If the bank robber, Willie Sutton, were alive today and working in the electric utility sector, he’d surely be a solar energy developer.
Born in 1901, Sutton spent most of his life in and out of prison. The FBI has a webpage on Sutton, who was among the first fugitives to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Sutton was known for “his ingenuity in executing robberies in various disguises.” [emphasis, links added]
The FBI entry continues, “Although he was a bank robber, Sutton had the reputation of a gentleman; in fact, people present at his robberies stated he was quite polite. One victim said witnessing one of Sutton’s robberies was like being at the movies, except the usher had a gun…When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton simply replied, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’”
Sutton’s adage applies to the electric business. As I noted here on Substack last week in “Nuclear Now?,” the U.S. nuclear energy sector has atrophied over the past two decades due to a lack of capital and other factors.
Meanwhile, solar installations are booming. Over the last 10 years, domestic solar capacity has grown 13-fold. Last year alone, it grew by 18.5%. The main driver of the solar boom is obvious: that’s where the money is.
In 2022, when measured by the amount of energy produced, solar energy got 200 times more in federal tax incentives than nuclear.
But that figure only reflects a fraction of the staggering amount of federal cash the solar sector stands to collect over the next three decades.
According to estimates by Wood Mackenzie, under the Inflation Reduction Act, the solar industry could collect some $900 billion in federal tax incentives between now and 2060. I’ll dive into those numbers in a moment.
Before I do so, here are three reasons why you should be incensed by these solar giveaways.
First, these numbers prove, yet again, that the alt-energy sector continues to be fueled by corporate welfare.
For years, advocates for wind and solar energy have claimed that their schemes are cheaper than traditional forms of electricity generation.
Last year, John Kerry, the Biden administration’s climate envoy, claimed that “Solar and wind are less expensive than coal or oil or gas. They just are less expensive.”
If that were true, and solar energy is too cheap to meter, then the industry shouldn’t need tax credits.
But thanks to climate corporatism, some of America’s biggest corporations, including NextEra Energy and MidAmerica Energy, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, are collecting billions of dollars in tax credits and they stand to collect untold billions more in the coming years thanks to the IRA.
Second, it’s evident that President Joe Biden and members of his administration misled the American public about the cost of the IRA.
On August 22, 2022, Biden gave a speech at the White House during which he said, “The Inflation Reduction Act invests $369 billion to take the most aggressive action ever — ever, ever, ever — in confronting the climate crisis and strengthening our economic — our energy security.”
Biden’s defenders might argue that the president didn’t know exactly how much the IRA would cost taxpayers. But ignorance is no excuse. (Nor is old age.)
Third, this solar corporate welfare could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt at the very time we cannot afford more debt.
On Monday, the national debt surpassed $33 trillion, a milestone that the New York Times noted provides “a stark reminder of the country’s shaky fiscal trajectory.”
That description — “shaky fiscal trajectory” — is an understatement. Very soon, the interest on the national debt will exceed $1 trillion per year, a sum that will match or exceed the amount we spend on national defense.
Michael Peterson, the CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, summed up America’s fiscal mess saying, “With more than $10 trillion of interest costs over the next decade, this compounding fiscal cycle will only continue to do damage to our kids and grandkids.”
And now, thanks to corporate welfare for the solar sector, the U.S. could add another $900 billion in debt to our already perilous fiscal situation.
Read rest at Substack
Acres of Wildlife Corridor and Livestock Grazing covered with Soar Panels do Eco-Freaks really want that?
Of course they do, they’ll never see them – real city folk.
From: “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”
“Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such”
Mamas Don’t let your Babies grow up to join Greenpeace, They,ll only go vegan and go and Hug Trees. Make them instead s be a Sailor at Sea