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• Carbon Credits Fall Out of Favor. It’s Big Oil’s F …

• California Saddles Taxpayers with $8.5-Bln Solar B …

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Carbon Credits Fall Out of Favor. It’s Big Oil’s Fault.

Carbon credits have a lot of fans.

They let companies offset their emissions by buying such credits.

That’s all good… unless the companies produce oil and gas.

A greenwashing scam

Carbon credits are simple.

You emit, but you offset tour emissions by buying credits for, say, a tropical forest.

The seller guarantees no trees will be cut in that forest.

Those trees absorb a certain amount of carbon, and everyone’s happy.

But now it has dawned on activists that Big Oil has the most to gain from this scheme.

So, carbon credits have now become a bad thing.

And they’re getting some really bad publicity.

Some of it is deserved.

Some schemes were found to not offset any emissions.

The credits weren’t worth the paper they were (not) written on.

But now the whole idea is being called greenwashing.

All because the oil industry wanted to use it to cut its own emissions.

Whatever Big Oil does is wrong, even when it’s right.

That’s the thinking that we’re up against.

It’s not about the emissions

Every time Big Oil does something that other industries get praised for, it gets slammed.

Whatever Big Oil does is bad and wrong.

So, the transition is not about emission reductions.

That’s pretty awkward to admit.

But it’s the only rational conclusion to make from all the attacks on oil and gas.

Even when companies are doing exactly what activists want every company to do.

But since Big Oil can’t win, how about it stops playing the game altogether?

California Saddles Taxpayers with $8.5-Bln Solar Bill

Californians without rooftop solar are being penalized with higher bills.

The total added cost is $8.5 billion per year.

All so the ones with solar panels can pay lower electricity prices.

The subsidy game

When California introduced incentives for rooftop solar it was generous.

Owners could sell their extra electricity to the grid pretty lucratively.

Now, the state has overhauled the system, lowering the price it offers for that extra juice.

But those who signed up to the original scheme will keep getting higher rates…

At the expense of people without solar.

They will have to shoulder the additional expenses of power utilities.

And there are plenty of those.

Utilities are, after all, trying to accommodate all that solar.

So, households without solar panels will be paying $8.5 billion.

Every year.

Just so California can keep paying those with solar the high price for feeding electricity into the grid.

The silver lining: rooftop solar uptake has dropped after the price overhaul.

People don’t want solar so much.

Not if they don’t get enough money for their surplus electricity.

Market always wins

California is adding solar-like there’s no tomorrow.

In the past, the state believed no amount of subsidy was too small.

Now, it has been reconsidered as the subsidy bill got too steep.

But it’s still punishing its own citizens.

It’s delicately called “cost shifting.”

In truth, it’s a penalty to those who don’t want solar.

However, as the subsidy money runs out, fewer people want to put solar panels on their roofs.

Eventually, the market will take care of things.

It always does.

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