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Wind and sun, things of that nature

A Russian nesting doll of spite and stupid.

This is straight up insane, which checks a box within-a-box within-a-box for the lobotomized party. So they’ll probably do it.

The tax provision, tucked inside the 940-page bill that the Senate made public just after midnight on Friday, stunned observers.

“This is how you kill an industry,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a nonpartisan group of business leaders and investors. “And at a time when electricity prices and demand are soaring.”

The bill would rapidly phase out existing federal tax subsidies for wind and solar power by 2027. Doing so, many companies say, could derail hundreds of projects under development and could jeopardize billions of dollars in manufacturing facilities that had been planned around the country with the subsidies in mind.

Those tax credits were at the heart of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed in 2022 in an attempt to nudge the country away from fossil fuels, the burning of which is driving climate change. President Trump, who has mocked climate science, has instead promoted fossil fuels and demanded that Republicans in Congress unwind the law.

But the latest version of the Senate bill would go much further. It would impose a steep penalty on all new wind and solar farms that come online after 2027 — even if they didn’t receive federal subsidies — unless they follow complicated and potentially unworkable requirements to disentangle their supply chains from China. Since China dominates global supply chains, that measure could affect a large number of companies.

That’s from NYT on Sunday, and there are literally no benefits from doing this.

Not unrelated to the way ‘policymakers’ are making pawns of Chinese college students studying and doing research in the US. Always running behind will always do the wrong things. Ahead is right there. In front of you.

 

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On The Table

Leaving it on the table, that is. A chart from the Economist, via Yglesias. Interactive even.

Everyone who doesn’t watch Fox News knows that gas prices in the U.S. are the lowest in the 1st world; what might be less appreciated is how little we tax this precious little commodity. Like R.A. says in the original, the ultra low prices fuel the dependency – we can’t get off the stuff. And then we have to castigate any ideas for getting onto trains or sidewalks. And vociferously defend… the obscene oil company profits that are a result. It’s a thoroughly embarassing state of affairs.

Except we’re not embarrassed. Power of Pride, I guess.

But hey… pssst: gas is getting more and more expense anyway. And as it does, we’re still not diverting any of the money to other services or incentivising better habits or planning for the $5 $7 gas that is as sure of a thing as the drink in my hand right now.

Bumper sticker idea of the day: More expensive lessons, please.

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Watch the birdy

It’s no stretch to say that a controversy might erupt were the consensus theories about peak oil production or climate change shown to be misstated or, worse, wrong. Green would be the new red, as in red-faced, and yet another potential crisis ( Y2K) will have been proven to be a marketing construct. As much as there are deniers and refusniks of climate change and peak oil, these folks are generally construed to be shills, or worse.

But, s’up with gas prices dropping? What’s that all about? OPEC is not going to stand around and do nothing as prices fall. But it gets complicated in a stagnant economy, and their options are limited. Will low(er) gas prices kill the electric car again? All of these are related and work together: the limited supply of oil, the oversupply of housing and the widespread accumulation of bad, bad debt. The “deterioration” of prices is all that concerns the oil producers. With all the upturns and the downturns, we need to worry about how it all works together. For instance, will the nascent and baby-teeny-weeny progress on alternative energy initiatives be snuffed out by world economic turmoil?

It is important to unpack and disconnect some of these issues, otherwise we will never escape the way we have been driven by them and them alone onto hyper-consumptive paths of lease resistance and their ecological consequences. Can we continue to use less oil/gas even if the price drops back into the neighborhoods we grew up in? What about the infrastructure and economic development plans based on reduced carbon footprints and homegrown renewable energy? There were are many more reasons than running out of gas to change the way we’ve been doing things.

The question is whether we will have enough discipline toward the self-preservation instinct, even if it’s not immediately cheaper. Green is all about keeping your eye on the ball – the big blue one we’re living on.