This week, the Biden administration has halted the approval of new licences to export US liquefied natural gas (LNG), a moratorium that is likely to alter billions-dollar projects plans, according to Reuters.
This decision will already mean increased coal consumption in Germany and a global problem in an already tense market such as that of LNG.
However, I would like to quote the New York Times, which explains to us the extremely technical and industrial process that has been used to make such a decision.
Quote: “Before the decision, White House climate advisers met with activists such as Alex Haraus, a 25-year-old Colorado social media influencer who led a TikTok and Instagram campaign to urge young voters to demand that Biden reject the project”; Fascinating.
This is just one example of a larger problem. Stupidity reigns in the world of energy policy.
In the hands of sectarians
We live in a time when a bunch of sectarians who don’t understand anything about industry, energy and competitiveness influence populist politicians who make decisions without the slightest knowledge by assigning a kind of “ideology” to energy sources without understanding the complex chains that facilitate the transition.
We live in a world where a sixteen-year-old climate activist captured the minds of politicians by traveling from the UK to America by boat to avoid pollution only to send the crew by plane to bring the boat back.
We are in the hands of sectarians who think that solar and wind power are manufactured with dreams and installed by singing John Lennon songs
Even in China, they hallucinate with a West that wants competitive, cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly energy, but refuses to mine rare earths, lithium, and prefers to slow down its decarbonization process and burn coal rather than develop renewable fuels or use natural gas or nuclear energy, which is essential for a competitive energy transition.
In fact, we are in the hands of sectarians who think that solar and wind power are manufactured with dreams and installed by singing John Lennon songs.
I don't care if this group of disoriented people has good intentions. Hell is full of good intentions. What worries me is that political leaders will destroy any capacity to strengthen the energy industry using rationality.
The combination of arrogance and ignorance
Why do they do that? Because they do not suffer the consequences and because they only use the excuse of climate change and energy transition to impose restrictions on citizens and limit the freedom of individuals.
Activists know that their actions generate more negative effects than positive ones, and that they are threatening security of supply and a competitive transition, but they do not care because their objective is to impose on us supply restrictions and demand destruction while politicians fly private to inform us that coffee drinking is bad for climate. You and I care about the environment, they care about control and repression.
The combination of arrogance and ignorance is expensive and does not accelerate investment and technological development, but rather slows them down.
Activism has made coal, which had almost disappeared from the energy matrix, to return to Europe with a vengeance - Daniel Lacalle
Instead of listening to the companies and engineers, who are the ones who invest and solve the problems that the decarbonization process entails, they are penalised, insulted, and given the power of decision to people who believe that our future should be to return to the prehistoric era (it is not a joke) while flying in private jets announcing the climate emergency.
Anyone would understand that if we want to advance technology, energy independence and at the same time ensure affordable and continuous supply, we need to facilitate investment, provide companies with a stable and predictable regulation, taxation and legal framework, and maximize the return on investments already made as we develop all the technologies that will help us as new forms of storage, production and transmission become industrially viable.
You may believe that thanks to activism, progress is being made in the energy transition.
The reality is that activism has made coal, which had almost disappeared from the energy matrix, to return to Europe with a vengeance, and on the way they have achieved higher consumer tariffs. Socialism always destroys what it pretends to protect.
