Business as a force for government intervention into the economy is evident with one of the major global economic issues of recent times, climate change. Wind companies, solar companies, energy-efficiency companies, carbon capture and storage investors, etc. Their bread is buttered by special government favor, whether a direct payment from the public treasury or a tax credit or a regulatory preference.
Rent-seeking by business is a contra-capitalist practice, long exposed and criticized by free market economists and classical liberals. But there are two other related practices that classical liberalism has long warned against and censored.
One concerns strategic deceit by a business to outside parties, whether stock analysts or direct investors. In the spirit of Ayn Rand, this can be called philosophic fraud. This syndrome is present with companies that are overhyped and desperately trying to keep the music going.…
Continue Reading“’Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel,’ Chu told an event at the Pew Charitable Trusts.” (below)
Energy history matters. In the marketplace, what energies performed and at what cost; in energy policy, who said what and when. In this regard, intermittent, dilute energies have a bad history.
Obama’s DOE Secretary Steven Chu has a ten-year anniversary of a statement that is now falsified. As reported by the American Security Project in “Wind, Solar Becoming Cost Competitive: Chu,”
Clean sources of energy such as wind and solar will be no more expensive than oil and gas projects by the end of the decade, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.
President Barack Obama’s administration has been encouraging companies to invest in green growth, calling it a new source of jobs and fearing that other nations — led by China — are stealing the march.…
Continue Reading“Since rooftop solar customers pay less on their utility bills, they end up contributing less toward maintaining the grid, which they still use. That has meant the cost burden was shifted to those without rooftop solar, and often those who can’t afford it.” (Wall Street Journal, below)
“For rooftop solar companies, generous incentives were the training wheels that had to come off at some point.” (Wall Street Journal, below)
Solar as a grid source of electricity is uneconomic, from the rooftop to the large solar arrays. So various government interventions pushed by the solar lobby must come to the rescue.
Solar’s Investment Tax Credit (ITC) offers a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for 26 percent of the cost of installing solar. Enacted in 2006, it has been extended several times and continue through 2023.…
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