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The dirty secret of green energy is that it depends on subsidies. Whether it’s the credits extracted from other automakers that really fueled Tesla’s rise or the multiple tiers of subsidies for wind and solar, the only reason any of the green energy grift exists is through money extracted from consumers, taxpayers, and the economy in too many ways to even begin to count.
What happens when the subsidies are pulled? Go look at California, the home of solar, and one of the few places in the country where it’s even viable.
The state Public Utilities Commission in late 2022 slashed by about 75% the rate that utilities pay homeowners with new solar panels when they sell surplus power to the grid…
The state’s decision has caused consumer demand for residential solar to plummet since the new rate took effect. Solar companies say they’ve been shoved to the edge of a cliff, forcing them to lay off workers or even shut down.
Experts worry that the steep decline could stall the state’s battle against climate change. Solar power is critical to meeting California’s ambitious requirement to switch to 90% carbon-free electricity in 2035 and 100% in 2045. Large-scale and rooftop solar is projected to provide more than half of the grid’s power by 2045.
The imminent change in payments to customers drove a three-month surge in homeowners applying for solar connections leading up to the deadline. But then came a 90% decline last May compared to May of 2022, according to state data for areas served by Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
In all, about 82% fewer customers applied for solar connections from May through November of last year compared to a year earlier. Fewer than 4,000 customers applied in November, the last month with available data.
Deepak Rajagopal, an energy economist at UCLA’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability, said it’s no surprise that consumers balked at going solar after the reimbursement rate changed from what he called the “generous” system. He said the higher payments were a burden on people who don’t have solar.
“The state is betting so strongly on power from rooftop solar. They will have to recalibrate,” Rajagopal said.
There’s no recalibration.
Green energy depends on monstrous subsidies. But states, including California, have to tighten their belts and that means there isn’t as much free money floating as there was before.
Since ‘green energy’ is, ironically, unsustainable, it takes far more money to fund it than it can ever produce. Imagine the costs in subsidies to move the state to 90% green energy.
And since that’s going to be passed on to consumers, imagine the cost of cooling and heating a home? Imagine what it will cost to run hospitals and data centers?
Buying ‘carbon offsets’ becomes the only viable strategy. And that’s a massive scam that will entail doing business as usual while funding windmills no one wants or uses in Montana or Mumbai.
There’s no strategy here. Either we get off the green train or we all end up in the dark.
The only solar/wind project that makes economic sense is a clothesline, and only if the government stays out of it.
I told a friend at work that out new home came with a solar clothes dryer! He said he wanted to see it since he’d never heard of one! When he came by after work we walked out to the back yard and I showed him our old fashioned clothes line! Years later I got him with my Adirondack Red Bat! There was a maintenance part that came in a three ft long wooden box. I told him I needed it to put my bat in it! He wanted to know what kind of bat – my Adirondack Red Bat!! Told him it was 34″ long and was kind of dangerous so I needed the box. He had to see it so he came by – AGAIN – and I told him to open the box SLOWLY – he did – and there it was – my Adirondack Red SOFTBALL Bat! He enjoyed the laughs!!
There is no such thing as “green” energy.
Yeah, California is tightening its belt, in many small ways, if you watch what they are doing.
CA is strangling we residents with outrages taxes, rates, utilities, fees, tolls …. and for many people total cancellation of their insurances. The CAPUC is compliant … PG&E is compliant … to the eco-Frauds who cite CAGW as their moral mandate.
They aren’t “eating the rich” …. They’re eating the working poor.
‘Green’ energy has been a money-grabbing pipe dream from it’s inception. There are only a select few regions of the continental US where it’s viability are even possible, and that’s only after an enormous outlay. Sure, you’ll see the self-sufficient homes in New Mexico or Arizona, but we rarely see the $2.5 Million price tags. If I could afford that, I’d TRULY have ‘green’ energy.
