$15,000 Billion is a lot of money

Dollar Sign That is the cost of green energy

According to the Financial Times, that is the cost of green energy over the next 20 years. Wind, solar and other renewable resources obviously don’t come cheap. Then again, neither do foreign wars fought over oil, with the United States spending over $700 billion (and rising) on the cost of war in Iraq according to Cost of War.com, and over $400 billion spent so far on the cost of war in Afghanistan.

As of 2008, renewable energy sources provided about 13 percent of the global energy supply. With government policies favoring the production of renewable energy, up to 80% of the world’s energy use could be provided by renewables by the middle of this century. There’s the rub… “With government policies favoring the production of renewable energy…”. The likelihood of that happening in the United States anytime in the foreseeable future is… nil.

In 2010, Berkshire Hathaway, run by Warren Buffet, without doubt one of, if not the, most effective investors ever, made $13 billion in profit. This monumental amount ranked Berkshire as only the 10th most profitable company in the world in 2010. He would have had to more than double his profits to equal those of Exxon Mobile last year. Exxon Mobile achieved record profits of over $30 billion. Lest you think that most large corporations make billions each year, Exxon Mobile’s 2010 profit was 52 times the median profit of the Fortune 500 for 2010, according to Fortune magazine. Somehow we don’t see the United States energy policy favoring anything but oil production changing anytime soon.

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