The rising cost of energy has become the new weather: everyone’s always talking about it, but nobody every does anything about it.
Unlike the weather, however, there is something that can be done to offset and even reduce the rising cost of energy: we could lower energy tariffs and taxes.
In Denmark especially.
It’s that easy. For example:
The heading says “Denmark has low electricity prices—but the highest electricity expenses in the EU.”
The dark green portion of each column represents the actual cost per kilowatt hour of electricity in each country: the light green portion represents taxes and expenses.
You can get the full story here. That link takes you to a page from “DanskEnergi,” which is essentially a trade group for the Danish energy industry, so by all means view it with a skeptical eye.
How about the cost of gasoline?
That chart’s from FuelsEurope.eu, another trade group, so the same call for skepticism is required. (It’s also two years old, so although the prices are certainly outdated the proportions are not.)
None of this is secret: anyone with any awareness of the energy markets knows that actual energy costs across the western world are wildly inflated by government fees and taxes.
This isn’t political spin: it’s reality.
We’re hearing a lot from our political leaders in Europe and North America about how rising energy costs are simply the price we have to pay to punish Russia. It’s being sold as a noble sacrifice.
Fair enough: let’s pay more money for energy if that’ll wean us off energy dependence on bad actors.
But if our governments are willing to acknowledge the burden those costs are placing on their citizens, and on their industries, then why not ease our pain by reducing taxes and fees on energy, if only temporarily?
Look at that chart of gas prices: the actual cost of gasoline in every single nation of Europe is just a fraction (a minority fraction) of the price paid at the pump. In Denmark, for example, we could absorb a doubling of the actual price of gasoline with just a 60% reduction in gasoline tariffs.
(And remember it’s not just what you pay at the pump: higher gasoline prices means higher transportation costs, which means the cost of getting things to market goes up, meaning retail prices will have to rise.)
Anyone who isn’t looking into a reduction in energy tariffs and taxation—even temporarily—doesn’t really give a damn about whatever hardship rising energy prices are about to impose on you and me. A lot of them are actually pleased about those hardships, because they believe they’ll push us all harder and faster toward their (so far) make-believe world of 100% green and renewable energy.
Keep that in mind the next time one of these idiots starts blathering about higher energy prices being the “cost of freedom.”
They’re not.
They’re the cost of bloated, stupid government.
So if our representatives won’t cut the cost of energy on our behalf, the solution is simple: let’s cut them out of office and replace them with people who will.
I am struck by how the response among our feckless leaders is overwhelmingly that we need to increase the speed and scale of the transition to green energy, when it is transparently clear that it is very much the headlong and headless rush towards the green utopia in the past few decades that has caused by far the greatest portion of our current predicament.
Had we embraced fracking and nuclear energy, not only would there be no problem getting energy, we would be further along on decarbonization, oil prices would be low. And as a direct consequence thereof, Putin would not have had the money to rearm the way he did, and he would not have had the war chest built up that made him think he could ride out whatever temporary sanctions the West would place on him following the quick and painless Anschluss he was counting on in Ukraine.
And now our betters are using the crisis mode to further the agenda they have had all along.
Exactly. It’s a delusion, so it’s unfalsifiable. They want to save the world with GREEN so badly they don’t care if they have to destroy the world to get there.