Bloomberg warns that “Gas breaches $6 a gallon in California.” Which they assume is bad. But of course it is what the people in charge have long wanted; their various energy policies including driving refineries out of the state were all intended to price fossil fuels out of the reach of normal people so they’d choose wind, solar, geothermal and what have you instead. Or what don’t have you, as it turned out. But it’s worth reminding ourselves that just because this result was intentional it was not therefore necessarily either a plot or one whose implications the people who caused it thought it would bring. On the former point, it was a plan not a plot, openly declared and openly pursued. And on the latter, once again, it turns out that fools massively outnumber rogues (though the two are not of course mutually exclusive) including in high policy positions. The number of people who have run afoul of the law of unintended consequences is amazingly large. And growing fast.
As the San Bernardino Sun reports:
“A $700 million proposed solar power plant in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County that has faced challenges from environmentalists for nearly 20 years has finally gained clearance from the state for development. On Monday, the California Energy Commission voted 4-0, with one commissioner absent, to approve the 2,670-acre Soda Mountain Solar Project, finding that its benefits outweigh potential environmental and wildlife impacts as California works to cut greenhouse gas emissions and supply all retail electricity from zero-carbon sources by 2045.”
That environmentalists oppose the thing is not trivial, as it underlines that “green” energy has a huge and unpleasant footprint. And in fact this project still needs federal approval which is not a given. But for now note especially the absolute determination to get rid of hydrocarbon energy:
“‘We’re taking action to achieve that 100% clean energy future, to keep the lights on statewide in a clean way, and to improve the health outcomes for those in disadvantaged communities and all Californians,’ Commissioner Noemi Otilia Osuna Gallardo said during Monday’s business meeting in Sacramento. Gallardo said fossil fuels have ‘polluted our environment for far too long, adversely affecting our planet, wildlife and people,’ and noted that 40% of California’s 64 fossil fuel power plants are located in disadvantaged communities.”
Terrible, terrible, that women, minorities and the poor should have energy. But easily fixed. And it is surely obvious, speaking of costs, that this project is not a matter of private interests dropping $700 million from the sky to create jobs while extracting sunbeams from cucumbers or highly toxic rare earths. It is of course subsidized, thus raising the price of energy while hiding it. What could go wrong?
Well, and speaking of fools, one consequence of the surge in prices for gasoline, diesel etc. due to the Iran War as well as misguided policy, and therefore of prices for various other kinds of energy as people scramble to cover the shortfall, is that inflation is rising including in Australia. Inflation being, after all, a statistical measure of the overall price level and reliable affordable energy being (all together now, especially including people who thought getting rid of hydrocarbons would make us richer) utterly crucial to the production and, via transportation, the consumption of everything worth having from food to art supplies, if the price of the fuels we depend on goes up so will the price of everything. [See for instance our “Worth Repeating” from last week’s newsletter.] And again, the Green Energy Transition zealots never saw it coming. They really didn’t. They do not understand economics any better than they do climate.
Dan McTeague of Canadians for Affordable Energy recently observed with justified irritation that Canadian governments have a vested interest in higher energy prices:
“Every time gas prices go up, Ottawa quietly pockets more of your money. You already pay fixed taxes on every litre. But governments also charge GST and HST on the higher price – so the more you pay at the pump, the more tax they collect! Then add the Clean Fuel Standard, which builds even more cost into every litre. YOU pay more. THEY collect more. While families struggle – paying extra to get to work, buy groceries, and drive the kids to hockey – governments rake in extra revenue without lifting a finger. Higher gas prices don’t just hurt your wallet. They make EVERYTHING more expensive. But in Ottawa, pain at the pumps means bigger tax hauls. Politicians benefit when you struggle.”
Which is true up to a point. But when the economy suffers tax revenues go down. So governments that think all’s well with the world when your pain is their gain are not therefore exempted from the ranks of fools with no conception of what their policies are actually doing even when they are warned in advance and reproached in retrospect.
