Numerous scammers have claimed to generate green energy credits but do not actually undertake or complete the projects that are supposed to offset the carbon dioxide emissions and generate the credits. They have bilked taxpayers and investors out of billions of dollars. Misleading advertising and outright fraud are all too common among companies and politicians promoting green energy schemes. 2 of the biggest scams are biofuels and biomass burning for electric power.
Trees are carbon sinks, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for photosynthesis and storing it in their limbs, roots, and trunks. When trees are cut down, they cease to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and as it decomposes, releases stored CO2 back into the air. Even if new trees are planted, they remove carbon dioxide only slowly over time.
The green industry promises to plant new trees, maintain the forests, and ensure the trees grow to maturity. As detailed in a BBC story, the claim of tree planting is itself fraudulent, whether allegedly for biofuel replacement or as a direct carbon dioxide removal/carbon credit scheme. Sometimes money is collected and credits are given but no trees planted. In other cases, the trees are planted in unsuitable locations or are the wrong species for the site, and the trees die. The dead trees then add carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere as they decompose. In the Philippines and India, grand tree planting programs were funded by the sale of carbon dioxide credits, only to have those in charge of the program abandon the "forests" once the saplings were in the ground. In the Philippine case, an audit found 88% of the trees failed.
Criminal and civil enforcement of these agreements is almost entirely absent, because no agency with authority exists or no common method for determining the amount of carbon dioxide "removed" is determined in advance for most of these schemes, especially with international programs. As a result, the green industry get away with greenwashing on a massive scale, making self-congratulatory claims of being carbon-neutral or moving that way, while emitting the same or even more emissions than they had before grandly taking up the "climate fight." Often it’s simply hard to account for or track the success of the claims. In other cases, assertions of going green consist of nothing more than a series of claims made in a PR campaign. Rarely are these statements investigated and confirmed. In the rare cases where greenwashing is exposed, the common practice is for the companies to issue a mea culpa. They say, in effect, "Okay, you caught us cheating, but we’re serious this time, and we’ll really start to get green now." Little or no penalty results from these scams—maybe a donation/payoff to a radical green group. Often no concerted, consistent investigation of the follow-through on their new green commitment is undertaken.
As for biofuels, tThe U.S. EPA writes: [B]ecause many biofuel feedstocks require land, water, and other resources, research suggests that biofuel production may give rise to several undesirable effects. Potential drawbacks include changes to land use patterns that may increase GHG emissions, pressure on water resources, air and water pollution, and increased food costs. Depending on the feedstock and production process and time horizon of the analysis, biofuels can emit even more GHGs than some fossil fuels on an energy-equivalent basis. Biofuels also tend to require subsidies and other market interventions to compete economically with fossil fuels, which creates deadweight losses in the economy.
In addition, because the dominant biofuel—ethanol—contains less energy than an equivalent amount of regular gasoline, vehicles’ fuel mileage declines as ethanol is added to the mix. As a result, more fuel is used than would have been consumed without the biofuel.
While the expansion of green energy is not reducing overall carbon dioxide emissions or preventing climate change (as if that were possible), it is wreaking havoc in electric power systems in the United States and abroad. In the United States as a whole dozens of stories have been published in recent months warning of widespread electric power shortages already occurring or looming, as the supply of reliable electric power wanes because dozens of fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydroelectric power plants are being prematurely closed and replaced with wind, solar, and sometimes a small percentage of battery backup.
Wind and solar power are particularly unsuited to supply modern, interconnected power systems because they work only when the weather conditions are just right.
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