The axiom “you just can’t throw money at a problem” may seem trite and unhelpful—at least until you see it in action. Sure, throwing lots of subsidies at clean energy production might, according to a model, mean big reductions in carbon emissions. But what if those subsidies are overwhelmed by paperwork and other obstacles? The money may be necessary but it’s hardly sufficient.

It’s hard to pick just one example of this phenomenon from the excellent New York Times piece “The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.” by reporter Brad Plumer. The whole problem borders on the Kafka-esque. The issue of permitting delays and local opposition, or “citizen voice,” in getting new power plants connected to grids may seem unsurprising. (Well, now it seems unsurprising thanks to the media finally noticing folks who’ve been highlighting such difficulties.) As AEI nonresident fellow James Coleman has written:

Many of the projects that we most need for a clean-energy transition face particular permitting difficulties because they require permits from multiple states or communities and the federal government. Our traditional energy commodities, oil and coal, are less dependent on building long-distance infrastructure because they can rely on existing railroads and pipelines, and they are easier to ship by rail, road or waterways. By contrast, products such as renewable electricity, natural gas and hydrogen can be shipped only through new, long-distance infrastructure. So, to clean up our energy system we must speed up permitting reform to be able to build the infrastructure.

But check out this craziness you might not know about. From the NYT piece: 

A potentially bigger problem for solar and wind is that, in many places around the country, the local grid is clogged, unable to absorb more power. That means if a developer wants to build a new wind farm, it might have to pay not just for a simple connecting line, but also for deeper grid upgrades elsewhere. . . . Some developers will submit multiple proposals for wind and solar farms at different locations without intending to build them all. Instead, they hope that one of their proposals will come after another developer who has to pay for major network upgrades. The rise of this sort of speculative bidding has further jammed up the queue. “Imagine if we paid for highways this way,” said Rob Gramlich, president of the consulting group Grid Strategies. “If a highway is fully congested, the next car that gets on has to pay for a whole lane expansion. When that driver sees the bill, they drop off. Or, if they do pay for it themselves, everyone else gets to use that infrastructure. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Of course, these permitting and regulatory problems also apply to other sorts of clean energy, such as nuclear and geothermal, as well as building non-energy infrastructure, such as high-speed rail. And in some cases, more money does need to be spent—necessary at times, but often not sufficient.

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