The Wall Street Journal wastes valuable editorial page space on the empty-headed un-Skeptical Environmentalist.
Bjorn Lom-Gore-Borg pushes climate alarmism and green energy in the WSJ:
In the long run, the world needs to cut carbon dioxide because it causes global warming. But if the main effort to cut emissions is through subsidies for chic renewables like wind and solar power, virtually no good will be achieved—at very high cost. The cost of climate policies just for the European Union—intended to reduce emissions by 2020 to 20% below 1990 levels—are estimated at about $250 billion annually. And the benefits, when estimated using a standard climate model, will reduce temperature only by an immeasurable one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century.
Even in 2035, with the most optimistic scenario, the International Energy Agency estimates that just 2.4% of the world’s energy will come from wind and only 1% from solar. As is the case today, almost 80% will still come from fossil fuels. As long as green energy is more expensive than fossil fuels, growing consumer markets like those in China and India will continue to use them, despite what well-meaning but broke Westerners try to do.
Instead of pouring money into subsidies and direct production support of existing, inefficient green energy, President Obama should focus on dramatically ramping up investments into the research and development of green energy. Put another way, it is the difference between supporting an inexpensive researcher who will discover more efficient, future solar panels—and supporting a Solyndra at great expense to produce lots of inefficient, present-technology solar panels.
“Instead of pouring money into subsidies and direct production support of existing, inefficient green energy, President Obama should focus on dramatically ramping up investments into the research and development of green energy. Put another way, it is the difference between supporting an inexpensive researcher who will discover more efficient, future solar panels—and supporting a Solyndra at great expense to produce lots of inefficient, present-technology solar panels.”
The problem with the previous Graft Model was that the businesses receiving graft from Obama et al were expected to produce something. This new, Graft Model II, sets up companies that are NOT expected to produce anything. Hence, the graft will go undetected, as the new companies, by definition, can’t fail, always being a year or two out from a breakthrough.
The other disturbing thing is that Lom-Gore-Borg seems unaware that the world has been trying desperately for decades to find breakthroughs in alternative energy sources. He thinks that if the U.S. just threw some slush money at research, breakthroughs would happen. He is naïve beyond comprehension.