Renewable energy was and still is cheaper than oil.  The problem is ideology fostered by undemocratic exploitation of marginalized consumers.  I do not expect change until grassroots rebellion demands democratic control over energy supply.  The destruction of Earth is not a private affair.

Need a couple billion for a large alternative energy project? Fuggetaboutit! Unless you have tons of cash, preferably in Euros or some high-value currency, you can't borrow money as well as the old days. This effect even impacts the coalers ... but will definitely not help the solar, wind, water, and geo-thermal technologies.  

Why?  My impression if that a bunch of loose cash ended up on the commodity markets such as crude, corn, gold, and similar goods. Unfortunately, most of the clean alternative technologies aren't even a physical commodity (can I buy some "sun" today?). Some losers have big long on $200 crude oil and others have shorted if to about 70. It's just a legal form of gambling that does not contribute to the economy - but does drive up energy prices, unfortunately.

And sorry, cap-n-trade CO2 credits are not a commodity.

Funny, as we hear about all kinds of really neat clean technology, we have less money to make it work. It is not a healthy sign and could delay action on Climate Change for at least a year to come.  /sam

Onward through the fog

It makes us look bad, playing right into the hands of those who say we hate america.

Rather, we should decry the economic and personal family financial destruction wrought, proposing the green energy and job alternative to lower energy prices and pull us out of this oily morrass of endless war and boom/bust cycles.

Play off the high prices, offer solutions.  Don't propose more taxes.  in fact the high energy prices should be framed as a kind of tax, going to multinational corporations and terrorist supporting nations, that kills global economic growth.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Energy up 49 percent
Industrial metals up 21 percent
Precious metals up 48 percent
Agricultural up 59 percent.

To get an idea of how energy is doing around the world, you have to see what they did against the Euro, Yen and Pound.

The problem with renewables is they that a lot of industrial metals to make.  Anything newly built is going to have a hard time competing with things that are already built.   Renewables may not be helped at all.  

What is still needed is a carbon tax or any individual utility or business can't justify spending extra money on non-carbon energy, even if it would save the world.   Their bottom line is profits, not saving the world, however good a goal that might be.   If they go out of business, there isn't a lot of world saving that they can do.

I wish people wouldn't say that oil price increases are like a tax.   Oil price increases are worse than a tax.    At least if I am paying a tax, like property taxes, I get some wanted government service with that.   When we pay higher prices for oil, somebody from some other country gets the money, not us.  

Aw chit, you didn't think about that, did you?  You want to drive it up to five and get run out of town with shotguns and sharp sticks?

And let's face it. there's nothing in our energy policy to make the cost of gasoline or diesel go down.  Nothing.  Nixon and Carter tried rationing and ha, look what it did for them.

So, tell me what you want to propose to do.  Screw the poor and the middle class so you can make a point about not using the stuff?  Wow, you must be a Stamford grad.  

Or an Aggie.  (Wink-wind, nod-nod, humor is here.)

Onward through the fog

Carbon tax mat be harder to get...but windfall or profit taxes will start to look mighty shiny to many politicians.

'Specially if they say the windfall tax will go for renewable energy development and help lower incomes cover energy costs.

But against that - as some commenters have noted - expensive energy prices makes all things that have expensive production costs competitive.  10 years ago, when oil was touching $10/bbl, there was talk of shutting down North Sea oil rigs, because they couldn't make any money when oil fell below their $9/bbl production cost.  Today, those rigs are booming - as are tar sand operations that don't pencil out unless oil prices are higher than their $50/bbl production costs (in part because it's so damn energy-intensive to produce the stuff.)  This isn't good environmentally, but does point out that there is lots of (good and bad) stuff out there which will come on line given a sufficient price signal.  Green tech is one beneficiary, but far from the only one.

The other thing that bears watching is how much this is hammering the industrial sector.  I am of the opinion that we blame differential labor costs too much for the flood of manufacturing to the Far East: differential energy costs are as or more important, especially once you realize that labor is a pretty small component of the operating cost profile for a lot of the industries that have fled overseas.  (For example, the fertilizer business has basically abandoned the US due to natural gas costs.)  Big industrials may not make good neighbors, but they do make good employers - providing good jobs for a much broader swathe of the economy than the hedge funds & walmarts that we are replacing them with.  And it's not like we're losing our taste for manufactured goods - we're simply shipping it in from elsewhere.  

On balance, I think we root for high energy costs at our peril, because the costs to the mfg sector  are disastrous for the economy - and the environment - in the long-term.