Subsidizing with energy.
I wrote in the last post that nuclear power is a form of subsidy given to industries, and I see that this was the most idiosyncratic statement (among readers). Yet, the problem is quite evident, because if we say to "build nuclear power plants", it almost implies that the state must do it.
To understand this, it is necessary to go back to the whole history. During the Cold War, Östpolitik was born: a German chancellor decides to start doing business with Russia, and since the Soviet Union produces almost nothing in excess, raw materials are chosen. And Russia thus begins to export oil and gas, aided by those giants who know how to extract it (Russian companies did not know how to extract it or transport it, in the sense that they were not developed enough and were limited to "easy" wells).
This began to disturb OPEC, and it began to drive prices down, especially after the historical shock of 1972/73.
As this continued until a few years ago, European entrepreneurs lived in a period of subsidies, except that the subsidies came from Moscow. This has produced a European industry that has never paid much attention to being efficient:
- production of solar non-existent or almost: the industries with panels on the shed are still very few
- adoption of very limited forms of savings: in order to push LED lamps over incandescent ones, it was necessary to ban the last ones.
- limited car use on public transport, neglected urban public transport network
- limited infrastructure (no tube, no tap, no this, no that)
- few district heating infrastructures
- hostility to smart homes
- hostility to teleworking
- …
The effects of this abundance of energy from a subsidy from Moscow (which would then have repaid in geopolitical terms) has effectively frozen the green transition, since no one cared about limiting waste. With twenty euros a MWh, but who would have ever spent money to save electricity?
But at some point we piss off Putin and the subsidy ends. The industrialists find themselves with a gas price that has returned to more normal values for what is the relationship between supply and demand.
And they find that they can't, because they use energy-intensive production systems. When it is said that the price of energy increases the price of MILK, something has gone wrong in the technology of the case: either someone has electric cows, or everything around the cow consumes too much, if we consider that 100% milk comes out of the cow.
So, there are two ways to solve the problem.
- Entrepreneurs close the technological gap and start using technologies of lighting, heating, production, materials, which save energy.
- Entrepreneurs are asking the state to subsidize energy, taking money from welfare, and supplying them with energy at the (unnaturally low) price as before.
As usual, the latter is chosen. And the fake "liberals" and "liberalists" discover that the energy market of the future is made with the money of the state. True, Calenda?
So far, I think I've been clear:
AT LEAST 50% of the blame for this crisis lies with the industrialists and entrepreneurs who cared little about energy costs.
After all, if the solution includes "keeping one degree less in the house" or "keeping the heating on for an hour less", well: it could have been implemented earlier, eh.
And it didn't even cost that much: instead of keeping Alexa at home to play music, you could buy more:
I have been using them for years, and the savings I saw immediately. But in Italy I have seen protests against the idea of putting a valve in general, let alone a smart one.
In general, using these you can program them for minimum temperature, time and maximum temperature, and if you open the window above the radiator they will understand it and turn it off.
This is to say that little has been done, reluctantly, and if the “rationing” measures are sufficient, well, you could already have rationed earlier, and with fewer sacrifices.
But nobody did it because energy was cheap: the proof is that nowadays, every day there are people who ask me “what were those smart valves you use? Are you comfortable? ". Today. But not yesterday.
But let's get back to the industrialists. They've avoided R&D costs for decades when it came to energy efficiency. (except perhaps those who worked in energy-intensive sectors).
They want the subsidy. I say this for a reason.
What is the name of the owner of a company that produces nuclear energy? It is called, you will agree with me, "industrial". He is definitely an industrialist. And what is the name of a type owner of a regasification plant, whose company imports and redistributes gas? He is still, you will admit, an industrialist.
Good. Leaving aside the useless chatter, I ask you two questions:
- How many regasifiers intend to buy / build those of Confindustria in the next, let's say, 10 years?
- How many plants, if nuclear power is built, do those of Confindustria intend to build in the next ten years?
Here comes the dead silence. Because yes, all these things must be done, but NEVER let the industrialists put their hands in their pockets and throw out the lira and invest. No.
If we talk about regasifiers we talk about ENI (CDP, i.e. the state), if we talk about nuclear power plants we talk once again about ENEA (the state), we talk about Ansaldo Nucleare, which is of Ansaldo Energia, which it belongs to Finmeccanica and the Italian Strategic Fund: again the state.
And where are the industrialists, who would be the desperate who do not know how to live without energy? Instead of investing in schools and hospitals, the state spends the money on projects that in a normal country belong to industrialists.
It does not matter: there is an emergency, and "emergency" means that you do not ask uncomfortable questions and let the state subsidize the industrialists.
Moreover, that the regasification plants are used to "free oneself from dependence on the Russians and not finance Ukraine" is doubtful: what is already happening is that Russia is selling discounted gas to other countries (Iran, China, India, etc) and then these countries load it on the ships and take it to the regasifiers. At market price. In other words, Russian gas is bought anyway, only the Russians and the proxy countries share the loot.
Well done.
In reality, the regasifiers continue to buy gas extracted in Russia, except that their cost was absorbed by the industrialists, not by the state coffers.
It is often said that in 1946 there were no more fascists in Italy, and that everyone called themselves communists, even if they were not. The trouble is that in 1991 the same thing happened: from that moment none of those who believed in the USSR admitted to being a communist anymore. But it was.
Everyone (especially those on the left) called themselves "liberalists" or "liberals", depending on the stigma inherited from the past, but in the end none of them are authentically liberal. In a liberal world, it is OBVIOUS that if industrialists need energy, if there is a huge demand for energy, the state must ONLY say that nuclear is legal, that there are safety rules to be respected, and then it is the private individuals (ie the industrialists) who make the power plants.
But those who recycled themselves as a “liberal” coming from the USSR did not understand the problem well. Accustomed by the education of the PCI to think that "the state will take care of it", these "liberals" (and I also put Calenda into it) talk and grope about the market here and there, but when it comes to investing and taking the risk … well … has to think about it, guess who? The state. As in the good, old USSR in which NO ONE admits they believed anymore.
But I'm sorry to say: when you need something at a lower price than the market and the state invests and takes risks to give it to you, you are not in a "liberal" place, you are in the Soviet Union. You're subsidizing.
And again because the Italian liberalists and liberals are actually Soviets repainted (and even badly), when I make this objection they tell me “eh, but we have taxed the extra income also to finance this thing”. I don't want to get lost in the easy analogy between Marxist Memory's surplus value and “extra income”, but the problem was not to be solved with a tax. It was solved with a pat on the back to Confindustria: "dear gentlemen, I who am the state give you the permits for a regasification plant in Piombino, now YOU buy / rent it and put it into operation: the first one who arrives wins".
This should have been the “liberal” or “liberal” discourse that courier and others are talking about. But they are not really liberals, they are just repainted communists.
"The state must do it."
A liberal state should only give permission to do this and that (power plants or regasification plants) and then it should be the industrialists who do things.
But even if we bring up the problem of the emergency, well, the state should say "dear industrialists, I pay the rent of the regasifiers for a year, I expect that in a year you will be renewed and become more efficient, or that you propose me a consortium that takes over the regasification plant ".
Instead, state-owned companies are used to do everything.
Because communism is over, but also not. And the subsidy is the new market.
As this story ends, it is obvious because we have already seen it: the state makes regasifiers, the state makes nuclear power plants, and as soon as there is a bit of fat, they discover that "for European rules we must privatize" . And of course it sells everything to the usual friends.
Good. Privatize from the start, then: get them to do it from the start. Or, does anyone want to hide the fact that entrepreneurs want ready-made baby food from the state?
That is, a subsidized energy?