With gas prices up 50% in the last year, natural gas more than double its pre-pandemic price, and electricity price hikes far outpacing the official inflation rate, Democrats argue that there’s no time like right now to switch to alternative energy sources.
About that.
The US Solar Supply Chain is Under Attack.
Before we get to the attack, a little background.
Earlier this month, when Russia’s Ukraine invasion was sputtering and Presidentish Joe Biden’s sanctions were rocking the world’s oil supplies, our Coot-in-Chief had the nerve to tweet out this:
This crisis is a stark reminder: To protect our economy over the long term, we need to become energy independent.
It should motivate us to accelerate our transition to a clean energy future.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 9, 2022
I joked — bitterly — that “this asshat’s version of energy independence is powering everything with batteries made from China-sourced materials charged by power plants he won’t let us build.”
That was just about our switchover to electric vehicles, something already mandated in two of our largest states — California and New York — by 2035.
Banning traditional car and truck engines certainly would eliminate most of our oil needs, and who cares, aside from actual hardworking Americans, if EVs don’t suit everyone’s needs or tastes?
Most of our electricity comes from natural gas and coal, and replacing those is where wind and solar power are supposed to come in.
We’ll discuss the problems with wind another day, but when it comes to solar, government efforts to get us to go “green” just hit another concrete wall at high speed:
Over the last six months, the U.S. solar supply chain has been subject to not one, but two, attacks perpetrated by companies attempting to leverage trade laws for their own self-interest when those laws were meant to protect the public interest.
Caveat: Trade laws are almost always enacted for the benefit of traders, not the public. Whether it comes down to rent-seeking or regulatory capture (or both), big laws are not written for little people.
The authors of this piece seem to be all-in on all the Green Nude Eel stuff, so try to ignore the window dressing and pay attention instead to the view:
The latest effort at gaming the system is a circumvention filing by Auxin Solar to the Department of Commerce. Their filing claims that certain solar panel parts originate from countries that should be subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on their importation. A very similar claim was made and rejected last year, but as long as the system entertains these claims, they will keep coming.
The country in question is Communist China, so there’s likely a very good case to be made that there’s dumping going on.
Regardless, the authors warn that “if the complainant is successful, solar energy will become as much as two to three times more expensive than it was just one year ago.”
And it isn’t like solar was exactly cheap last year.
Meanwhile, here’s a timely flashback to that time, long ago and far away, when the Media-Government Complex was still actively suppressing the Hunter Biden Laptop from Hell story:
"Move ahead"
Here is the email where Hunter Biden's team outlines their strategy to employ lobbyist in DC to help shape US policy toward Burisma's interests
It is clear this is the sole reason Hunter was employed pic.twitter.com/sjQJti0XeS
— Metabiota Poso🧬 (@JackPosobiec) October 25, 2020
While Democrats were gearing up to take power and renew their war against our pre-existing energy independence won under Donald Trump, the son of the Democrats’ presidential nominee had long been lobbying for favorable terms for a Ukrainian energy firm.
America’s traditional energy producers, suffice it to say, probably aren’t bigtime Democrats, and haven’t been for at least two generations. That’s how long Democrats have been at war with oil and coal, and now even natural gas.
But foreign interests like Burisma can provide big bucks to the right people passing the right laws and imposing the right regulations on American frackers and drillers and miners.
Also for our VIPs: Florida Man Friday: Trapped in Port-a-Potty, Caught With More Than His Pants Down
Punishing Republicans while enriching Democrats is a win-win for Democrats.
And if the country as a whole is worse off, so what?
Washington Democrats haven’t given a damn about the American commonweal since about 1968, and it shows.
