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gunter: 'green' energy transition proving to be costly disaster
the past 14 days have been a tough fortnight for those ...
aug 13 2024
3 minute read
u.s. treasury secretary janet yellen speaks during the announcement of the amazon region initiative against illicit finance to combat nature crimes, a partnership with the amazon basin countries of brazil, colombia, ecuador, guyana, peru and suriname, at a meeting in belem, brazil, on july 27, 2024.
thiago gomes
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afp via getty images
the past 14 days have been a tough fortnight for those who, like our federal liberal government, have a cultish obsession with saving the planet through a transition to “green” energy.
the news since the beginning of the month is that electric vehicle sales continue to soften, the cost of the global transition to alternate energy will be many trillions (yes, trillions) more than anyone has admitted and the measures implemented thus far, at great expense already, have had little impact on emissions or fossil fuel use, both of which are up in the past decade.
at least in the western world, the “green” movement has basically been a parlour game by “progressive” elites funded at great cost by consumers and taxpayers (who are usually one and the same people.)
within the past two weeks, auto giant ford has announced it’s converting a plant in oakville from making evs to producing oversized, internal-combustion pickup trucks because there is no market for the evs and lots of demand for heavy duty trucks.
quebec’s lion electric, which hopes to produce all-electric highway transports and buses, announced it was laying off 300 workers on top of the 220 it had laid off in february and april. its shares are now in penny stock territory.
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umicore, an ev battery maker, suspended construction of its $2.8-billion plant in eastern ontario despite $1 billion in subsidies from ottawa and queen’s park.
and northvolt, which last year announced a possible delay in the construction of its $3-billion plant in quebec, announced in the last month that it was conducting a “strategic review” of its entire ev operations.
now that wealthier consumers have purchased their ev toys and status symbols, middle-class buyers are not jumping into the pricier, less-reliable, inconvenient-to-charge ev market in the numbers government planners and environmentalists had predicted.
at a speech in ottawa this week, prime minister justin trudeau insisted the $33 billion his government has spent on ev battery and car plants (along with $19 billion or $20 billion from ontario and quebec) was money well spent. it will ensure canada is at the forefront of the coming ev boom.
but what if the ev boom never materializes? government planners are often lousy predictors of future trends and technologies. we could be pumping tens of billions — hundreds of billions — into alternate energies that never become more than peripheral players in canada’s energy supply just to satisfy the eco-fantasies of the trudeau liberals and their pals in the environmental movement.
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then along came janet yellen, the u.s. treasury secretary. speaking in brazil, where she was sure to attract less media coverage, yellen claimed the energy transition, which the biden administration fully backs, will cost globally at least $4.1 trillion a year for the next 25 years. cumulatively, that’s well over $100 trillion.
that’s 3% of worldwide production of all goods and services every year just for the transition to alternate energy. it’s a staggering number and one that is unlikely to be reached.
no wonder surveys by natural resources canada unveiled this week show most canadians are worried about the cost of the energy transition for their families and convinced government initiatives to encourage consumers to buy such things as evs and solar panels “favour higher-income households,” which is largely true.
monica gattinger, who directs the university of ottawa’s institute for science, society and policy, told the national post that the public is mostly accepting of the transition, but wants to know “who pays for what, when and how?”
while the transition to “green” energy may be complicated and unattainable, the answer to that question is simple: you pay.
either as consumers or as taxpayers, and likely as both, it will be your family income that pays for the $100 trillion in eco-fantasies.
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