“Climate action is a cornerstone of our business strategy and our commitment to sustainability.”

“At Sunnova, we have worked diligently to embed responsibility, sustainability and risk management into everything that we do….. The transition to a net-zero economy is one that we are determined to realize. It requires innovation, bold action, thoughtfulness, and alignment with leading climate science, all without sacrificing affordability, resilience, and energy equity.” (2023 Sustainability Report)

Here are the (nauseating) highlights of the Houston-based rooftop solar leader, Sunnova Energy (NOVA). Once sporting a stock price in the 50s per share, it is now a penny stock, a story briefly told here.

Politically correct, economically incorrect, the business plan of Enron-ex CEO John Berger was all about living off of special taxpayer favors. And in the Enron tradition, its 95-page EGS report was all about imaging and political posturing.…

“On the 15th anniversary of the BP blowout, the real takeaway is that oil companies that think they are ‘beyond petroleum’ are value destroyers for shareholders and for the environment.”

Every April commemorates BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 2010). To the anti-energy Left, Deepwater Horizon is the epitome of oil-gone-bad, coming some 21 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It was not supposed to happen again, but ….

The sad facts of Deepwater Horizon will forever remain; the multiple failures behind the seafloor accident meticulously documented. But a paradox remains. Mighty BP, captained by John Browne, the leading “environmentalist” of the petroleum industry, created a corporate culture that resulted in lax safety and environmental protocols. By saving about $5 million out of $100+ million in drilling costs, the company ended up paying out in excess of $60 billion.…

Ed. Note: Four years ago, Storm Uri caused Texas’s centrally planned wholesale electricity market (ERCOT) to buckle, vindicating warnings about the state’s wind/solar reliance. The mainstream media implicated natural gas instead, failing to explore the why behind the why. Rather than deregulation, Texas has chosen to add wind, solar, and batteries, while subsidizing natural gas plants to counter intermittency. This duplicated grid is now driving rates up in a state that could have relied on surplus natural gas instead.

It was not so much the story of freak weather triggering a market failure writ large. It was a classic application of the political economy of government intervention: the seen and the unseen, expert/regulatory failure, and unintended consequences.

Don Lavoie, a preeminent thinker in the field of market-versus-government planning, once warned:

If the guiding agency is less knowledgeable than the system it is trying to guide—and even worse, if its actions necessarily result in further undesired consequences in the working of that system—then what is going on is not planning at all but, rather, blind interference by some agents with the plans of others.”

“Opponents of oil and gas have increasingly targeted energy projects through misinformation, protests, lawfare and misinformation, hurting a strategic U.S. industry that employs more than 11 million Americans, and negatively impacting our country’s economic stability.” (Energy Transfer, below)

Pragmatic rent-seeking by crony capitalists is a major problem in the United States. Political capitalism allows “the worst of get on top,” while misallocating resources from consumer to governmental ends. Think of Ken Lay of Enron. James E. Rogers of Public Service of Indiana/Duke Energy. John “beyond petroleum” Browne … Ben van Beurden of Royal Dutch Shell… GE’s Jeff Immelt… T. Boone Pickens … John Hofmeister. The wind and solar crowd. Even Kelcy Warren, co-founder and chairman of Energy Transfer, the subject of this post.

As a Houston Chronicle editorial stated on Monday:

A few of Trump’s Texas-based allies and donors stand to make a killing off Biden’s climate law.