Approaches to green energy are diverging on opposing sides of the Atlantic as the incumbent US administration presses expensively forward and European governments come to their senses.
Accepting the Democratic Party's nomination to run for reelection, President Barack Obama promised to keep mandating and subsidizing the US toward what his administration regularly calls "the 21st-century energy economy." In Europe, governments are retreating from command-and-control energy strategies. On Sept. 6, Obama recommitted the US to "a future where we keep investing in wind and solar and clean coal." On Sept. 4, UK Prime Minister David Cameron steered his coalition administration away from a 2010 promise to be "the greenest government ever." Obama has presided over a program of subsidies and support for renewable energy worth a total of $14.7 billion in 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration. That's nearly 40% of all support for all energy forms. It's more than five times EIA's estimate of the value of federal support for oil and gas, which supply more than seven times the energy.
And Obama wants to discourage oil and gas use with taxation to make room for even more energy that already costs taxpayers so much.
The UK apparently has had enough of its version of this folly, with heavy subsidization by consumers of renewable energy and a costly effort to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. A rush for green glory has raised UK electricity costs and promises soon to make them among the highest in Europe. In a cabinet shakeup, Cameron ousted the energy and environment ministers administering this sacrifice. The new energy minister, John Hayes, and environment minister, Owen Paterson, have openly opposed wind farms.
Partly because Paterson also has criticized energy subsidies and supported drilling in shale, the changes imply that the government will allow now-suspended hydraulic fracturing to proceed and reemphasize natural gas. Cameron, like other European leaders, has decided to quit spending too much money for too little energy. Obama remains stuck in 21st-century delirium.
