Is Clean Energy an Impossible Dream? | Peter Van Doren, Jerry Taylor | Cato Institute

Is Clean Energy an Impossible Dream? | Peter Van Doren, Jerry Taylor | Cato Institute: "If clean energy is the energy of future, then it’s news to the analysts within the Obama administration. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) — the analytic arm of the U.S. Department of Energy — predicts that renewable energy (excluding liquid biofuels like ethanol which are, at present, as carbon-intensive as crude oil) will rise from 8 percent of total U.S. energy consumption today to a grand total of 11 percent in 2040. Moreover, that modest gain in market share is not expected to come from improvements in clean energy’s ability to compete with fossil fuels. No, the EIA believes that this anemic growth stems “mainly from the implementation of … state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) programs for electricity generation” (that is, state programs that simply dictate that a certain amount of renewables are produced regardless of cost)."

"Even on the eve of a revolution in hydraulic fracturing, few forecasters saw anything but sky-high natural gas prices as far as the eye could see."

"carbon-rich fuels continue to give way — as they have historically — to hydrogen-rich fuels. Yesterday, it was coal displacing biomass, then oil displacing coal. Today, it’s natural gas displacing oil and coal. Tomorrow, it will likely be hydrogen displacing natural gas."

"the two instances in which the federal government has made Herculean efforts to turn ugly energy ducks into beautiful economic swans — nuclear energy and corn ethanol — have failed spectacularly despite decades of concentrated political effort and tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer assistance. Nuclear energy and corn ethanol continue to be so uncompetitive that, absent continuing government subsidy, those industries would largely disappear. There’s no reason to think that throwing the same effort into clean energy will turn out any differently."