In politics, one way to make your belief in alternative energy seem feasible is to make its competitors expensive. President Obama did that when he began to subsidize the domestic solar energy industry at unprecedented levels.(1) He brought in Dr. Stephen Chu, who had advocated $9-a-gallon gasoline, from inside his high-paying job in academia to be in charge of energy policy for Democrats. He was right in his agenda, solar could be feasible if its conventional energy competitors were forced to be 300% more expensive.

After $4 trillion in wasted subsidies and mandates, conventional energy share has barely changed, and the world is no less polluted, but that isn't the fault of the US. Our per capita usage is lower than World War II. It is even lower than World War I.



Solar and wind are mere gimmicks in that, the real reason is private sector efficiency. Companies don't want their profits going up in smoke so coal is much cleaner than when President Clinton forced more of it into use by banning nuclear energy development. Natural gas is even cleaner than that.

The problem is that we let President Obama and now Biden push his agenda onto developing nations. There are still 2 billion people out there using wood and dung for fuel in their homes. Those emissions are monumental. The obvious solution, unless you are an environmentalist or politician being paid by them, is centralized energy. The blockade to that is both Obama and Biden have refused loans for poor countries unless it is for solar and wind. 

They can afford coal and coal is clean enough that it would halt our emissions concerns if everyone switched to that from in-home wood. Dr. James Hansen, the Godfather of Global Warming, said cleaner coal was the only thing needed to halt emissions concern. The Clean Coal technology that exists right now. Instead, defying science, coastal states are banning natural gas stoves - to make solar more affordable, by making it the only choice.

The first rule of science policy is 'you never go full California.'(2) America has done just that, and it has contributed nothing except inflation and worse standards of living for the poor, while the government that did it brags about how well their elites are doing in the stock market.

The next president, Republican or Democrat, should stop squandering money on solar and wind gimmicks we know don't work, and gear up for nuclear energy in the US. That will drop our already low emissions even lower. And we should loan money to poor countries to buy centralized energy they can afford. Yes, that means coal. It also means much less wood, which means much cleaner air and better health for everyone at risk.

NOTES:

(1) Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got a huge $1.4 solar payout in thanks for all the fundraising he did in 2008.

(2) Even California has started to figure out they're the punchline of jokes, with the 80,000 cancer warning labels, hobos crapping on the streets, highest electricity costs, "Robocop" levels of crime, highest gasoline cost, and worse health care unless you're an illegal immigrant.