Guest Post from Lew Rockwell at lewrockwell.com:

Brain-dead Biden and his gang of neocon controllers wish to “green” the economy. They use the phony “climate change” hoax, aka “global warming,” because the excuse to do that. Their plans will destroy America’s economy, which relies on fossil fuels. They talk lots about helping the poor and arouse people to hate the wealthy. But destroying our country’s economy won’t help the poor.

Brain-dead Biden’s proposed Inflation Reduction Act ( IRA) is alleged to give us low cost “green” energy. But it’ll in truth impose limitless costs. As fossil-fuel expert Alex Epstein points out, “We were told that the IRA would give us low cost ‘green’ energy for ‘only’ $400 billion in subsidies.

In point of fact, the IRA has a limitless price tag as a result of its 1) limitless variety of years, 2) limitless dollars per 12 months, 3) limitless harm to our grid.

• The promise that for just $400 billion the IRA would give us low cost ‘green’ energy never made sense.

If the ‘green’ sources the IRA was subsidizing were actually on the verge of being low cost, they wouldn’t have to be subsidized.

• If the IRA was attempting to make low-carbon energy low cost—which is the one solution to lower global CO2 emissions long-term—it would have focused on liberating low-carbon energy production from the anti-development ‘green’ regulationsthat hold back nuclear, geothermal, and natural gas.
• The true goal of the IRA was to pretend to do something about global CO2 in order to wildly enrich ‘green’ corporationswhich might be unable/unwilling to compete on an actual market—above all solar/wind corporations, who successfully lobby to be paid a (subsidized) premium for unreliable power!
• On condition that the IRA’s promise of $400 billion in subsidies resulting in lower costs was a lie, it needs to be no surprise that the $400 billion number is a complete lie.

The IRA’s cost is limitless:

1. It lasts a limitless variety of years
2. It costs limitless dollars per 12 months
3. It does limitless harm to our grid.

• The IRA lasts a limitless variety of years

While we were led to consider the IRA’s ‘green” subsidies, mostly for solar and wind, would last 10 years, they really proceed indefinitely until America reaches an emission level even the Biden Admin says we won’t reach by 2050!

• The IRA specifically states that its stream of lavish subsidies for green energy projects will last at the very least until 2032, but it’ll only end if the CO2 emissions of the electricity sector are below 25% of their 2022 levels.That may be very prone to be far, excess of 10 years.
• Recent projections by the Biden Admin’sEnergy Information Administration (EIA) indicate that the CO2 emissions of the electrical sector is not going to go all the way down to 25% of current emission levels before 2050! Which means the IRA subsidies will last greater than 26 years!

• Any calculation of the IRA’s cost must be based on a sensible projection of when electricity CO2 emissions will go below 25% of their current levels. And given the Biden Admin’s biases their after-2050 estimate needs to be suspected to be overly optimistic.
• 2. The IRA costs limitless dollars per 12 months.

While IRA advocates and the CBO have calculated government expenditures on the order of $400 billion for the IRA’s energy and climate policies over the following 10 years, that could easily be an underestimate by an element or 3 or more.

• When the general public hears a number like $400 billion in subsidies, few know that this will not be a set number. It’s an estimate based on what number of corporations decide to benefit from the subsidies.
• As Al Gore celebrated on the recent World Economic Forum, corporations are scarfing IRA subsidies. Gore said he was ‘very encouraged’ by the prospect of ‘actually open-ended’ subsidies. Gore being ‘very encouraged’ about subsidies means we needs to be ‘very discouraged’ about cost.
• While the CBO and partisan evaluation projected that the IRA’s green energy and climate provisions would cost lower than $400 billion over a decade, evaluation by Goldman Sachs indicates that the uncapped subsidies could balloon 3 times to $1.2 trillion.
• As reported by the Wall Street Journal, by ‘Goldman’s estimate, the IRA tax credits will cost tens to a whole lot of billions greater than CBO estimated over 10 years.’ This includes almost $400 billion of additional EV subsidies alone and over $80 billion more for solar and wind electricity generation
• As well as, investors in solar and wind are incentivized by the IRA to make use of particularly costly solar panels and wind turbines manufactured within the hostile environment of US regulations, which suggests higher subsidies for each project.
• 3. The IRA does limitless harm to our grid.

Not only will the IRA’s subsidies last far longer than the last decade we were pitched, and never only will those subsidies likely be far higher per 12 months than we were pitched, but—worst of all—the IRA has a limitless ability to harm our grid.

• We’re in a growing electricity crisis attributable to shutting down reliable power plants and never replacing them with reliable power plants.

The IRA’s response to this crisis is to double down on one in every of its fundamental causes: subsidies for unreliable solar and wind.
Alex Epstein – Electricity Emergency

• Why is America shutting down too many reliable power plants?

