Renewables Subsidies and the Institutionalization of Irresponsibility

Renewables Subsidies and the Institutionalization of Irresponsibility
Virgin Islands National Park. National Park Service
Benjamin Zycher
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Commentary
The joy of spending huge amounts of tax dollars—Other People’s Money—is a truth obvious and eternal, but the corrupting effects of a systemwide shift toward such subventions are more subtle, and vastly more destructive. That is a central implication of the massive policy favoritism now directed toward unconventional electricity—hugely expensiveunreliable, and environmentally destructive—yielding such utterly perverse results as those now manifest in California, the northeast United Statesand Europe. The corrupting effects are illustrated well by the ongoing adverse cost realities, financial mismanagement, and politicized machinations afflicting the Water and Power Authority (WAPA) of the U.S. Virgin Islands. A tempest in a teapot, you say? Not so fast.