True … but that’s only the currency-confetti side of the subsidies …
Meanwhile in Africa, we have child-slaves and cartels producing the raw input materials …
… in China they’re building coal-fired electric generation stations – power plants – to make this crap … including batteries, solar panels, and the rest of our stolen industrial base …
And more energy, resources, and slaves to manufacture these energy sucking, energy wasting, planet polluting, climate-scam Ponzi devices.
Like hydro-electric power (dams) … these devices have just enough value in a handful of cherry-picked cases … to fool people into thinking it “works” …
But it does not work.
Windmills produce about 1/2 the power required to create them. And that ignores actual wind energy recovery, operation, maintenance, and mechanical or structural failure due to using corrupt contractors or improper site location.
Solar panels can do much better … when manufactured according to 1960’s white supremacy standards of manufacture … and installed in a middle class ‘hood in the LA basin in California … and allowed to work 40+ years …
… otherwise all bets are off. They don’t work if they’re too hot, too cold, covered in snow, rusted, corroded, poorly maintained, or made by Chi-com slaves who are more worried about not being harvested for organs than attaining the Star Trek level of quality needed to make the damn things work …
G-d help us all.
Thanks Dan! I often think about the windmills and water mills and saw mills that were used in the middle ages.
Down here in South Africa, we got LOTS of solar – just not very much electricity. So, for the dark periods, we spent about a year’s pension income to put in solar and batteries. We may not be able to COOK when the power’s out (microwaving ain’t cooking) but at least we have light, TV (from DVDs – don’t try to talk about South African TV!) and Internet. BTW, Electricity isn’t all the ANC government has stuffed up – The railways are defunct, we have no Post Office any more, the roads are pothole collections, the sewage systems are broken, the water supply is at risk, and the police seem to be staffed by criminals. Defence? Nah! She is broke!
Fortunately for SA, the ANC is so incompetent that they couldn’t meet the international requirements that would let them replace coal power for (agh! ) ruinables.
If you look over your shoulder, you will see is the USA closing in fast
So correct Mr. Greenfield, carbon offsets are a scam. In simple terms, it’s a way for companies that spend money to reduce carbon to get credits that it can sell to offset the cost of the their cleanup facilities. Then other carbon producing companies pay these companies for their credits in order to avoid paying for cleanup technology and the cost of equipment and construction. In this way both carbon producing and carbon cleanup companies save money building cleanup facilities or avoid cleanup entirely.
This scam isn’t new. In the 1990’s to mid 2000’s there was a big environmental move to reduce sulfur pollution (producing so called acid rain) in coal fired power plants through Flue Gas Desulfurization. There were a few competing technologies for this. Lime or limestone is known to absorb sulfur thereby changing limestone into gypsum, therefore cheap limestone seemed to be favored.
I worked for several years in the construction of these facilities (costs could range from hundreds of millions to a billion dollars today) as a contractor to the technology owner, or the power plant owner. It’s been a long time so I might make some errors in the details. I welcome any corrections.
The EPA mandated a sulfur cleanup of 60/70% in plant flue gas emissions. The Wet Flue Gas Desulfurization (WFGD) process was the most efficient, removing up to 95% of the sulfur. All the removal above the EPA mandate were considered credits to be sold to other power plants, thereby allowing them to do less cleanup or none at all.
The Fed. Gov. through the EPA developed this scheme and apparently are re-using it now with Climate Change as the impetus. Sorry, I never learned how the Fed. Gov. benefited, but I don’t doubt there were permits to be paid for and taxes collected.
Government 5-year plan meets Supply & Demand curve
If you look over your shoulder, you will see is the USA closing in fast
We don’t need Solar Panels cluttering up the Landscape we need reliable energy from Fossil Fuels Nuclear and hydro
Last century people were sane enough to realize oil and transportation were strategic essentials.
I recall they called the Obama earlier era Solyndra “ pump and dump” referring to celebrity ribbon cutting. Increasing investors in a green energy start up, then the real small circle in the know sells their shares and the fooled investors lose out as it goes under. Pump and dump the stocks for a killing on a false green energy idea that fails.