Is clean energy being set up to fail?

It’s not completely in tinfoil hat territory to question whether there are forces out there that would like to see clean energy fail.

We’ve already seen forces like these at work in the climate-change realm, where support for action has dwindled considerably since the 2009 email hacking controversy gave renewed PR power to “skeptics.” And the connection between climate change denial and the fossil-fuel industry has been extensively documented in books like Merchants of Doubt and Climate Cover-Up. Could similar efforts aim to derail clean energy development?

Consider some of the reasons for concern:

• Conservative MPs in Britain are calling for the government to slash subsidies for wind energy development, and plans for several wind farms have been — as the Guardian puts it — “quietly shelved.” Complaints about subsidies for renewables, though, ignore the fact that oil, coal, gas and nuclear subsidies that have been around for decades far outweigh incentives for clean energy.
• US Republicans, typically quick to “support the troops,” are openly and aggressively questioning the military’s efforts to adopt clean-energy technologies and labeling green Defense Department programs as politically motivated. Asked about tests of renewable, though more costly, biofuels, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said during a recent budget hearing, “I think we would be irresponsible if we did not reduce our dependence on foreign oil and if we did not reduce the price shocks that come with the global oil market.”
• As home energy bills in the UK skyrocketed last year, one BBC television program laid the blame on “eye-wateringly expensive” wind turbines, even as the nation’s own energy regulator, Ofgem, noted clearly that rising global oil and gas prices were responsible.
• Austerity-minded governments around the world have been quick to cut support for solar energy and other renewables. As oil prices have shot up, however, how have leaders — actual or would-be — responded? With calls for more “drill, baby, drill,”first-time-in-decades approval of new nuclear plants and proposals to end gas-tax revenue support for public transit.

Then there’s simply the long-time, repeated inability by decision-makers to hear what so many scientists, experts and NGOs keep telling them: that a greener economy is, in the long run, a much better one.

The latest report extolling the virtues of energy efficiency blames the problem on a “lack of political will” and a “fossil-fuel economy mindset”:

“(T)he transformation to renewables — and hence to an energy efficient economy — is made much more difficult than it should be by continuing subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear power that reflect the priorities of half a century ago not of today.”