Green Pelf

I'm usually averse to "I told you so" antics, because they're more apt to create a bristling response than a nod of understanding, but when the "you" is generic rather than individual, and when it’s so obvious that I’m driven to sky-scream, I feel a bit less reserved about engaging in a bit of such.

Today's is about the scalability of wind-and-solar-and-battery from niche power to dominance, and in particular the resource problem. As WSJ's James Freeman reports, the problem goes beyond China's dominance in rare earths. Indonesia, which has the world's largest nickel reserves, is pondering a tax on a metal that comprises 110 lbs of every Tesla battery.

Environmentalists in that nation and elsewhere are concerned that the massive expansion of refining that'll be spurred by the headlong rush to electric vehicles will not be managed cleanly. That is, the waste products from refining may be dumped into the ocean. Lest we forget - most of the rest of the world isn't nearly as devoted to clean-green as America is, and we already know that China's not averse to making a mess in its refining of rare earths.

The dirty secret - more like a commonly known realty that prompts greens to shove their fingers in their ears - isn't even close to the whole story. Indonesia's contemplation of a tax speaks to another nasty bit of business - the developing world's lust for OPM.

Many self-hating first worlders have argued that the developed nations owe the rest of the world for the carbon dioxide they've emitted as they've advanced technology and raised living conditions. The flip side - that all those innovations, inventions, and breakthroughs mean that other nations won't have to invent them themselves - is rarely spoken of. Nor are all the jobs created in those developing nations by the innovators. See: self-hate.

The Paris Accords demand a wealth transfer of about $100 billion.

Beyond that, a group called the Like-Minded Developing Countries, which includes China and India, wants $1.3 TRILLION sent their way.

We all know that such grift, graft, shakedown, pelf, kale, lucre, loot, booty, ransom, extortion, payoff, and bribery will not cease at $1.3T. The Indonesian nickel tax is a tell-tale. Just as the Middle East throttles oil production to maximum self-benefit, all these producers of materials vital to the first world's green dreams will find endless ways to maximize their take.

Since the West won't dig for its own materials (America has exactly one rare earth mine, and we all know how difficult any sort of domestic resource extraction initiative is), its dependence on nations that are far less concerned about global warming will only grow. Already, green delusions have sent the price of electricity skyrocketing in Germany, with rationing on the table, and fears of massive cold-related deaths come this winter spurring a restarting of sixteen mothballed coal plants.

This green business is just that, business, the grand, aspirational visions of the West's elite notwithstanding. It's a dirty business at that, with the rest of the world salivating at the prospect of massive wealth transfers in their direction, and no plans to commit similar economic suicide by abandoning the most cost-efficient means of energy production.

Blackmailers soak their marks as long as possible. There's no honor among thieves, and there's no common-cause motivation to contribute to a global effort at brute-force carbon emission reduction. Biden's green delusion is only going to sap American wealth, send countless billions overseas, and reduce living standards, with no positive payoff (except for the chosen few). Russia and her gas exports have Western Europe by the short-and-curlies, the East and Africa have major market dominance in metals, and the "green" nations aren't about to do anything to reduce their dependence.

Unless America and Europe come to grips with reality, this business will end very poorly. The wealthy might feel a bit of a twitch from climbing energy prices, foreign dependence, and the inflation that'll accompany the money-printing needed to feed these green fantasies, but the rest of us will feel a Mike-Tysonesque left to the jaw.

All for naught. The emissions reductions from the grossly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act will have an infinitesimal impact on global temperatures. Nor is it a “good step forward.” As even climate fanatic John Kerry admitted a year and a half ago, even getting the US to net-zero won't affect global temps worth a damn. Nothing the US does on its own will mean bupkis, and this debtor nation cannot subsidize wind and solar forever.

The motives behind all this are twofold.

First, there is the delusion that the rest of the world will emulate America, doing as we do, of their own volition. If the economics were good - if WASABI was naturally cheaper than oil and coal and gas, governments (ours and others) would not need to spend hundreds of billions or trillions to encourage their adoption. It'd happen naturally, because profit is what drives everything. That it's taking coercion and the printing of vast sums of money to get even marginal increases domestically tells the tale.

Second, there's the arrogance, the sheer hubris of it all. The people pushing this are people who think they can alter reality with the stroke of a pen, who believe that “make it so” is enough to make the energy economy net-zero without harm. Or, perhaps more accurately, who think that the pen-stroke itself is what really matters, that the intent is sufficient. In this they may be right as far as their political fortunes go. Many have bought into the wind-and-solar delusion, because they either don't take the time to ponder its realities or they put their trust in people and sources that see more green in the snake oil than in the cold reality.

Instead of exporting billions of countries to nations that have no issue charging us inflating prices for metals while continuing to burn coal, how about, instead, we drill, baby, drill? Lift the regulatory hurdles being imposed on gas and oil exploration, repeal the Jones Act that stifles movement of product, fling the door wide open for modern modular nuclear power, sell natural gas globally so that less coal will be burned, stop tipping the scales toward wind and solar, and spend just a fraction of what the IRA does on geo-engineering research so that, should the day come where we have to offset what the BRICS are doing, we know how.

Unfortunately, our leaders and most climate warriors are locked in to their single solution. They so want wind and solar to succeed that they have closed their eyes and minds to the emergent problems and the geopolitical realities. Instead of acknowledging them and adjusting the remedy, though, they are so hell-bent on proving themselves right that they'd rather destroy our economy and our living standards.

That’s before we get to the underlying agendas, but I’ve already told you about those.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.