A Phantom Market
Corporations will always find ways to earn revenues and profits. If they don’t, they won’t survive.
Corporate market analysts read economic signals for problems that they have the talent and resources to fix profitability, then they advise executive decision-makers to react accordingly. One of these reactions resulted in the CANSOLV CO2 Carbon Capture & Storage System which emerged primarily due to government policy.
Are new product offerings like CANSOLV inspired by government mandates a response to genuine free market signals or contrived ones - i.e. “phantom” market signals?
Market signals show where the money is.
Vehicles of all sorts have been invented and manufactured over several generations to respond to a range of transportation needs that oxen and the horse & buggy could not meet as cost-effectively. Everyone benefitted.
The noxious tailpipe emissions problem was solved to eliminate city smog produced by vehicles. Capitalism solved that very real problem in response to increasingly strict regulations. Everyone benefitted.
The Climate Change Crisis Theory (CCCT) crowd has succeeded in generating a market signal for corporations like SHELL to chase for profit. Has anyone, besides those employed within governments institutions and their crony partners (NGOs like Ceres ), really benefited?
If it weren’t for the unscientific and irrational widespread fears generated by propaganda concerning the alleged dangers arising from the burning of fossil fuels, and the political and institutional elites who sought to benefit from those fears by creating the Climate Change Governmental Complex (CCGC), SHELL would not have seen those market signals to chase. Since the early 1990s, the roots of the CCGC began to bread and strengthen.
FEAR led to ELECTION PROMISES.
ELECTION PROMISES led to NEW LAWS & REGULATIONS
NEW LAWS & REGULATIONS led to new BIGGER GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS for policy enforcement.
BIGGER GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS with greater enforcement powers led to SHELL’s response.
This was the path that inspired SHELL’s executives to create the CANSOLV CO2 Carbon Capture & Storage System as stated in the link provided:
“Current and anticipated legislation suggests that a mandatory CO₂ emissions reduction is inevitable. Meanwhile, forecasters expect the world’s energy demand to increase by nearly 50% by 2030, meaning fossil fuels will likely represent a significant portion of the energy mix for years to come.
Shell Catalysts & Technologies has developed a CO₂ capture technology utilising a regenerable amine that offers cutting-edge performance, including low parasitic energy consumption, fast kinetics and extremely low volatility. The technology allows for the capture of CO₂ from flue gas. The CO₂ is then delivered to the client for eventual sequestration or sale into the EOR and commodity markets.”
Government Policies are irresponsible.
I don’t believe that the Climate Change Governmental Complex (CCGC) should exist. It should be scrapped entirely. This would eliminate a huge drain on Canada’s wealth as tax revenues and lead to fewer mal-investments.
In my book, What To Do About CLIMATE CHANGE, A Libertarian Proposal, I wrote about the massive orbit of players within the Climate Change Governmental Complex (CCGC), its origins and evolution, its impacts on domestic and global economics, the many skeptical scientists/experts who have been silenced or vilified for revealing the non-politicized science, and the endless propaganda to energize CCGC growth for decades.
What do economists say?
Economists schooled in Austrian Economics study Human Action to understand the real dynamics concerning exchanges between people and organizations.
Economists schooled in Keynesian Economics, taught in all government universities, emphasize statistics and computer models to forecast a future than can never be accurate ( I call it ‘Crystal Ball Economics’).
The entire CCGC is built on Crystal Ball Economics.
Crystal Ball Economics underpins the ubiquitous narratives which con entire populations into believing a fear-infused story. It convinces gullible citizens that “Climate Action’ by government authorities is essential to ward off a global crisis.
The perpetrators of these narratives within Climate Change Governmental Complex (CCGC) know perfectly well that FEAR trumps LOGIC and is the most critically-important element to gain widespread public acceptance and compliance to their Climate Action policies.
Mal-investments Abound.
Everyone intuitively understands the idea of an ‘economic bubble’, but few have traced the origins of these phenomena. Government policy is always a root cause.
Inflation, for example, was explained as a monetary bubble by famed economist Milton Friedman in 1963. This was before inflation spiked dramatically after USA President Richard Nixon took the US Dollar off the Gold Standard in 1971.
Subsequently, Friedman had this to say about inflation.
While Friedman initially identified central banks and they monetary policies as the root causes of inflation in 1963, he did not live long enough to witness the full impact of massive expansion of the size, cost and scope of authorities undertaken by government after 1971.
Innumerable mal-investments by governments now aggravate inflation well beyond monetary policy alone.
Fiscal Policy sources of rising costs.
Mal-investments are explained here.
The CANSOLV CO2 Carbon Capture & Storage System emerged primarily from a market response to government policy.
Does CANSOLV qualify as a mal-investment if the impetus for its creation was government policy and the fear-mongering hot air that accompany it?
Would SHELL’s executives and Board have directed its R&D resources and financial capital towards creating CANSOLV if CCGC policies did not inspire those decisions? What other investments did SHELL’s leadership forego in order to respond to CCGC propaganda and legislation?
I guess we’ll never know.
Don’t you just love CAPITALISM?