The Renewable Energy Industry is Stealing Your Money

For the last few decades, the claim from the renewable energy industry was that renewables needed subsidies to catch up to traditional sources of energy such as coal, nuclear, natural gas, and oil. Now the headlines are telling us that wind and solar are cost competitive with traditional sources: 

Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies; 

Falling prices are making renewable more competitive with fossil fuel-driven electricity; 

Renewable Energy Is Now The Cheapest Option – Even Without Subsidies.

So if that is the case, why did Congress just extend subsidies for wind and solar generation in the COVID “relief” package?

On taxes, the deal would delay the phaseout schedule for the renewable and investment tax credits, with the PTC extended for one year and the ITC extended for two. The discrepancy between the two crucial incentives stems from the fact the PTC received a one-year extension under a 2019 tax deal that did not include the ITC. Additionally, the deal would make waste-heat-to-power technology eligible for the ITC. It would extend key efficiency breaks through 2021, while making permanent the 179D commercial building tax deduction for efficiency improvements. It would provide five years for offshore wind, and two additional years for the Section 45Q carbon capture incentive. While direct payments were widely sought for many incentives to account for frozen tax equity markets, they did not make the cut.

Well, according to one renewables advocate, it is because renewables are not quite as competitive as they seem. He doesn’t put it that way, of course. He says that while they can be as cheap as–or cheaper than–fossil fuels, renewables intermittency means they may receive less income in the competitive market:

“Where coal and gas generators can ramp up production easily to accommodate peaks in demand and pull back when there’s a dip, wind and solar energy cannot. There’s solar when the sun shines and wind power when there are strong winds. That often prevents renewable energy producers from benefiting from attractive prices that accompany peaks. Sometimes they even find themselves producing when there is an oversupply, selling power for cut-rate or even negative prices — essentially paying customers to take their energy.”

In other words, because renewables are unreliable and inefficient they can’t compete without subsidies. Despite claims to the contrary by the industry. And despite the fact that they have been receiving federal, state, and local subsidies for 30 years now. Not to mention the fact that renewables are a far more mature industry than fossil fuels, having been used for power for millennia before oil and natural gas came onto the market 20 years ago. 

What is really going on here is that there is a massive effort on the part of the industry and many people in government to use government to take money from one group of people and give it to others–others who are much more well to do than their beneficiaries. In the Bible, God calls such activity theft. Yet in today’s corrupt world it is called saving the planet.