Progressives virtue signal their luxury beliefs via bad policy that increases their own wealth and cultural capital at the expense of everyone else? I'm shocked, simply shocked. It's almost like this is exactly what happens in every area of economic activity over which they gain power...
I kept waiting to read the slightest bit of evidence to back up your assertions. This article seems to comprehensively refute your assertions that high electricity prices are the result of renewables and subsidies.
I read the article you linked. It didn't substantiate its claims either. It likewise didn't offer much to address any of the same points raised here, particularly the cost of maintaining the current subsidies, the requirement of maintaining baseload capacity, the oversupply of solar power during the height of the day versus offering only a fraction of the power needed at night (AFAICT the offshore wind farms it recommends for renewable evening power do not currently exist). That was, frankly, an empty puff piece from green rent-seekers.
The claim that renewable energy mitigates climate change is a Big Lie. If California had used the vast renewable subsidies to research direct climate cooling technologies over the last two decades these terrible fires would not have happened. For example restoring the San Bernardino kelp forests would have stabilised local rainfall. Marine cloud brightening could have stabilised the jet stream. But the corrupt rent seeking lies of the renewable industry have prevented rational scientific climate analysis. ‘Gavin Maduro’ has a lot to answer for.
Quico, I too grew up in Venezuela and share your deep distrust of policies that distort the market and that engender the generational rent-seeking and corruption you mentioned and we both lived through. I hadn't felt the rage and frustration engendered by the ironic Hecho en Venezuela for several decades, thank you for that. But, I LOVE subsidies that allow a nascent snd strategic industry to establish itself, especially when that industry holds out the promise of weaning us off the poison -- petroleo -- that threatens our ability to literally sustain a civilization. California's high electricity costs are due to the very climate damage whose even worse effects we are seeking to avoid. See today's news re wildfires in LA.
Unfortunately solar power is not going to wean us off natural gas. It might modestly reduce how much gas we use, but at an extremely high cost (in grid reliability as well as in the price of electricity), but there is less than zero possibility that it will supplant natural gas for power generation. Solar and wind power are fundamentally unsuited to the task at hand (providing reliable power all of the time), and trying to patch them together in a Rube Goldberg grid with huge battery installations is resulting in enormous capital destruction, stratospheric electricity prices, and an increasingly unstable grid. The evidence is right in front of us in California. How much more obvious does it need to get?
Nuclear power, on the other hand, can supplant natural gas. The political class is oh-so-slowly beginning to figure this out — except for the clue-free virtue signalers in Sacramento, who remain on their path to incinerate absolutely as much taxpayer money as they possibly can.
Speaking of incinerating taxpayer money, have I mentioned the hundred-billion-dollar Train to Nowhere? Apologies to Fresno … it’s not nice to call it nowhere, but the reality is that no one is going to take the train there, or anywhere else on the line.
Progressives virtue signal their luxury beliefs via bad policy that increases their own wealth and cultural capital at the expense of everyone else? I'm shocked, simply shocked. It's almost like this is exactly what happens in every area of economic activity over which they gain power...
I kept waiting to read the slightest bit of evidence to back up your assertions. This article seems to comprehensively refute your assertions that high electricity prices are the result of renewables and subsidies.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/high-electricity-prices-in-california-have-nothing-to-do-with-renewables/
I read the article you linked. It didn't substantiate its claims either. It likewise didn't offer much to address any of the same points raised here, particularly the cost of maintaining the current subsidies, the requirement of maintaining baseload capacity, the oversupply of solar power during the height of the day versus offering only a fraction of the power needed at night (AFAICT the offshore wind farms it recommends for renewable evening power do not currently exist). That was, frankly, an empty puff piece from green rent-seekers.
Outstanding post.
The claim that renewable energy mitigates climate change is a Big Lie. If California had used the vast renewable subsidies to research direct climate cooling technologies over the last two decades these terrible fires would not have happened. For example restoring the San Bernardino kelp forests would have stabilised local rainfall. Marine cloud brightening could have stabilised the jet stream. But the corrupt rent seeking lies of the renewable industry have prevented rational scientific climate analysis. ‘Gavin Maduro’ has a lot to answer for.
Quico, I too grew up in Venezuela and share your deep distrust of policies that distort the market and that engender the generational rent-seeking and corruption you mentioned and we both lived through. I hadn't felt the rage and frustration engendered by the ironic Hecho en Venezuela for several decades, thank you for that. But, I LOVE subsidies that allow a nascent snd strategic industry to establish itself, especially when that industry holds out the promise of weaning us off the poison -- petroleo -- that threatens our ability to literally sustain a civilization. California's high electricity costs are due to the very climate damage whose even worse effects we are seeking to avoid. See today's news re wildfires in LA.
Unfortunately solar power is not going to wean us off natural gas. It might modestly reduce how much gas we use, but at an extremely high cost (in grid reliability as well as in the price of electricity), but there is less than zero possibility that it will supplant natural gas for power generation. Solar and wind power are fundamentally unsuited to the task at hand (providing reliable power all of the time), and trying to patch them together in a Rube Goldberg grid with huge battery installations is resulting in enormous capital destruction, stratospheric electricity prices, and an increasingly unstable grid. The evidence is right in front of us in California. How much more obvious does it need to get?
Nuclear power, on the other hand, can supplant natural gas. The political class is oh-so-slowly beginning to figure this out — except for the clue-free virtue signalers in Sacramento, who remain on their path to incinerate absolutely as much taxpayer money as they possibly can.
Speaking of incinerating taxpayer money, have I mentioned the hundred-billion-dollar Train to Nowhere? Apologies to Fresno … it’s not nice to call it nowhere, but the reality is that no one is going to take the train there, or anywhere else on the line.