It has long been a contention of mine that the most important reason that governments shouldn’t make economic decisions, such as favoring one form of technology over another or bailing out a failing company, is that politicians—who are first, last, and always in the re-election business–can’t make decisions for economic reasons. They can only make decisions for political reasons.
Consider a thought experiment. Say there is a national widget crisis and there are two possible technological solutions to the problem. Most people in the widget industry think that technology A is the better bet. Technology B, however, has been researched by a company that has its headquarters and 40,000 employees in the state represented by Senator Snoot, who chairs the Senate Widget Committee. Which technology do you think Senator Snoot is going to favor? To be sure, he might put the national interest ahead of his political interests and thus become a candidate for a sequel to Profiles in Courage. But there’s a reason that that famous book is a very short one.
One of the major components of the left these days, and by no means just in the United States, is the so-called environmental movement (so-called because it is, at heart, a misanthropic and anti-business movement, not an environmental one). And one of their current hobby horses is “renewable energy,” such as wind and solar power. Liberal politicians have relentlessly pushed for this, offering lavish subsidies and tax advantages, ($14 billion for wind energy in the United States alone in the last four years) even though wind and solar energy still cannot produce electricity at a cost that can compete with coal or natural gas on a per-kilowatt basis.
But over and above that, there is a huge problem with renewable energy sources that environmentalists and their political allies ignore. I’m not talking about the vast amount of land wind farms and solar arrays require, nor the environmental damage they cause by, in the case of wind farms, killing huge numbers of birds, nor the fact that wind and sun tend to be most abundantly found in areas where electricity demand is low, such as the high plains east of the Rockies, necessitating long, visually polluting transmission lines to where power is needed.
No, the number one economic problem in the electric generation industry is the fact that electricity cannot be stored. It must be generated at the moment it is needed. That is a very expensive fact, for it means that enough generating capacity must be built to meet peak demand, even though peak demand is encountered only rarely (such as on very hot summer afternoons). Much of the time, the excess capacity just expensively sits there.
But with coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants, at least that capacity can be called on whenever needed. That is not true of wind and solar. They generate electricity only when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. So while theoretical capacity may be large, actual capacity can be anywhere from 100 percent to zero percent of theoretical capacity. Germany, for instance, is gung ho for renewable energy. The Telegraph (H/T Instapundit) reports that Germany has a theoretical wind generating capacity of 29 gigawatts, about one quarter of the country’s average demand. The average output of Germany’s wind generating capacity, however, is only 5 gigawatts, 17 percent of the theoretical amount.
Thus, in order to be sure the lights stay on, not only must Germany build an electric generating capacity able to deal with peak demand, it must build one able to deal with peak demand when the wind isn’t blowing. So instead of needing to be able to generate 100 percent of peak demand, it needs to be able to generate 100 percent plus whatever percent of the generating capacity is in renewables. Renewables, in other words, make the most expensive fact about the electric generating industry much more expensive.
It gets worse. Germany now requires that renewables get priority:
In fact, a mighty battle is now developing in Germany between green fantasists and practical realists. Because renewable energy must by law have priority in supplying the grid, the owners of conventional power stations, finding they have to run plants unprofitably, are so angry that they are threatening to close many of them down. The government response, astonishingly, has been to propose a new law forcing them to continue running their plants at a loss.
Electricity is at the heart of the new digital economy. As the New York Times reported this morning, the Internet is now using about 30 gigawatts of power. Much of that electricity is used to provide back-up systems to ensure no interruptions, because any interruption would be disastrous. And, according to The Telegraph, Germany is having increasing difficulty keeping its electric grid stable, thanks to its increasing reliance on renewables.
Invent (and patent) a way to store electricity in a cost-effective way, and you will become very, very, very rich. But until that happens (and it seems, at least at present, that the physics just isn’t there to allow that) renewable electricity capacity is, in fact, no capacity at all.
