Fossil fuels remain in demand despite Biden's efforts

 Steven Hayward:

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It is not news that traditional energy stocks—coal, natural gas, and oil—were the stock market’s big winners last year, and so far are holding up well in the current market swoon. This, despite the push of the Biden Administration to destroy the sector, and the successful pressure on the finance community to cut off access to capital for the sector, which has already raised the cost of capital for fossil energy companies. And yet their stocks have thrived anyway, for the simple reason that when nations need energy that works, is scalable, affordable, and available on demand, they are turning back to fossil sources. Pretty fast in fact. (News item: U.S. Coal Stockpiles Near Historic Lows. News item: Oil Bulls Encouraged by Low Inventory.)

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Meanwhile, guess which energy stocks are not doing so well right now? Barron’s tells us:

Alternative-Energy Stocks Fall as Analyst Cuts Price Targets

. . . Analyst Tristan Richardson said the performance of [alternative] energy stocks in the past few months has been hurt by issues such as a holdup on a vote by California’s Public Utilities Commission on proposed changes to how customers with rooftop solar panels get paid when their systems produce more electricity than they use. The derailing of the Build Back Better legislation, which includes tax-credit extensions for the overall alternative-energy group, is an additional problem, he said.

This paragraph makes clear that the prosperity of “green” energy is largely dependent on government subsidies, mandates, and favorable tax treatment. In other words, without government to prop it up, green energy withers quickly, while energy that actually works prospers in the face of government hostility.

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Big Green is a bust when it comes to energy.  Its alternatives are unreliable and inefficient.  They are not always available upon customer demand.