By I & I Editorial Board, Issues & Insights | October 23, 2024
A little more than a year ago, a New York Times headline proclaimed what so many have said is absolutely, undeniably so: “The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think.” Despite the story’s examples that were supposed to buttress the claims, reality tells a different story.
A recent analysis by Bloomberg found that “the fast money on Wall Street has taken a close look at key sectors in the green economy and decided to bet against them.”
“Despite vast green stimulus packages in the U.S., Europe, and China, more hedge funds are on average net short batteries, solar, electric vehicles, and hydrogen than are long those sectors; and more funds are net long fossil fuels than are shorting oil, gas, and coal.”
Hedge fund institutions have concluded, says Bloomberg, that “many climate investments” haven’t posted returns as quickly nor as profitably as they had expected.
Bloomberg’s sources blamed politics, both in the U.S. and abroad.
If so, we say good, because the green energy crusade has been driven solely by Democratic and progressive politics rather than rigorous research and compelling arguments. It’s about time that the skeptical side posted a few victories in trying to stop the wholly unnecessary climate agenda of the left.
It matters not to the political left that at least half the country, and maybe nearly half in Europe, is uncomfortable with the renewable energy shift that is being dropped on developed nations by the elites. Central planners are force-feeding Westerners a dish they don’t like, and investors have taken notice.
Could green energy’s declining popularity be tied to its high costs? That’s a factor. The Energy Department’s own data, entered last week into the Federal Register, shows that electricity, much of it generated by wind and solar, is more than three times as expensive as natural gas, an out-of-favor-with-the-elites fossil fuel.
Are the intermittence and unreliability of wind and solar also factors? Of course. Americans don’t want to live a Third World existence in which energy production and delivery are substandard.
Do the climate skeptics and “holdouts” — we would place ourselves solidly in both groups — also resent being told that they must comply with the commands of their betters? Those who aren’t looking to impress their friends, neighbors, and strangers with their green street cred, who simply want to live their lives, and in many cases just getting by, are justifiably offended by our ruling class.
If green energy were an unalloyed advancement and a can’t-miss investment, then it wouldn’t need the hundreds of billions in taxpayers’ dollars that have been poured into it. Governments wouldn’t have to set deadlines for transitioning to zero-emission power grids and all-electric vehicle fleets if the evidence of the goodness of renewables were undeniable. There’d be no reason for “government dictates and the confiscation and redistribution of people’s money.”
Renewable energy isn’t so much green as it is red, the color flown by communist governments and violent leftist movements since the late 19th century.
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists of the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day – without fear or favor.
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