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The Benjamins Always Decide [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-16

Money speaks, but sometimes we don’t listen.

One of the great benefits of our capitalistic system is that competition between firms improves the products and lowers the prices — unless government favors one side over another.

The world seems to be entering a period of transition in fuel types similar to changes we have gone through in the past. The history of England gives the clearest example: First, wood was replaced by coal. Coal by fuel oil and then by Methane. Crude oil was the source of gasoline and diesel fuels from the first auto to today. Now renewables, various sources of electricity, are coming to the fore.

The Great One in DC clearly favors coal, oil and methane over the renewables. He has cancelled the subsidies allowed for solar and wind power, but he retained the substantial handouts awarded to his favorite energy sources. In this great step backwards, can he succeed?

Renewables already have considerable economic momentum. Installing new solar and wind is proven to be more cost effective than continuing a coal fired power plant. Texas, the great powerhouse of oil production and processing, has one of the largest solar installations in the country. Wind power has a strong presence there as well. Those in charge there may be pig headed, but they are not fools. Saudi Arabia, that great fountain of oil, is planning to build one of the largest solar energy plants on the planet. Their intent is to sell the electricity to Europe. It appears that they have seen the future.

Seventy percent of oil production is burned in vehicles. The cost for gasoline is high and will continue to rise as the supply of oil gets smaller. On the other hand, the cost for renewables has declined and will continue down due to technical advances. Battery powered cars will decrease in price and cost of operation as the tremendous efforts in battery design bring us advanced products. This opens up an opportunity to replace one fuel with another smoothly over a number of years. However, the Big Man has made his choice. He is sure he can contain the economic pressure and save a declining industry. His great step backwards may succeed for a while, but in time the Benjamins will have their say.

The push to renew nuclear (Uranium fission) is on everyone’s lips, but the reason why we abandoned it in the first place seems to have been forgotten. Conventional nuclear is preposterously expensive and dangerous. The power companies favor it because it is expensive. They are rewarded in proportion to how much it costs to produce the electricity, not for how much actual wattage they produce. The safety record seems impressive when we consider countries like France which has made a solid commitment to nuclear and has had no accidents of note. This narrow view ignores the fact that whenever an accident does occur, the results are catastrophic. As example, the disaster at Chernobyl not only destroyed the reactor and killed many people, but 40% of prime farmland in Belarus, a neighboring country, is contaminated and might not be safe to use for agriculture for a century. Japan had a similar loss from the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi. The proponents of nuclear energy either look the other way or consider this to be merely collateral damage. However, when we consider all the potential costs, the Benjamins would hardly approve.

The greatest advantage of renewables seems to be forgotten in the rush. With renewables, THE FUEL IS FREE. Further, the source of the power is wholly domestically produced. We won’t have to worry about the Strait of Hormuz. We won’t have to wonder which oil producing country will try to manipulate the market. We won’t have to be concerned that many of the sources of Uranium are found in countries which don’t like us very much. The environmental consequences are supremely favorable for renewables, but the Big Man and his buddies don’t care about them. As long as there are profits to be made, they are content to leave their mess to succeeding generations to clean up.

There are a few more interesting developments which may have a positive bearing on our futures:

1) Methane, as a power source may have greater longevity than the others, but one recent finding may prove to be important. At several locations, massive amounts of Hydrogen have been found, and modern methods seem to be capable of harvesting it. This product has been located under certain geological settings which can be found in the U.S. Much of the existing piping systems which transport Methane could be used to distribute the Hydrogen. In homes the changeover from Methane would be easy and inexpensive. Usually, it would only be necessary to change the burners in water heaters, space heaters, and other appliances using gas. Hydrogen can also be used in a fuel cell to generate electricity. Use of this gas is a new concept, but it bears watching. There certainly would be problems to be overcome, but the advantages would be great.

Although the changeover from Methane to Hydrogen would entail some costs, the long-term advantages would outweigh them. Carbon Dioxide and Methane are both powerful greenhouse gasses, and the result of combustion of Hydrogen is water vapor which would shortly fall as rain. The Benjamins would smile on this endeavor because the means to get the Hydrogen would open up new, large business opportunities.

There are two uses for Methane which might persist. The production of Portland cement uses huge amounts of this fuel in giant rotary kilns. It is unclear whether Hydrogen could be substituted for this use. More important, Methane is used to produce Nitrogen fertilizer, predominately Ammonium Nitrate. This chemical is essential for high productivity in agriculture, and there seems to be no effective substitute.

2) Potential sources of Rare Earth Minerals have been recently discovered in the weathered remains of ancient, iron rich volcanos. One such crater is located at the border of Oregon and Nevada. This would be a domestic source, and Americans would have first chance at the jobs. A second unexpected potential source of these minerals is in coal ash, a waste product of coal burning which has accumulated in huge piles near some power plants. The Benjamins are smiling and could offer great profit to whomever knows a good business opportunity when he sees it. Foreign suppliers would become irrelevant.

It is not the job of government to prop up dying, expensive, and dangerous fuel sources when the future can offer us a world which is so much better. The propositions listed above could be secured by the unimpeded profit motive alone, but the course advanced by the crew in Washington and their Fearless Leader would only be throwing money away to prop up the worst options, in an inglorious retreat into the past.

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