Two of the chief villains are the subsidies generally known as the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Production Tax Credit (PTC). These subsidies had expired. However the Inflation Reduction Act restored and prolonged them.⁷

• The ‘ITC’ and ‘PTC’ solar and wind subsidies pay utilities to shut down or decelerate reliable gas and coal plants at any time when the sun shines or the wind blows. This defunds reliable plants, causing many to be shut down.

The IRA extends these ruinous subsidies indefinitely.

• The IRA pretended to be pro-nuclear by adding nuclear to its subsidized types of energy. But since nuclear overregulation makes latest plants cost-prohibitive, the Inflation Reduction Act’s countless ‘clean energy’ subsidies = countless solar and wind subsidies.
• By expanding and lengthening subsidies to unreliable solar and wind, the IRA provides even greater incentives to retire reliable capability in favor of unreliable green energy. This implies more reckless endangerment of our grid’s reliability.”
• Not only will greening the economy impose limitless costs. It should destroy our economy, which relies on fossil fuels. Here again Epstein is a great guide. “Why do I consider the world needs to extend fossil fuel usewhen so many tell us to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use?

Since it follows from 3 irrefutable principles for desirous about fossil fuels that I, as a philosopher and energy expert, follow—and most “experts” don’t.

• My 3 irrefutable principles for desirous about fossil fuels, which no opponent has ever challenged:

1 Consider fossil fuels’ advantages
2 Consider fossil fuels’ “climate mastery advantages”
3 Consider fossil fuels’ negative and positive climate side-effects with precision

• Irrefutable principle 1: Consider fossil fuels’ advantages

After we’re evaluating what to do about any technology we must consider not only its negative side-effects but in addition its advantages.

E.g., oil-powered equipment and natural gas fertilizer are crucial to feeding 8 billion people.

• Although we obviously must consider fossil fuels’ advantages, not only their negative side-effects, most designated experts totally fail to do that.

E.g., “expert” Michael Mann 100% ignores fossil fuels’ unique agricultural advantages in his book on fossil fuels and climate.

• Irrefutable principle 2: Consider fossil fuels’ “climate mastery advantages”

One huge profit we get from fossil fuels is the power to master climate danger—e.g., fossil fueled cooling, heating, irrigation—which may potentially neutralize fossil fuels’ negative climate impacts.

• Although we obviously must consider fossil fuels’ climate mastery advantages, our designated experts totally fail to do that.

E.g., the UN IPCC’s multi-thousand page reports totally omit fossil fueled climate mastery! That’s like a polio report omitting the polio vaccine.

• Irrefutable principle 3: Consider fossil fuels’ negative and positive climate side-effects with precision

With rising CO2 we must consider each negatives (more heatwaves) and positives (fewer cold deaths). And we must be precise, not equating some impact with huge impact.

• Although we obviously must consider each negative and positive impacts of rising CO2 with precision, most designated experts ignore big positives(e.g., global greening) while catastrophizing negatives (e.g., Gore portrays 20 ft sea level rise as imminent when extreme UN projections are 3ft/100yrs).
• In the event you follow my 3 irrefutable principles for desirous about fossil fuels—factoring in fossil fuels’ 1) advantages, 2) climate mastery advantages, and three) precise negative and positive climate side-effects—the facts show that we want a Fossil Future.

Consider 10 undeniable facts

• 5 undeniable facts about fossil fuels’ advantages

1 Human flourishing requires cost-effective energy
2 Much more energy is required
3 Fossil fuels are uniquely cost-effective
4 Unreliable solar and wind are failing to exchange fossil fuels
5 Fossil fuels give us an incredible climate mastery ability

• Undeniable energy fact 1: Cost-effective energy is crucial to human flourishing

Cost-effective energy—inexpensive, reliable, versatile, scalable energy—is crucial to human flourishing since it gives us the power to make use of machines to develop into productive and prosperous.

• Because of today’s unprecedented availability of cost-effective energy (mostly fossil fuel) the world has never been a greater place for human life. Life expectancy and income have been skyrocketing, with extreme poverty (<$2/day) plummeting from 42% in 1980 to <10% today
• Undeniable energy fact 2: The world needs way more energy
• Billions of individuals lack the cost-effective energy they should flourish. 3 billion use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator. 1/3 of the world uses wood/dung for heating/cooking. Rather more energy is required

• The desperate lack of life-giving, cost-effective energy implies that any alternative for fossil fuels must not only provide energy to the 2B who use significant amounts of energy today but to the 6B who use far less. Restricting fossil fuels without incredible alternatives is mass-murder.
• Undeniable energy fact 3: Fossil fuels are uniquely cost-effective

Despite 100+ years of aggressive competition, fossil fuels provide 80%+ of the world’s energy and so they are still growing fast—especially within the countries most concerned with cost-effective energy. E.g., China.

