Will King Cuomo be dethroned? Has Joe Biden signed on as a spox for the CCP? Kamala covers for the teachers union and Big Wind does the Texas Two Step. Tom and Mike cover all this and much more on the latest Unregulated Podcast. Give a listen...
If the renewable-power object lesson in Texas won’t convince you, then go with science.
Science Direct (2/12/2021) reports: "This article examines the effects of energy policy on social welfare under the pseudo-social planner's problem. To assess the social welfare effects, we focus on the energy mix as a policy tool and incorporate two factors into the model: cost-efficiency and climate damage. For model calibration, we use U.S. data of levelized cost of energy, carbon dioxide emission intensity, and carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere; thus, the analysis is within the scope of the U.S. energy policy. The results show that a 10% increase in the proportion of renewable energy in the energy mix decreases social welfare by 0.753% in the long run. This negative welfare effect of the increase in renewable energy use occurs because the negative effect of reduced cost-efficiency outweighs the positive effect of less climate damage on social welfare. We also find that increased energy policy uncertainty reduces social welfare. This is because a higher degree of energy policy uncertainty leads to a greater uncertainty in return on capital, which makes rational agents postpone their investment."
We hate to say we told you so.
Wall Street Journal (2/17/21) editorial: "Between 12 a.m. on Feb. 8 and Feb. 16, wind power plunged 93% while coal increased 47% and gas 450%, according to the EIA. Yet the renewable industry and its media mouthpieces are tarring gas, coal and nuclear because they didn’t operate at 100% of their expected potential during the Arctic blast even though wind turbines failed nearly 100%. The policy point here is that an electricity grid that depends increasingly on subsidized but unreliable wind and solar needs baseload power to weather surges in demand. Natural gas is crucial but it also isn’t as reliable as nuclear and coal power. Politicians and regulators don’t want to admit this because they have been taking nuclear and coal plants offline to please the lords of climate change. But the public pays the price when blackouts occur because climate obeisance has made the grid too fragile. We’ve warned about this for years, and here we are."
Out of state bureaucrats messing with Texas. Who signed off on that?
PJ Media (2/18/21) reports: "Many, probably most, Texans hadn’t heard of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas until this week. Then a historic winter storm froze up the place and “electric reliability” turned into an unfunny joke for far too many. Their electricity was reliably unavailable. Well, except in certain well-lit urban downtowns...Texans are getting to know the 50-year-old council and are not liking what they’re learning. For one thing, about a third of its members don’t even live in Texas. 'A third of the board of directors that operate the state’s electrical grid do not appear to live in Texas, and their performance in wake of widespread outages has led to a Dallas-area lawmaker’s call for change. Records show the two top office holders of the 15-member board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), live out-of-state. Three other ERCOT board members also appear to live thousands of miles from Texas.' The thought of some Californian voting on our energy market doesn’t sit well...Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, told WFAA that he was 'totally shocked' to learn a third of the ERCOT Board of Directors lived outside Texas. 'People who are making literally life and death decisions on behalf of our families and our communities don’t even live in the state of Texas,' Leach said. ”… I’m frustrated and cannot believe that the board chair of our leading energy decision maker doesn’t even live in Texas, but lives in Michigan. It just cannot be that way here in the Lone Star State.' "
If you oppose a carbon tax, take a stand and contact us.
Tom Pyle, American Energy Alliance
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Phil Kerpen, American Commitment
Andrew Quinlan, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity
Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform
George Landrith, Frontiers of Freedom
Thomas A. Schatz, Citizens Against Government Waste
Richard Manning, Americans for Limited Government
Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks
Craig Richardson, E&E Legal
Benjamin Zycher, American Enterprise Institute
Jason Hayes, Mackinac Center
David Williams, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation
Seton Motley, Less Government
Nathan Nascimento, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce
Isaac Orr, Center of the American Experiment
David T. Stevenson & Clint Laird, Caesar Rodney Institute
John Droz, Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions
Jim Karahalios, Axe the Carbon Tax
Mark Mathis, Clear Energy Alliance
Jack Ekstrom, PolicyWorks America
