This is the year everybody in the free world has to grow up and stop treating energy policy like a middle school project.

The world can’t operate without energy, and it needs a reliable, consistent, affordable supply of it.

“Daily life still demands too much fossil fuel,” Gov. Gavin Newsom lamented in his State of the State speech on Tuesday.

Daily life demands “too much” fossil fuel because electricity powered by sunshine and breezes is intermittent and inadequate.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC News, “President Biden’s view is that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general, and we need look to at other ways of having energy in our country and others.”

Look all you want, but it’s childish and dangerous to base national policy on wishful thinking.

One February day in 2019, a group of children petulantly confronted Sen. Dianne Feinstein in her San Francisco office with a demand that the senator support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s resolution for a Green New Deal. “The reason why I can’t,” Feinstein explained to the visitors, “is there’s no way to pay for it.”

“Yes there is, we have tons of money going to the military,” one child shouted.

Feinstein didn’t back down, but plenty of politicians have.

To the extent that the green energy lobby succeeds in its campaign to pressure politicians in free countries to stop oil production, the world’s most authoritarian leaders gain a bigger share of the market for an essential commodity. Reduced production creates scarcity, which pushes up prices. Higher prices weaken the economies of free countries, while bringing in more revenue for authoritarian governments.

President Biden is currently pleading with Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran for more oil production. He could use the powers of his office to increase oil production in the United States, but then the middle schoolers might show up and shout at him. Rather than face their wrath, Biden is overlooking his promise to take a hard line against Saudi Arabia over its human rights abuses. He’s thinking of lifting oil sanctions that were imposed on Venezuela in 2019. And he’s in the position of needing Iranian oil badly enough to consider concessions to a nation that funds worldwide terrorism and is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

At this point it becomes clear why we spend “tons of money” on the military.

To those who would argue that more government mandates for green energy will speed up innovation and solve the problem, California should serve as a horrible warning. For more than a decade, the state has enforced laws requiring utilities to generate an increasing percentage of the electricity they sell from renewable sources as defined (large hydropower plants and nuclear power plants don’t count as “renewable,” even though they are). The result: higher costs and energy imports.

The mandates for renewable energy have not ended the need for continuous generation from gas-fired power plants, but they have made the gas-fired plants less sustainable economically. The costs of operating must be covered by the revenue from selling less power. To see who pays for this, stand in front of a mirror and open your utility bill.

In solar-powered California, sundown causes a plunge in the supply of electricity every day at about 4:00. p.m. That’s when the state relies on gas-fired generation and also imports electricity from other states. In fact, in 2019, California led all states in electricity imports, bringing in about 25% of the state’s total electricity supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2020, according to the California Energy Commission, net imports increased by about 6%.

Pennsylvania, a state known for coal production, was the nation’s leading electricity exporter in 2019.

That’s the grown-up truth about the “California Way.”

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California also imports foreign oil to meet the state’s energy needs, even though there are oil reserves right here. In-state oil production is a fraction of what is was in the mid-1980s, and at the same time, the state’s oil imports from foreign countries have been climbing steadily. In 1985, only 5.5% of the oil that went to California refineries came from foreign sources. In 2021 it was 56.2%. Two of the top sources for California’s marine crude oil imports are Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Industrial production, including oil and gas production, requires capital, but the childish finger-pointing over energy sources has spread to the financial markets. Now Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is investigating what he says is a coordinated effort by climate activists to work with banks and money managers to force companies to shut down coal and natural-gas plants. “Investment in oil and gas exploration and production in 2021 was nearly 25% below 2019 levels,” Brnovich wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “While climate activists believe they know best, the U.S. can’t maintain its security while depending on foreign dictators and oligarchs to supply its energy. Current economic trends and international tensions heighten the need for domestic companies to maximize efficiency and productivity.”

He’s right. Russia, an oil exporter, has invaded Ukraine, and other European nations are wondering if they’re next.

It’s time to put away childish things.

Write Susan at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley