"Green" policies are destroying this country
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This is where the rubber hits the road. Countries around the world are waking up to the fact that security of energy supply is their number one priority, and that renewables aren't currently capable of providing it. Unbelievably, as late as this week Eamon Ryan is still yakking on about hydrogen by 2050.
Meanwhile, from this week's Sunday Independent:
We already have carnage in the domestic energy supply market:
And around the world:
Energy Security Comes First: Achieving other policy goals depends upon securing supply and costs
It is no surprise that many countries have abandoned appeals to “ideological” (to borrow from [Indian Energy] Minister Puni) energy policies and instead adopted hard-headed pragmatism and realpolitik focused on securing supply and containing prices. Consider:
- Japan is taking significant steps to restart its nuclear power plants and invest in the development and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies;
- India is deploying a wide range of energy technologies, including consideration of building 28GW of capacity in new coal plants;
- Countries in Southeast Asia are looking to increasing their import capacity of liquified natural gas by more than 2.5x;
- Germany’s decision to stick with some aspects of “ideological” energy policy (against nuclear) has resulted in opposition from other European countries;
- The United States has focused policy on lower the prices of gasoline, touting the reduction as political success.
All of these actions related to energy indicate what should be completely uncontroversial — energy security comes first. And by security I mean security of supply and of cost. Externalities such as air pollution (both particulates and greenhouse gases), dodgy regimes as a source of supply and fears over technological risks can only be addressed in the context of security.
But for many people — including some experts — energy policy is not about the technological, economic and societal challenge of delivering secure, modern energy services to everyone around the world. It is a big political game where technologies take on virtues — such as: nuclear BAD, renewables GOOD, that is, unless you are on the other team where it is — nuclear GOOD, renewables BAD. Inevitably, those who play this game already enjoy secure energy supply and can afford its costs.
But not everyone has these privileges. Expressing virtue through energy technologies will always be much easier when there are multiple viable options on the shelf (so to speak) and ready to be deployed. In the absence of clear alternatives, or in the presence of promises of new alternatives soon to come, countries will overwhelmingly choose what is familiar or immediately deployable. There won’t be much interest in political games through energy policies.
The bottom line here is that to achieve outcomes other than reliance on fossil fuels from Russia (or reliance on fossil fuels at all) we need to expand the scope of real-world energy technology options, at scale and ready to implement. As we work to expand that scope we must keep front and center the fact that security comes first, everything else follows.
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Of course gas prices are going to eventually fall as supply is rebalanced, as I said before. Will it be OK with you when we then point out that wind power is still not competitive, in line with the opportunistic Green claim that wind was nine times cheaper than gas on one particular day in 2022?
The Greens need to catch a grip. This is a Greenpeace effort to sue corporations with deep pockets. They can't sue the end users of cars and fuel so they mount these stupid campaigns against companies who are selling the things people need. If they want to rope in a farmer to be their stooge they probably should have caught him in a better pose. What does that tractor run on, unicorn farts?
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