US President Obama Stars as Little Orphan Annie on Pennsylvania Avenue

President Obama is the Little Orphan Annie of presidents. He is always singing that the sun will come out tomorrow and shine on the American economy and his dreams of green energy. Yet companies such as Solyndra have proved the rule rather than the exception, producing more pink slips than green jobs as solar power and alternative energy continue to be eclipsed by advances in fossil fuel production.

The latest casualty is Abound Solar Manufacturing. The Longmont, Colo.-based recipient of a $400 million federal loan guarantee to expand solar panel production said Tuesday it is laying off 280 workers and delaying a new factory in Indiana. That amounts to a 70% reduction in its workforce. _IBD

President Obama's green energy initiatives have been multi-billion dollar disasters for the US economy. But in a way, it may be fortunate for most Americans that Mr. Obama's big green plans have failed so dismally. Because if big wind and big solar ever grew big enough to constitute a significant portion of US power capacity, the entire country would be in very big trouble.

Analyst Robert Bryce takes a look at the renewable energy mandates put into place by a number of US states, and the effect they will have on energy and power prices:

Motivated by a desire to reduce carbon emissions, and in the absence of federal action to do so, 29 states (and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) have required utility companies to deliver specified minimum amounts of electricity from "renewable" sources, including wind and solar power. California recently adopted the most stringent of these so-called renewable portfolio standards (RPS), requiring 33 percent of its electricity to be renewable by 2020.

Proponents of the RPS plans say that the mandated restrictions will reduce harmful emissions and spur job growth, by stimulating investment in green technologies.

...our analysis of available data has revealed a pattern of starkly higher rates in most states with RPS mandates compared with those without mandates. The gap is particularly striking in coal-dependent states—seven such states with RPS mandates saw their rates soar by an average of 54.2 percent between 2001 and 2010, more than twice the average increase experienced by seven other coal-dependent states without mandates.

Our study highlights another pattern as well, of a disconnect between the optimistic estimates by government policymakers of the impact that the mandates will have on rates and the harsh reality of the soaring rates that typically result. In some states, the implementation of mandate levels is proceeding so rapidly that residential and commercial users are being locked into exorbitant rates for many years to come. The experiences of Oregon, California, and Ontario (which is subject to a similar mandate plan) serve as case studies of how rates have spiraled.

...we have compared the costs of electricity in RPS and non-RPS states, using price information from the EIA. Our analysis has revealed a pattern of mostly higher costs in states with RPS mandates:

1. In 2010, the average price of residential electricity in RPS states was 31.9 percent higher than it was in non-RPS states. Commercial electricity rates were 27.4 percent higher, and industrial rates were 30.7 percent higher.
2. In the ten-year period between 2001 and 2010—the period during which most of the states enacted their RPS mandates—residential and commercial electricity prices in RPS states increased at faster rates than those in non-RPS states.
3. Of the ten states with the highest electricity prices, eight have RPS mandates.
4. Of the ten states with the lowest electricity prices, only two have RPS mandates.
5. Sixteen of the 18 states with residential rates that are higher than the 2010 U.S. average residential rate are RPS states.
6. Nineteen of the 21 non-RPS states have residential rates that are below the U.S. average.

_Robert Bryce Manhattan Institute

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President Obama is becoming known as the "energy starvation president." He is lauded for his anti-energy policies by the dieoff.orgy lefty-Luddite greens, who are among his strongest supporters. But those who are paying higher prices for energy and fuels are not so impressed or amused by the clown president's antics on energy.

Analysts and journalists tend to make the most of high gasoline prices, and the threat which they may represent to Obama's re-election. But the true danger is to the US as a whole, should Mr. Obama be re-elected, and continue to institute his agenda of energy starvation and his war against the US private sector.

Little Orphan Annie was cute on the stage. She is not so charming in the Oval Office -- particularly when played by a grown male actor who requires a teleprompter to say his lines.