Controlling Ways to Generate Electricity Through Subsidies is a Terrible Plan

Co-authored by Ronald Stein and Dr. Cleveland M. Jones

February 26, 2025

The few wealthy countries of Germany, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, other EU countries, and the USA, representing less than one of the eight billion on Planet Earth are mandating social changes to achieve net zero emissions in their “small worlds within this planet “. The wealthier countries are committing billions of dollars in subsidies to support the wealthy countries’ chosen winners to achieve net zero emissions, i.e., wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries to store electricity, when weather conditions are unfavorable to wind and solar generation.

Wealthy countries’ wish to rid the world of crude oil, coal, and natural gas, without replacements in mind, is immoral, since extreme shortages of the products manufactured from fossil fuels will result in the tragic loss of billions of lives from diseases, malnutrition and weather-related events, both in the developed world and in developing economies.

Unbeknownst to the wealthy countries, over 2 billion people in the world must collect firewood or animal dung to cook, and close to 800 million live without electricity. They comprise the bottom of the pyramid of the world population, along with 80% of the 8 billion population on this planet that make less than $10/day. These billions of people cannot subsidize themselves out of energy poverty.

The billions of poor in the world are also living in countries with virtually no labor laws or environmental laws to protect their landscapes and health.

The future prosperity of these billions of people in developing countries is contingent on their economic advancement through the rightful access to harness the foundational elements of any flourishing economy, i.e., the strategic use of whatever energy sources may be available to them, including fossil fuels, for electricity and to enjoy the products and fuels that are the basis of all modern infrastructures, such as:

Transportation
Water filtration
Sanitation
Hospitals
Medical equipment
Appliances
Electronics
Telecommunications
Communications systems
Heating and cooling

While billions of people in many parts of the world, such as India, China, Egypt, and many countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas must burn cow dung as a fuel, the few in the wealthy countries believe they can control climate change through subsidies, on this 4-billion-year-old planet.

Only wealthy economies have “green” movements and are pursuing them with mandates and costly subsidies.
Planet Earth’s resources are limited! Our planet has limited natural resources, including fossil fuels, but especially critical minerals (employed in many new energy systems), such as lithium, cobalt, manganese, various Rare Earth Elements (REE) and many basic industrial metals currently being extracted at unsustainable rates, and mainly from poorer developing countries, under dire working conditions, without labor or health protections, and causing serious environmental impact, due to the unsophisticated extraction processes employed. With technological advances by wealthier countries, in the next few decades we may find “more”, but at current rates of extraction, the planet may not be able to provide those resources for very long, and in many cases, not even for a century. Wealthy countries refuse to put a greater focus on the limitations of earth’s natural resources currently being extracted for the enjoyment of wealthier countries, since they do not understand that our 4-billion-year-old planet will continue to be here, with or without humans.
Developing countries are currently the main source for the materials for wealthier countries to go “green”. The current “green movement” technology requires significant REE and ever scarcer metals to make EV batteries, build wind turbines and solar panels, and construct grid storage systems. Those materials are not easily available in the few wealthier countries and are mostly being mined in developing countries. Green energy mandates and subsidies are exploiting people and landscapes around the world and providing financial encouragement to China and Africa for the continued egregious exploitation of vulnerable minority populations, mostly of yellow, brown, and black skin, and financially incentivizing environmental degradation, to support mandated EV’s and subsidized wind turbines and solar panels in wealthier country backyards.
So-called renewable power has proven to be very expensive electricity. The few wealthy countries that have been able to provide heavy subsidies to transition to expensive, intermittent electricity generation from wind and sun have been Germany, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, other EU countries, and the USA. These countries represent less than one eighth of the world’s population, but they remain ignorant of the billions in India, China, Egypt, Africa, Asia and Latin America who live on less than $10 a day, and of the billions that have no access to electricity. Wealthier countries avoid discussing and explaining how their “green movement” will help those living in poorer developing countries join the industrialized society that they themselves enjoy.
The supply chain to support zero-emission mandates and subsidies by the few wealthier developed countries must be ethical and moral. Billions of dollars have already been spent to support mandates for the elites of the world, while they refuse to discuss securing sustainable supply chains, promoting responsible sourcing practices and labor and environmental laws and regulations, and ensuring a just and equitable green and digital transition for all, both poor and wealthy.
Before wealthier counties accuse big oil for not having a zero-emission society, they need to ask themselves: “How dare WE in the wealthier countries continue to increase our demand for the products and fuels manufactured from crude oil, which make OUR life more comfortable?” Without a replacement for those fuels and petrochemical derivatives, phasing out oil would undoubtedly phase out most essential industries of modern society, including the medical industry, militaries, transportation, communications, the electrical power industries, as well as many others. The world would face a return to the unenviable lifestyle that existed in the 19^th

Wealthier countries need to participate in conversations that focus on how mandates and subsidies can provide PRODUCTS, FUELS, and ELECTRICITY for the 8 billion on this planet, not ONLY for the few who live in wealthier countries that can afford to subsidize intermittent wind and solar generation of electricity, as well as the costs associated with storage, grid upgrades and backup sources required for a hasty energy transition to a “green” energy world.

Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.

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[BIO: Dr. Cleveland M. Jones is technical director and partner at Fronteira Energia, a consultant, and researcher at Instituto Nacional de Óleo e Gás/CNPq/UERJ/Brazil, and was founder and director of several environmental and biotech firms.]