In the climate of the radical protest movement of the 1960s, Bob Dylan became America’s antiestablishment poet laureate. In fact, his song, Subterranean Homesick Blues, included that famous phrase about wind and weather that inspired the likes of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn to name their little group The Weather Underground.

The movement sort of blew up after that.

Sixty years later, the climate has changed. Now you rate as counterculture if you get a job, go to church, and raise a family in an unbroken two-parent household. If you want to beat the man, no longer do you turn on, tune in, and drop out. Instead, you gotta turn off, tune out, and drop in. . . on your neighbor for a barbecue.

Groovy, man.

(Don’t miss last week’s column: We Had to Invent a New Word For It)

This week we have another electric vehicle (EV) implosion story—two, in fact. We’ll never run out of those, it seems. We may have run out of wind, though—maybe we don’t need those climatologists after all. We also have another solar panels getting destroyed by the climate story, and you’ll never guess where. Meanwhile, the folks who said they’d take care of you after you bought your solar panels have ghosted folks all over the place.

One government ruled their climate plan illegal because it didn’t go far enough; another outlawed climate plans altogether. The establishment media had a fit, while us rebels with a cause laughed from our places of employment and scheduled another haircut.

Let’s get another hit of that good stuff, man.

While My EV Gently Weeps

Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) announced last week he would provide upwards of a billion dollars in state incentives to EV maker Rivian. These unhealthy incentives will help Rivian expand its plant in Normal, Ill. This despite Rivian’s rocky track record recently. Every EV they sell loses $43,000, and it’s already had two rounds of layoffs this year. That didn’t stop Pritzker from spending $1.5 million per job created with his obese incentives. According to reporting by WirePoints, that dwarfs job creation incentives in other jurisdictions, which range anywhere from $13,000 to $84,000 per job on a particularly juicy incentive.

Doesn’t sound like the leanest investment.

In other news, EVs continue to prove they can’t compete with real cars. A recent study showed the costs to operate various classes of cars per 1,000 miles driven:

• Hybrids: $3,056
• Gas Cars: $3,123
• Plug-In Hybrids: $4,351
• EVs: $5,108

EV owners may worry about range and spotty charging infrastructure, which could contribute to the smaller number of miles driven. The higher purchase price of each vehicle is spread over fewer miles, making them significantly more expensive to drive.

That’s right. Your gas-guzzling SUV performs much more efficiently than an EV, and only slightly exceeds the cost of driving a hybrid. The news will turn around for EVs any day now, though!

The Climate Answer Ain’t Blowin’ In The Wind

Wind energy has received enormous government subsidies from the Biden administration, as they look to alternative “green” energy to replace those filthy “fossil fuels.” So as we continue to build more and more wind mills, more of our power comes from green sources. Right?

Not so fast.

Wind power generation dropped by 2.1 per cent in 2023 from the previous year. The generation capacity—number of windmills—increased by 6.2 gigawatts in 2023, but the actual amount of power generated by wind went down. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) blamed slower wind speeds.

Must be all that global warming that .  . .  *checks notes* . . . made the weather milder?

Did We Build a Ship to Wreck?

Image via X/Twitter

The world’s largest floating solar panel farm was destroyed by a recent storm.

Wait, what? A floating solar farm?

Apparently Indian engineers thought the Omkareshwar Dam and reservoir, already producing hydroelectric power, made for the perfect site for a floating array of solar panels.

Nobody seems to have taken into account the weather, which destroyed the array. Don’t worry though, they’ll have it rebuilt soon.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

ZeroHedge sums it up perfectly this week: “The green new deal and switch to ‘alternative’ energy looks like it’s going exactly as planned: costing the taxpayer trillions of dollars and generally pissing everybody off.” Case in point: a local news piece in Baltimore highlighting consumers who jumped on the boom in solar panel installations a few years ago. Often advertised as coming with significant government subsidies and the ability to sell electricity back to the grid, consumers a few years later now feel hoodwinked:

Those interviewed shared experiences with various solar providers, each facing prolonged unresolved issues.

Tom Lucas, who installed solar panels in 2018, initially saw higher electricity production. Yet, by 2022, 20% of his system failed, leading to considerable losses. Despite having a 25-year warranty from Invaleon Solar Technologies, the issue remains unaddressed.

Lucas commented: “I’ve been totally ghosted. All I want is a working system. To me, even though I’m generating some electricity, it’s not right.”

Steve Pilotte, an early solar adopter, has experienced ongoing problems since 2009. His current provider, Sunrun, has been unresponsive in fixing an inverter issue that started in 2020, despite multiple technician visits.

“Once again, in 2022, I followed up with them. And then 2023. And January 2024. I’m totally lost. I’ve never experienced a situation like this in my life.”

Mike Rice, who leases from Spruce Power, saw his electricity costs drop significantly until 2023 when his meter malfunctioned. Despite the fault, Spruce has not compensated him for the energy lost during peak production times.

“No one called me to tell me my system is out. Not even credits. I’d just take credits so I can offset my future bills, but they won’t do that,” Rice said.

“I think they’re more interested in putting solar up than repairing it,” he concluded.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Now for some good news. The first item is more funny than anything else. The United Kingdom passed a law requiring it to cut carbon emissions by more than two-thirds by 2030. Radical environmental non-profits sued over the plan created by the Energy Secretary, saying current public policies have no hope of meeting that goal. The High Court ruled in favor of the envirowackos:

In a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Sheldon upheld four of the five grounds of the groups’ legal challenge, stating that the decision by the former energy security and net zero secretary Grant Shapps was “simply not justified by the evidence”.

The plan is unlawful, basically, because there’s no evidence that any of the UK’s policies will achieve any of their lofty goals. Now the UK gets to chase its tail for another year as it draws up yet another fanciful plan.

Florida, on the other hand, will soon sweep away the remaining remnants of the odious Charlie Crist era, when Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill that finishes off the repeal of renewable energy mandates. According to the AP, the bill eliminates silly requirements that government meetings be held in hotels certified as “green lodging,” and that government vehicles meet strict fuel efficiency standards. The bill passed the Republican-dominated Florida legislature overwhelmingly.