As 2025 wraps up we take a big-picture view, also known as trying to sort out and archive a ton of material we didn’t get to in the year, including on the vexed question of whether the “green energy transition” is a massive success in the making or a costly bust. We all know what it was meant to be, and what we kept being told it was, or was about to become. But before breaking out the eggnog or avoiding same, it’s worth asking a question not always popular among global warmists. What does the evidence say?
The New York Times “Climate Forward” struggles valiantly to overlook the obvious with considerable success. David Gelles writes “The Trump administration has spent much of the year dismantling federal climate policy and attacking the clean power industry. As a result, the growth of renewable energy like wind and solar power has slowed across the United States.” No. It has slowed because without subsidies it’s not competitive, the opposite of what such people have been telling us for years if not decades.
A tendency to see everything as about politics not economics is, we realize, rather baked into certain kinds of worldviews, and hence they believe things like “when many clean power companies are under attack from the White House” when what’s really happening is that they’re not popular with consumers unless propped up by “the White House”. And so the piece cheers on a company that sidestepped the elimination of the consumer tax credit for installing solar panels by leasing them instead, and:
“the investment tax credit for solar leases that Sunrun relies on through 2030, and the credit for [battery] storage through 2033, giving the company a crucial boost.”
Yes. But from the taxpayer’s pocket not consumer choice. So basically subsidy farming.
Clutching at straws is becoming common in this regard. Canary Media enthuses about a geothermal project at Cornell University that “could curb emissions without straining the grid”. Yeah. Unless it doesn’t, since among many other problems “The Ivy League university is trying to accomplish something that’s never been done in an area with rocky geology like upstate New York’s.” Still, pie in the earth’s crust, right? “Cornell is using data from the site to develop a system that will replace the school’s fossil-gas-based heating network, potentially by 2035.” Nice sneer at “fossil gas” but uh “potentially by 2035” isn’t very convincing. But why should it be when yes, of course, it began by drilling a big hole in the taxpayer’s pocket, with a $7.2 million grant from the Biden Department of energy. But you guessed, didn’t you?
Then there’s Heatmap Daily on Nov. 13 putting this brave face, or blank mind, on the situation:
“Rising electricity prices are intensifying pressure not just on household budgets, but also on the balance sheets of climate tech companies whose unit economics have relied — at least in part – on electricity continuing to get cheaper, greener, and more abundant. Now as costs climb, the economic feasibility of many decarbonization technologies is shifting, potentially delaying adoption and putting some already-expensive solutions further out of reach.”
On the other hand, the “Energy Bad Boys”, slayers of sacred cows when it comes to renewables, discussed a report from the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute and chortled that:
“based on the findings, you would be forgiven for thinking we had written it. PPI identified “a clear and undeniable pattern of failure” when assessing New York’s progress in meeting the mandates in its signature climate law, the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCA). According to the New York Post, Neel Brown, the author of the PPI study, said: ‘New York set bold climate targets, but ignored the economic and technical realities required to achieve them.’ We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves.”
It matters that it’s breaking through even to those who have up to now been advocates for renewables. Places like California or New York that went all-in not just on the policy, however poorly designed, but on the faith that wind and solar were just obviously better and getting more so every day, face soaring power costs and crumbling grids. Canary Media may lament that “New York pauses its landmark gas ban in new buildings” as if it were some random act of malice derailing a “landmark” functioning policy. And it’s true that part of the problem is a lawsuit. But after Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged to hold the course:
“just over one month later, Hochul signaled openness to pausing the law after a group of 19 Democratic state legislators raised concerns about its affordability and impact on the grid.”
Which Canary Media pooh-poohed, saying:
“Multiple studies have found that the grid has ample room for all-electric new buildings, and making them the default would benefit the planet and people’s pocketbooks.”
But they won’t be voted out if it turns out to be a bunch of inane puffery at odds with the situation on the ground.
At some point coulda woulda shoulda not only doesn’t keep the lights and heat on, it doesn’t keep people’s interest or confidence. And those with actual responsibilities get held to account.