Let me be brutally honest. A "progressive" solution to any perceived problem you might mention is that of the lazy man because it depends, ultimately, on the coercive power of government. What could be easier or less intellectually demanding than to recommend a policy to others on the grounds that if they fail to conform to it they will, quite literally, go to jail? n nIf, for example, what is desired is to keep the most people the most comfortable in old age, doing so by letting the market provide solutions via the profit motive is a complex, baffling, and even a daunting project. The lesson of markets that so-called Progressives refuse to attend to is that designing secure retirement for hundreds of millions of people is too challenging an aspiration, as aspirations go, for mortals, and is especially so when those entrusted with doing it are politicians—particularly the current crop of high-quality nitwits on Congressional Hill. (Honestly, might Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid be expected to operate a garage-door opener without risk to life, limb, and property? So of course, by all means, let them go ahead: let them design health-care for 310-million people, only a fraction of whom are their constituents.) n nYet, even were members of Congress 24-carat certified geniuses to a man, the task MUST defeat them—in either the short term or the long, as we have had ample opportunity to see with such miracles of asset management as the Social Security Trust Fund, established in 1935. Even in 1935, politicians with two feet tethered to the ground pointed out, with some vehemence, that a pay-as-you-go social-Insurance program was suspiciously like a Ponzi scheme, a genre of swindle dreamt up in the 1920s that MUST come to grief. To scruple whether or not SSI is a Ponzi scheme in theory as well as in fact is an example of the sort of pointless polemics to which Progressives are dedicated, which is to say, to distracting attention from what SSI actually is on the verge of achieving: national bankruptcy. Ditto Medicare, Medicaid, and the metastasizing food-stamp program of the Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, the time horizon within which achieving nationwide destitution via the next Federal bright idea has been dramatically foreshortened, as can be seen with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), whose costs are revised upwards on what seems like a monthly basis. With the rise of population, a catastrophe that once required six or seven decades to mature can be accomplished in a quarter of the time, perhaps less. n nWhen you have the police power in your corner, however, you may confidently visit upon the nation any number of disasters without consequence—to yourself, that is. We know that because we have done it repeatedly. As Adam Smith pointed out in "The Wealth of Nations [1776!]": "There is a good deal of ruin in a nation." Think about that; then ask yourself: MUST we explore that brave new frontier? MUST we discover to what extremes of folly policy may be pursued, AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES, SIMPLY BECAUSE WE CAN?? For no other reason than that we may pass insanely improvident and imprudent laws and enforce them, literally at gunpoint??? (FYI: The original purpose of the 2d Amendment kicks in around here.) Depend on it: We shall be impeached and convicted because of our own delusions of grandeur. Is that not what and who, hoopla aside, Barack Obama represents: an irresponsible daydream? Did not aspirations like turning back the tides, healing the sick, and, for ought I know, raising the dead, come far too casually, too easily and at waltz time, tripping from his tongue? 2008 was never, as President Obama would have us believe, the triumph of hope over experience so much as mania over sanity, drunkenness over sobriety, delusion over common sense. And how repellant, how leprous, those aspirations seem now when one recognizes that the power behind accomplishing all of them is no more than a policeman's baton? How simple it is for Progressives. How exhilarating it must have been for the Herbert Crolys (d. 1930) and, particularly, the Woodrow Wilsons of the progressive Left to suddenly understand this: Who is to stop us if we pass a law? We may jail our opponents, if it comes to that. And if we are wrong—perhaps even catastrophically mistaken—in the long run, why, John Maynard Keynes, the High Priest, the Aaron of Progressivism is johhny-on-the-spot, isn't he: In the long run, says Prof. Keynes, we are all dead. n nNow take the conservative predicament, the humbling recognition, frantically beckoning, that to deliberately set about providing retirement or medicine or housing or sustenance or I-don't-much-care-what to 310-million specimens of anything is quite beyond the intellectual compass or ingenuity or even the dumb luck of any Congress, be they Solons and Pericleses or Stan Laurels and Oliver Hardys, so long as they are comprised of, um, actual human beings. No. The only way that conservative policies on all those topics may be judged is by the countless, unpredictable decisions of actual human beings who, it cannot BE overemphasized, are NOT looking over their shoulders for the arrival of the constable or sheriff. Elitism may claim scant precedence here. The experts and the navel-gazing Obamas can all go knit. Their advice is best discounted in advance. NOTHING is assured to us except that whatever falls out is the BEST that can be expected. Nor can a policeman vindicate failure ex post facto. We must live with what we do, but at least WE shall have done it.
Are you just now realizing that Governments have real power,which is why elections are so important. How old are you? Learn to be brief. nBTW,I'm not aware of any Government that was without substantial power.
If you actually believe that my post was about suddenly realizing the power of government, then you truly are a simpleton and not someone who merely gives every appearance of half-wittedness. n nFYI: If a post is too long for your tastes, you can tell at a glance. Don't read it. Brief enough for you? Simple enough?
What I think you want is enough power to stop what you believe is too much power elsewhere. If you want power,join the government. LOL
We need to understand the idolatrous nature of Progressivism, socialism, and other Democratic Party principles. We can then appreciate the powerful widespread acceptance of these evil falsehoods. We need to accept the reality that this struggle against this nonsense will be very difficult. We need to be strong, courageous, and determined in our goals for rational thinking to help our country. n
"We need to fight irrationality if we are to survive and prosper." n nQuite correct. A difficulty becomes apparent, however, as soon as one realizes that indolence to the point of taking the queerest satisfaction in having others provide for you and your family is often a VERY rational response to government policy.