“Politically-directed billions of dollars of subsidies for wind and solar power invite corruption and will likely drive energy prices higher, debt-loads deeper, and allow heavily-polluting older coal factories and power plants to continue operation when they would otherwise be replaced by cost-effective natural gas combined-cycle power. This is surely an unintended consequence for consumers, taxpayers, and the environment.”

Wind and solar power subsidies jolted and damaged European economies, especially Spain and Italy. China’s economy received a similar jolt in 2015. But did U.S. trade policy encourages Chinese government subsidies for not-quite-ready wind and solar power projects?

Consider this 2010 article on costly Spanish solar subsidies passed during the administration of socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero.

Zapatero introduced the subsidies three years ago as part of an effort to cut his country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“Cap-and-trade for CO2 emissions will be just another political plaything for crony socialism…. Cap-and-trade is high on transaction costs and wheeling-dealing and low on emission reduction. In Europe, post-Kyoto Protocol (1997 –) coal usage has increased seven percent, while gas usage has declined.”

“China to Announce Cap-and-Trade Program to Limit Emissions,” reported the New York Times last week. President Xi Jinping  joined Obama’s global energy constructivism by committing (?) the world’s most populous country–and largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2)–to a to-be-determined cap-and-trade program beginning in 2017.

The Obama Administration is leveraging China’s commitment with his own Clean Power Plan to try to get other countries to sign on to a global accord in Paris this December. But these are paper promises by sovereigns who surely know that there is no guarantee that the next Administration–or Congress–will have any appetite for continuing the futile crusade to ‘save’ the climate. …

Setting aside the matter that wind turbines are not an effective means to supply utility-scale electricity, the claims of job creation and 21^st century industrial development are equally illusory. A New York Times (NYT) article last month spoke volumes on this.

I have frequently claimed that the recently created wind turbine manufacturing industries in Europe (Denmark, Germany and Spain) are in jeopardy from competition by the emerging giants, China, India and the U.S. The Times article reports that China now controls almost half of the global market, having absorbed billions of dollars in government assistance and consumer subidies.

The wind businesses in these European countries have existed for little more than a decade, and having saturated their domestic markets, have enjoyed a brief, and unsustainable, dominance of global markets. I may have been mistaken in including the U.S.…

“Instead of the fear-baiting warnings that the U.S. is being outspent on renewables [by China], a better question might be: what are we getting for our money?”

– Loren Steffy, “Scrubbing the Data on Clean Energy Investment,” Houston Chronicle, March 27, 2010.

Loren Steffy is the most read and respected voice at the Houston Chronicle on business and related policy issues, the paper’s editorial board notwithstanding. And on energy, he smells a rat with the ‘clean energy’ mantra that comes on high.

Steffy has documented the role of Enron in the government-created Texas wind power boom. He deconstructed the all pain-no gain nature of the House-passed Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill before the rest of the country caught on. And most recently, he has called out the non sequitur of a new study, “Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race,” recently released by the Pew Charitable Trusts via the Pew Environmental Group.…