• Fossil fuels are uniquely in a position to provide energy that’s low-cost, reliable, and versatile on a scale of billions of individuals. That is as a result of fossil fuels’ combo of remarkable attributes—fossil fuels are naturally stored, concentrated, and abundant energy—and generations of innovation by industry.
• There may be currently just one energy tech that may match (actually exceed) fossil fuels’ combo of naturally stored, concentrated, abundant energy: nuclear. Nuclear may at some point outcompete all uses of fossil fuels, but it will take radical policy reform and generations of innovation + work.
• Recent price spikes in fossil fuels don’t reflect some latest lack of cost-effectiveness on the a part of fossil fuels, but fairly the devastating effects of ‘green energy’ efforts to artificially restrict the provision of fossil fuels on the false promise that unreliable solar/wind can replace them.”

Paul Diessen sums up what is going to occur under the Biden gang’s plans. “Let me say it again: Wind and sunshine are free, clean, green, renewable and sustainable. But harnessing this diffuse, unreliable, weather-dependent energy to power civilization definitely will not be. And each little bit of ‘renewable’ power have to be backed up with other power – so double our money and material investments.

The Green Lobby and its legislator and regulator friends really appear to think they will just pass laws and earmark subsidies, demanding energy transformations by 2050 – and it’ll just occur. The raw materials will just be there, perhaps with a bit of MAGIC: Materials Acquisition for Global Industrial Change. That’s, they simply assume the crucial raw materials may even just be there.

Not one in every of these luminaries has given a moment’s thought to – much less attempted to calculate – what this net-zero transition would require:

What number of tens of millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of EV and backup batteries, tens of millions of transformers, 1000’s of miles of transmission lines – sprawling across what number of tens of millions of acres of wildlife habitat, scenic and agricultural lands, and other people’s once-placid backyards?

What number of billions of tons of copper, steel, aluminum, nickel, cobalt, lithium, concrete, rare earths, composite plastics and other materials? What number of trillions of tons of ores and overburden? What number of mines, across what number of more acres – with how much fossil fuel energy to operate the large mining equipment, and the way much toxic air and water pollution emitted in the method?  Where will or not it’s done?

To cite only one example, just those 2,500 wind turbines for Latest York electricity (30,000 megawatts) would require nearly 110,000 tons of copper – which might require mining, crushing, processing and refining 25 million tons of copper ore … after removing some 40 million tons of overlying rock to succeed in the ore bodies. Multiply that times 50 states – and your entire world – plus transmission lines.

What number of processing plants and factories could be needed? How much fossil fuel power to run those massive operations? What number of 1000’s of square miles of toxic waste pits throughout world under zero to minimal environmental standards, workplace safety standards, child and slave labor rules?

What number of dead birds, bats, and endangered and other species could be killed off all across the USA and world – from mineral extraction activities, wind turbine blades, solar panels blanketing 1000’s of square miles of wildlife habitats, and transmission lines impacting still more land?

What number of will survive hurricanes like Ian or Andrew? Where will we dump the green energy trash?

Not only do the luminaries and activists ignore these issues and refuse to deal with them. They actively suppress, cancel, censor and deplatform any questions and discussions about them. They collude with Big Tech corporations and news agencies, which too often seem all too glad to help.

The hard reality is, there aren’t, is not going to be, and can’t be, enough mines, metals and minerals on your entire planet – to succeed in any ‘net-zero’ US economy by 2050, much less a worldwide “green” economy.

Here’s one other issue: electric vehicle and backup lithium-ion battery modules can erupt spontaneously into chemical-fueled infernos that can not be extinguished by conventional fire-fighting means. That raises a very important analog to rules Alec Baldwin must have kept uppermost in mind a 12 months ago. Treat every firearm as whether it is loaded. Never point your muzzle at anything you aren’t prepared to destroy.

Within the Biden-Newsom-Kerry-IPCC energy arena: Treat every electric vehicle and backup battery system as whether it is loaded and able to ignite. Never park an EV, install a PowerWall or locate a backup power facility near anything you aren’t prepared to destroy.

That features in your garage; near other vehicles; in parking garages under apartment and office buildings; in residential neighborhoods and highway tunnels; or on cargo ships just like the Felicity Ace.

And yet we’re alleged to go together with Green Energy schemes – as we did with masks, school lockdowns and vaccinations to stop Covid – because our government, media and ‘public interest’ groups insist that we ‘follow the science,’ on which there may be little question (actually none permitted) that we face a ‘manmade climate crisis’ that threatens the very existence of humanity and ‘the one Earth now we have.’

Because now we have to destroy the planet (with green energy) to be able to put it aside (from climate change).

It’s time to short-circuit this electricity nightmare, by asking these questions, demanding answers, and ending the notion that governments can simply issue edicts and compel reality to alter in response.”

Guest Post from Lew Rockwell at lewrockwell.com.