Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

President Biden tonight claimed his legislation would lower energy costs by subsidizing renewables, but that’s obviously wrong: renewables make electricity expensive everywhere

Worse, Biden is proposing to double down on the same policies that empowered Putin to invade Ukraine

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1498693978446729219

Renewables make electricity expensive bc they are inherently unreliable & require 100% back-up power

Renewables made California electricity prices rise 7x more than the rest of the US

And renewables made Germany’s electricity the most expensive, and Russia-dependent, in Europe

Biden said his legislation would “cut energy costs for families an ave. of $500/year by combating climate change” w/ “tax credits to weatherize your home & business to be energy-efficient. Double America's clean energy production in solar, wind… Lower price of electric vehicles”

But the efficiency subsidies Biden wants were tried & cost 2x more than they delivered in savings

NYT: “Weatherization improvements cost more than 2x energy savings. Even after including the social benefits from less pollution, it was still a bad deal”

nytimes.com/2015/06/24/bus…

Bloomberg reports that Biden’s "estimate of savings is based on an analysis by @rhodium_group that said clean energy tax credits, investments in efficiency and other changes... will help consumers financially."

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

I have cited Rhodium in the past. It was the energy analysis firm which was the first to note that US emissions declined 22% between 2005 and 2020, which was 5 percentage points more than the US promised to under Paris climate agreement.

rhg.com/research/preli…

But @rhodium_group report is deliberately misleading.

Rhodium says the Biden legislation’s “investments in energy efficiency reduce the amount of energy consumers use to heat their homes, get to work, and power office buildings.”

rhg.com/wp-content/upl…

If the policies Biden is proposing reduced energy costs, then the legislation wouldn’t be necessary, because the market would already be doing it.

Rhodium claims, “tax credits... subsidize compliance and reduce the amount of costs passed on to consumers”

But if there weren't new legislation there would be no cost of compliance

And so the legislation can’t claim to reduce the cost of compliance.

Rhodium claims, "tax credits included in the congressional budget package subsidize compliance and reduce the amount of costs passed on to consumers. Instead, these compliance costs are shifted from consumers to the federal treasury."

Cost-shifting is not cost-cutting.

If the subsidies make costly, unreliable forms of electricity seem attractive to build, the taxpayer will foot the bill for investment that makes energy more expensive overall.

Dissipating higher energy costs through the tax-base doesn't change the underlying increase in energy costs.

The Biden Compliance Tax would increase the cost of energy to society with the hopes that nothing goes wrong to cause higher prices to reappear at the meter or the pump,

Rhodium says the Biden bill will “lower nat gas demand" & thus "lower nat gas prices," but lower demand doesn’t inevitably result in lower prices.

If the supply of gas goes down more than demand, prices can skyrocket.

Rhodium might respond by saying, “All else being equal,” but it doesn’t say that in the report. It simply asserts one possibility over another possibility.

And right now is a truly wild time to claim “All else being equal.” We are in the worst energy crisis since 1973.

Why? Because the West repressed oil and gas production and shut down nuclear plants, allowing Europe to become over-dependent on Russia

bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-wests-gr…

Anti-energy, pro-scarcity activists repressed oil and gas production around the world, driving down supply, driving up prices, and increasing the use of coal

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/how-climate-…

“It looks like there is only one substantive sentence about climate change in this entire speech,” noted @coraldavenport @nytimes “amazing for a president who campaigned on the most ambitious climate change agenda in U.S. history."

nytimes.com/live/2022/03/0…

"One year ago, Biden promised that the US would cut emissions in half by the end of the decade. At the moment, there is no policy in place to do that and Biden is saying nothing here about how his administration will meet that target.” @CoralMDavenport

nytimes.com/live/2022/03/0…

Biden’s advisors know that voters know that climate policies will increase energy prices, and that rising energy prices are contributing significantly to economy-wide inflation.

Now, oil prices could hit $200. Higher energy prices could cause a recession.

Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call

Biden pulled back from apocalyptic climate rhetoric, but not from inflationary energy policies

It's time for the West to put energy production on wartime footing & break from the anti-energy policies that empowered Putin

/END

"Manchin pours cold water on Biden effort to revive elements of Build Back Better"

https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1498861738934083586?s=20&t=W2U16l2GYazJF6cA6TUckQ