Green Energy Week 26th June 2025 Overview
Hello, thank you for tuning into another video by www.christian-john.com, this one being a response to the FT London Action Week session I just watched regarding global policies and politics around renewables and the energy sector.
As an overview to the topic and subject matter and will take a step back from it all and speak from as always a fundamental and different perspective.
Firstly, since when did the business world and various sectors become so dependent upon government policy and subsidies that make the difference between survival or not? If you are a sector or a corporation that only exists and its business model is dictated by government subsidies then it is always going to be open to that control and that dependence upon its very existence. It has to be business for business sake and that it exists ultimately because it is a viable, efficient, well managed and healthy business that can compete against its competition.
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The reality to a degree is that renewables have been around for decades now and have been heavily subsidised as such right from the start. The argument could be made that the continual subsidy and government backing they have received has allowed them to become soft, poorly managed and totally dependent upon those subsidies for their very survival. Why have they not used those subsidies to build the foundation and platform where they are no longer impacted by government policy or whoever takes the hot seat in the US but are viable businesses in their own right.
For decades of subsidies they should be at a stage where that genuine competition is there in their viability outside of the emotional climate change argument but simply a business or sector that can survive and grow but itself?
As an example of this, the government in the UK used to provide loans for home owners to put solar panels on their houses that would be paid back over a certain period. The home owner would pay back the loan on a monthly basis that actually was less than the saving on their electricity therefore the home owner was actually saving money. It was costing the government nothing in subsidies just the prevision of a loan that was paid back fully. Here you incorporate solar into the grid at zero cost to the government and home owner and is a business viable model as such. this demonstrates that solar itself can be a viable business in its own right. Bear in mind the increase in electricity and once the loan is paid then the home owner was in an excellent position. This scheme was cancelled.
Instead we have seen the development and growth of solar farms that have become a cash cow and money generator by themselves. These require and receive heavy subsidies by the government as in the carrot for land owners to use their land for such. They then charge more for the electricity they provide to the grid due to their “green” input to the grid therefore in effect they receive a double subsidy. It are these types of schemes that are totally and absolutely reliant upon government support and subsidy and these that could be argued have become soft, poorly set up and managed and ultimately do not provide real value for anyone outside of the owner of the land. You are in a sense creating a business that is only profitable or paid for by the government which in turn is paid for by the tax payer. The whole green climate policies that are similar to a degree need to toughen up, need to become themselves an efficient and effective business outside the need for continual government handouts.
A landowner who could set up their land as a solar farm using a loan by the government or similar than able to produce electricity they can supply to the grid at the current market price and maintain a viable business model as in profitable is where the sector should be heading as in a viable justified businsss in its own right. Yet virtually the whole of the renewable sector from wind farms to solar has been managed and operates in such a soft and weak manner that makes it fully and totally reliant upon those subsidies even after decades of support. The “green” economy if you like needs to grow up corporately and it needs to stand on its own two feet and make it a viable competitor to any and all other energy producers from oil and gas to nuclear etc. The IRA act in the states should not have such an impact, it should be a small set back but the businesses themselves should have the ability to becomes themselves viable in their own right.
In regard to EV’s and battery power it is a surprise that china are leading the way and able to beat all its rivals in terms of charge time, distance per charge and also providing the software FOC. What is for me the biggest surprise and bear in mind that Tesla are who they are based on their technology and for them to fall behind in what is the primary objective part of their business as in not being a car manufacturer but the leading battery maker in terms of its power to weight ratio yet now they are not they are getting beaten and the answer to that are huge tariffs to prevent competiition. It must be said that if it were the other way around and it was Tesla had the best charge time, distance and software that the world would accept that and allow an open market. That said surely Tesla are able to modify their production lines to compete with the Chinese maybe not in cost but they have to in performance and am very surprised someone like musk is not totally on top of that.
At the end of the day, just as a wrap up to all the above. I think the world is becoming tired of the shouting of climate disaster at every corner often to simply undermine the oil and gas sector yet has been set up often using extremely weak and poor business models that allow businesses themselves to be profitable due to substantial government subsidies that result in huge hikes in energy bills. It is ironic that what is classed as sustainable energy is actually as a business model is unsustainable.
Where you find the balance between supporting a new sector or business that has value and a requirement such as the green energy sector without giving it the resource and financial support to allow it to be run in a weak and totally dependent upon subsidies is where the whole sector needs to focus itself. Then, and only then, will it not come to a crashing stop the moment a different leader or different policy is written. Business for business sake.
Ultimately politicians should stay to politics and the corporations left to run business for business sake. It seems that the whole green economy has been set up by a political agenda but worst is that the whole business model behind it is unsustainable. It is the equivalent of having a 6 month old baby that needs its mothers milk every day where one day it will grow, feed itself, generate its own wealth that should be any business model yet the green economy has been set up to always be that 6 month old child and every day requiring the mothers milk as in those large subsidies and the moment they are taken away it all falls down. That is no way at all to run a sector and no way to ruin business. The fact is that everyones energy bills have doubled or trebled, the price of oil and gas is as low as it has ever been, yet those bills are still as they are. Worse again, if it was a short term pain to ultimately result in a well run green economy that is being paid for now it would be worth it, but those bills are going to stay the same, if not get larger, and still the whole business is a pack of cards and that continuous 6 month old baby never growing to become self sustaining.
That said, and I do not know the specifics behind Chinas substantial leap into both battery and renewables but I am curious as in how much of it is funded by government support or how much of it is actually a true, sustainable and viable business and sector in it sown right because ultimately that has to be the end goal for the whole sector and until it both realises that and addresses that then it will always be dominated and controlled by politics when it should be dominated by business for business sake in its own right.
A final warning, sustainable aviation fuel will be another 6 month old baby never growing old in the aviation world, if that is the case then let the airlines and passengers pay for it if indeed the sector decides to go down what is riddled with quality issues in its approval in ASTD7566 and its cradle to grave actual saving on carbon almost negligible.
What I will finish on here is this, if anyone feels that the statements above are wrong then feel free to let me know, show me the business models that can become self sustaining. I am always happy to be proved wrong, the trouble being it does not happen very often.