what can be manufactured from crude oil. Those fuels also support the 1.4 billion cars in the world and the 14 million trucks registered in the world.
The second most important commodity we have today is electricity. It is the perfect commodity to control on a national level to enhance the boot of oppression on its citizens. Subsidies for continuous, uninterruptible, and dispatchable power from coal, natural gas, and nuclear are JUST for electricity, the same electricity that CANNOT exist without the products and components made from the oil derivatives manufactured from fossil fuels. Subsidies help control the production of electricity in a manner that keeps it scarce and expensive.
Most electricity is produced with coal and natural gas. Natural gas is replacing coal, but beyond that, the mix has not changed much despite the massive subsidies poured into the coffers of those willing to incorporate inefficient and expensive production of electricity in favor of inexpensive and plentiful sources. This is reflected in the fact that coal and natural gas are producing 95% or more of the proportion of electricity they were even a decade ago. Renewable energy subsidies have driven costs for electricity to double or triple their retail costs in some countries compared to a decade ago, even though quality of air has suffered in that same time frame.
Yet many advocate ridding the world of coal, natural gas, and oil no matter how much it costs people. Maybe we ought to rethink this radical and expensive transition. Remember, you, the citizens, pay for all government expenses, including the costs of electricity production infrastructure, whether it is in taxes or direct utility bills.
We all know that special interests financially support the Government decision-makers, and thus, Government policies financially support special interests with subsidies. The Press paints these subsidies as “free money,” and we seem to ignore that this money really comes from the poor people and their children. If rich people paid the taxes, they would not remain rich, so it must come from somewhere.
Since subsidies come from all of us, maybe we should be careful how we use them. It turns out that most of the subsidies go to foreign businesses, many of which support the exploitation of slave labor to mine for the “green” minerals and metals to produce windmills, solar panels, and EV batteries, as well as the infliction of environmental degradation to “their” landscapes to reinforce mandated EV’s, wind turbines, and solar panels in “our backyards”!
We also pay foreign companies to install them. This reality reveals the imperialistic nature of US politics, which exploits the world’s poor people to fuel our desire for luxury. This is patently immoral.
The “renewables” industries would disappear without US government subsidies.
Ironically, allowing free enterprise competition to supply your electricity would result in far lower costs to the consumer, as it does for all products. In fact, nuclear power is the cheapest and least imposing way to produce electricity when all subsidies are eliminated. This was proven in the 1960s and 1970s throughout the world. Today, China leads the world in the production of new nuclear power plants. Are they seeing something the rest of the world is not?
How do countries justify personal power and control of their citizens through a subsidy process that takes money from their people to produce an inferior product and increase their daily expenses?
Since the US took the lead in all technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution, which started in the mid-to-late 1800s, it makes sense that we lead the rest of the world into the production of cheap, clean energy using nuclear power. One way to do that would be to petition individual state Governors to show the Federal government how it is done. Compete the production and delivery of electricity like our citizens demanded of the long-distance phone call business. After all, how better would your life be with competitive one cent per kWh electricity over the possibility of one dollar per kWh electricity that data centers would bid for electricity if production stayed the same while their demands soared?
When people know the possibilities, the transition to nuclear power will happen quickly. The transition should happen without the elimination of cheap production of electricity through natural gas and coal until the market drives the transition to nuclear power. Imagine the massive increase in quality of life worldwide with easily affordable electricity delivered to every household.
If the US does not take the lead with a “New Nuclear Posture for a Hungry World” that is fully supported by Oliver Stone’s 105-minute movie NUCLEAR NOW, our adversaries will.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations”, policy advisor on energy literacy for The Heartland Institute, and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and National TV Commentator- Energy & Infrastructure with Rick Amato.
Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, energy consultant, speaker, author of books and articles on energy, environmental policy, and human rights, and Founder of PTS Advance, a California based company.
Ron advocates that energy literacy starts with the knowledge that renewable energy is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine, as wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture anything for the 8 billion on this planet.
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I disagree. Without oil, many of our existing products, including those our lives tend to depend on, would be next to impossible to manufacture. Agriculture would be curtailed so much that famine would be inevitable.
Most of us would die.
I agree. The article also seems to accept the stupid premise of the anti-plant food crowd. Again, a solution that doesn’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Eventually we will have to work out how to replace petroleum and coal as the reserves get more expensive to access. And nuclear is a good way to stretch out the time horizon. But I don’t see nuclear trains planes and automobiles anytime soon. There are no nuclear fertilizers.
Unless Musk figures out a way to revive the Orion project and haul fossil fuel asteroids back from the asteroid belt? There is quite a bit of methane out there….
As David Attenborough would say….
Result!
“The billions living in developing countries ARE NOT benefiting from Government subsidies.”
The top echelon, the dictators, government operatives and self-proclaimed bureaucrats are doing rather well though. !!
‘When governments go into business, citizens start to suffer. When governments support laws that promote a level of economic playing field for all in a free enterprise system, citizens prosper. A good example of this is the United States. Under the free enterprise system, this small coalition of little more than 13 disparate colonies grew to become the most imposing industrial power in the world in just over 100 years.’
What a load of absolute rubbish. The sole reason the US became the primary superpower in the 20th century was that World Wars I and II were not fought on US soil, they were fought in Europe mainly and caused the financial armageddon of Germany, France and the UK pretty much, three of the USA’s major competitors at the time.
