[WSJ] - Junk Science 'reprint'
MATT RIDLEY
March 13, 2015 5:33 p.m. ET
The environmental movement has advanced three arguments in recent
years for giving up fossil fuels: (1) that we will soon run out of them
anyway; (2) that alternative sources of energy will price them out of
the marketplace; and (3) that we cannot afford the climate consequences
of burning them.
These days, not one of the three arguments is looking very healthy.
In fact, a more realistic assessment of our energy and environmental
situation suggests that, for decades to come, we will continue to rely
overwhelmingly on the fossil fuels that have contributed so dramatically
to the world’s prosperity and progress. ..........
Wind power, for all the public money spent on its expansion, has
inched up to—wait for it—1% of world energy consumption in 2013. Solar,
for all the hype, has not even managed that: If we round to the nearest
whole number, it accounts for 0% of world energy consumption.
Both wind and solar are entirely reliant on subsidies for such
economic viability as they have. World-wide, the subsidies given to
renewable energy currently amount to roughly $10 per gigajoule: These
sums are paid by consumers to producers, so they tend to go from the
poor to the rich, often to landowners (I am a landowner and can testify
that I receive and refuse many offers of risk-free wind and solar
subsidies). .............The one thing that will not work is the one thing that the environmental
movement insists upon: subsidizing wealthy crony capitalists to build
low-density, low-output, capital-intensive, land-hungry renewable energy
schemes, while telling the poor to give up the dream of getting richer
through fossil fuels."
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