Unreliable Energy, Not ‘Dirty’ Energy, Threatens New Jersey

A New Jersey Star-Ledger letter hailed President Obama’s reliable energy-restricting “Clean Power Plan,” which is all but bankrupting the U.S. coal industry. A better way to cleaner, cheaper energy is long on “green” dogma and low on truth.

I left these comments, citing select quotes and edited for clarity:

Coal-fired power plants have not been “allowed to dump unlimited amounts of pollution into our air with impunity.” They have long been subject to anti-pollution laws and mandates, and spend $billions annually installing state-of-the-art pollution control technologies to reduce emissions of pollutants like metals, acid gases, and particulates, while continuing to provide the vital energy our lives depend upon. And the efforts have been successful. Air(and other forms of) pollution has been reduced by half since 1970 even as coal use has surged:

[Chart courtesy of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels]

“Carbon pollution”—aka carbon dioxide—is not a pollutant, like mercury, arsenic, and the like. co2 is not only harmless to humans but absolutely vital to human and all other life on Earth. So why attack co2? Perhaps because our fossil fuels are getting increasingly cleaner so the fossil fuel enemies need another reason to attack fossils. Carbon Dioxide is not “dirty.” An attack on “carbon pollution” is an attack on human life, because it requires drastic restrictions on production of our life-giving reliable energy.

“Initiatives on clean energy and recycling” is a euphemism for government subsidies, and subsidies don’t create jobs, on balance. They cost jobs. Economics 101 teaches that one must take into account not only what is seen, such as “clean energy jobs,” but what is not seen, such as the jobs not created by the diversion away from spending and investments that those who are made to fund the subsidies would have made with their money. Subsidies cost jobs because they fund things that are not economically feasible or justified, and take away from better investments.

“Clean energy,” which is not really clean, is not cheaper energy. If it were, it wouldn’t need subsidies and special political provisions that hamper competing forms of energy such as coal, like Obama’s fraudulently misnamed “Clean Power Plan”. Nor is “clean energy” reliable.

“Fighting climate disruption” is a euphemism for disrupting humans initiatives to improve the environment for human benefit through industrialization and the energy production required for that improvement. Human emissions of co2 may contribute to climate change, but the incalculable benefits to human well-being of energy production and industrialization make it worthwhile, climate change or not. Climate change has never been man’s main enemy. Climate dangers always have been, and today we are better protected and adaptable to climate dangers, such as extreme weather, than ever before. Overall, humans live safer, longer, healthier, more prosperous and enjoyable lives with climate change than they ever did before “carbon pollution” or climate change.

I am not proud of NJ’s “many initiatives on clean energy and recycling”—at least not policies that forcibly seize money from residents to fund the crony, “clean” or “renewable” energy and recycling corporate welfare industries.

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The debate over energy is not between “clean” and “dirty” energy. It’s between unreliable and reliable energy. The political push for unreliable energy like solar and wind, not “dirty” energy, is the big threat to humans.

Related Reading:

New Jersey Conservation Foundation vs. Our Life-Enhancing Energy Needs

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k_dorf’s Rebuttals to Mulshine on the ‘Climate Consensus’ Fall Flat

Turning a Subsidy into ‘Payment for a Value Delivered’: Corporate Welfare for NJ Solar Companies