The US spends its entire time trying to create wars all over the globe, so long as they are a long way away from the Lower Forty Eight. Firstly to make loads of money from human misery and secondly because it stops many, many competitors competing on a level playing field. It wants war with China near China because it knows it won’t be able to compete in future. Why not have that war on the coast of California, Oregon and Washington State, eh?
Let’s be clear, the US terrorism of Nordstream II was precisely to destroy free competition on a level playing field by denying energy-intensive industry in Europe from continuing to enjoy cost-effective gas supplies from Russia. Charging 500% more for LNG was intrinsic to looting German heavy industry and forcing it to relocate to the USA.
This was an act of anti-competitive behaviour typical of all US governments since 1948. Tariffs, closed shop cartels, intellectual property theft, global hacking of private computers to steal intellectual capital etc etc.
The world does not need lectures from the USA on free competition until it actually starts to practice it itself.
Someone’s been drinking the anti-US koolade.
“”The US spends its entire time trying to create wars all over the globe””
And yet the US had one president who did not try to create wars – between 2016 and 2020
But the US interest remains paramount. I wish our idiotic loons in charge could get that.
This is baseless speculation and contradicts the known facts.
Who needs enemies?
Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor would reportedly write in his diary, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Interesting point of view.
The war never touched all of South and Central America. It didn’t touch Canada either.
India and Australia had no fighting on their territories as well.
Same for all of the Middle East and much of Africa. As for Africa, most of the fighting that did occur on that continent did not occur in parts that were heavily populated, much less industrialized.
Argentina and Cuba had economies that were almost the equal of the US and Canada prior to WWII. They remained the envy of Latin America, until the socialists took over.
As to Nordstream there is just as much evidence that Putin blew it up as there is that Washington did. The US had nothing to gain from blowing it up as it wasn’t in use and there was little to no evidence that it would ever be used. On the other hand Putin has gained billions in propaganda value from the various anti-US fanatics who automatically assumed that the evil US must have been responsible. If Putin ever does decide to fix it. The damage is limited to a small hole that can be fixed in a few weeks.
As for the rest of your paranoid delusions, might I suggest you seek out a competent psychotherapist.
Putin or Biden blew it up ? It has pretty much been ascertained that Ukrainian operatives blew it up. And Ukraine had the most to gain. Occam’s razor and all…
https://www.politico.eu/article/nord-stream-pipeline-energy-supply-attack-ukraine-russia-war-putin-zelensky-gas/
Bosh and codswallop.
“”The billions living in developing countries ARE NOT benefiting from Government subsidies.””
Neither are the millions in the advanced developing nations benefitting and they are footing the bill – development isn’t some single event, it goes ever on.
Come January, the notional schism between the US and the ‘rest of the west’ etc will become tangible as Trump’s pen strokes usher in what American people voted for.
We have a petition – it’s all we have between us and 2029. It hasn’t stopped. It keeps going up… 2,608,220 and up… 2,608,411 and up… 2,608,778
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
I’d say that’s around 5% to 10% of the electorate.
And 10 to 20% of those who show up to vote,,,.
Hobble to save the planet apparently-
Carbon footprint of a total knee replacement in Australia on par with driving a car from Brisbane to Sydney
These CO2 freaks are really far gone obsessive compulsives
Presumably all the hospital staff cycle to work, are vegetarian or vegan and wear hairshirt scrubs.
It’s unbelievable that doctors or hospital administration would even consider some of these ideas! Especially about running the hospital (and ORs) with all renewable energy. What patient would want to be in surgery when the wind stops blowing or the sky clouds up? Granted, the hospital would have backup generators (diesel or gas fired), but in the scheme of things they would end up emitting far more CO2 as the generators would be kicking on and off on a fairly regular basis, instead of just when there is a power outage caused by a storm. In fact, I was thinking about this exact scenario today when I was walking past a nursing home where the diesel generator was being serviced.
What they are aiming for is something that one might see in an episode of MASH, where the electricity may stay on, or maybe not. Where surgeons and medics sometimes had to improvise and use equipment they had on hand, as a fresh supply may have been delayed. And where they were working under adverse and rather primitive conditions as opposed to what would have been available in a US hospital at the time. I can’t imagine too many Australians who would want to undergo surgery or inpatient medical procedures (or even outpatient ones) under such circumstances.
I like the idea of electric power being a 3-legged stool, with the 3 legs being coal, NG, and nuclear. That gives the grid the most stability. Somehow, we need to make coal and nuclear great again.
Isn’t a three legged stool also used for… milking?
Yes, because they too are more stable. By coincidence, our government is supported by the 3-legged “stool” of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
So renewables sit on the three legged stool and milk it.
Humor – a difficult concept.
— Lt. Saavik
That’s… humour.
Renewables are more like the sour milk being dumped into the good milk, making it all bad.
The beatings will continue until moral improves.
The insanity will continue until a sufficient number of people die.
“Since the US took the lead in all technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution, …”
Sorry, I hit the wrong key. “all” is a stretch. People from many countries contributed to technological advancements.
Here is a list of Scottish folk:
https://www.livebreathescotland.com/scottish-inventions/
They also claim Alexander Graham Bell who was born and educated in Scotland and came to Canada and then to Boston.