BRADLEY: Renewable energy running scared
This may be the beginning of the end of the energy welfare state
By Robert L. Bradley Jr.
The ethanol, wind and solar industries are running scared from a House proposal to reduce federal subsidies for renewable energy by 25 percent for fiscal 2012. A surefire sign of the trouble with big government is that you run out of other people’s money.
The environmental left is running scared, too, at least when it comes to wind and solar. Federal cutbacks, leftists fear, will shrink the business lobby needed for their grand energy-transformation plan. In the parlance of political economy, the teetotalers need the help of bootleggers to sell their message to the voters.
Federal cutbacks have put wind and solar on the spot. Despite decades of promises, these energy sources remain uneconomic and misaligned with the need for reliable, flexible power. Left unsubsidized and without mandates, electricity generated from wind or solar would not find nearly enough buyers.
Meanwhile, deficits rage and voters want fiscal sanity. Can you imagine the opinion-poll results if respondents were asked to choose between spending fewer taxpayer dollars on renewable energy or basic government services? I doubt the American Wind Energy Association or the Solar Energy Industries Association would commission such a poll.
Solar power actually has a market niche and would exist as a small energy industry in a nonpolitical world. Off the electrical grid, solar panels can absorb and store sunlight as electricity until scale economies allow far cheaper central-station power to be transmitted by high-voltage lines. In this sense, renewable energy can be a bridge to conventional energy, not the other way around, as is often touted. (Washington Times)
