The billions of people who live in developing countries do NOT benefit from government subsidies.
Guest essay, co-authored by Ronald Stone, Oliver Hemmers, And Steve Curtis
When governments do business, citizens begin to suffer. When governments support laws that promote a level economic playing field for all in a free enterprise system, citizens prosper. A good example of this is the United States. Under the system of free enterprise, this small coalition of just over 13 different colonies developed into the most impressive industrial power in the world in just over 100 years.
Under the current system, in which government spending picks winners and losers in the business world and employs large numbers of people, we have accumulated an unsustainable debt of more than $100,000 per person. This goes beyond the personal debts that burden our citizens today. However, there are still advocates who want to convert personal debt into national debt and further burden our descendants. This can't end well.
The poorest Americans are richer than most of humanity. Of the eight billion people currently living on this planet, more than five billion live on less than $10.00 a day, nearly half of the world – over three billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day. Dollars per day and billions have little or no access to electricity. This is the advantage of dictatorships and oligarchies disguised as democratic republics that control these disadvantaged people.
The most important goods we have today are fossil fuel products and fuels that did not exist 200 years ago. Oil produces raw materials for more than 6,000 products in various industries that are in demand by the 8 billion people on this planet. Without oil, all of our products would be much more expensive.
The fossil fuel industry also provides fuels for transportation. Today we have more than 50,000 merchant ships, more than 20,000 commercial aircraft and more than 50,000 military aircraft that use fuel made from crude oil. The fuel for the heavy and long-range needs of jets that carry people and products, the merchant ships that power global trade flows, and the military and space programs also depend on what can be made from crude oil. These fuels also power the world's 1.4 billion cars and the 14 million trucks registered worldwide.
The second most important commodity we have today is electricity. It is the perfect asset that can be controlled at the national level to increase the oppression of its citizens. Subsidies for continuous, uninterrupted and dispatchable electricity from coal, natural gas and nuclear energy apply ONLY to electricity, the same electricity that CANNOT exist without the products and components made from oil derivatives of fossil fuels. Subsidies help control electricity production so that it remains scarce and expensive.
Most electricity is generated with coal and natural gas. Natural gas is replacing coal, but beyond that, not much has changed in the mix, despite the massive subsidies that have flowed into the coffers of those willing to ditch inefficient and expensive power generation in favor of low-cost and abundant sources. This is reflected in the fact that coal and natural gas produce 95% or more of the share of electricity they did just a decade ago. Renewable energy subsidies have caused electricity costs in some countries to double or triple compared to a decade ago, even as air quality has suffered over the same period.
Yet many advocate ridding the world of coal, natural gas and oil, no matter how much it costs people. Perhaps we should reconsider this radical and expensive transition. Remember that you, the citizens, pay for all government spending, including the cost of electricity generation infrastructure, whether in the form of taxes or direct electricity bills.
We all know that special interests financially support government decision-makers, and therefore government policy financially supports special interests with subsidies. The press portrays these subsidies as “free money” and we seem to ignore that this money actually comes from poor people and their children. If rich people paid the taxes, they wouldn't stay rich, so the taxes have to come from somewhere.
Since subsidies come from all of us, perhaps we should be careful how we use them. It turns out that most of the subsidies go to foreign companies, many of which support the exploitation of slave labor to mine “green” minerals and metals to produce windmills, solar panels and batteries for electric vehicles, as well as the environmental degradation of “their” landscapes to increase mandated electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels in “our backyards”!
We also pay foreign companies for installation. This reality reveals the imperialist nature of US policies, which exploit the world's poor people to fuel our desire for luxury. This is obviously immoral.
The “renewable” industries would disappear without US government subsidies.
Ironically, allowing free enterprise competition in the provision of your electricity would result in far lower costs to the consumer, as is the case with all products. In fact, nuclear energy is the cheapest and least expensive way to generate electricity if all subsidies are eliminated. This was proven worldwide in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, China is the world leader in the production of new nuclear power plants. Do they see something the rest of the world doesn't?
How do countries justify the personal power and control of their citizens through a subsidy process that takes money away from their citizens to produce an inferior product and increases their daily spending?
Since the United States led the way in all technological advances during the Industrial Revolution that began in the mid-to-late 19th century, it makes sense that we lead the rest of the world in producing cheap, clean energy using nuclear power. One way to do this would be to ask individual state governors to show the federal government how it's done. Compete in the production and delivery of electricity as our citizens demand from the long distance industry. After all, how would your life be better with competitive electricity at a penny per kWh than with the possibility of data centers offering electricity at a dollar per kWh if production remained the same while their demand skyrocketed?
If people understand the possibilities, the transition to nuclear energy will occur quickly. The transition should occur without eliminating cheap electricity generation from natural gas and coal until the market drives the transition to nuclear energy. Imagine the enormous improvement in the quality of life worldwide if every household was supplied with easily affordable electricity.
If the United States does not lead with a “new nuclear posture for a hungry world,” fully supported by Oliver Stone’s 105-minute film NUCLEAR NOW, our adversaries will.
Ronald Stein PE
Ambassador for Energy and Infrastructure, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations,” policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and national TV commentator on energy and infrastructure with Rick Amato .
Ronald Stein, PE is an engineer, energy consultant, speaker, author of books and articles on energy, environmental policy and human rights, and founder of PTS Advance, a California-based company.
Ron advocates that energy literacy begins with the knowledge that since wind turbines and solar panels cannot produce anything for the 8 billion people on this planet, renewable energy is just intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine.
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