October 30, 2023
Seventeen states – including Virginia – tie their
vehicle emission standards and electric vehicle sale mandates to
California, the most climate-centric state in the Union. Unless current laws change, by 2035 all their new cars, pickups and SUVs must be electric (or hydrogen-powered).
In
further obeisance to California, most of these states also require that
their utility companies generate 100% of their electricity from
"renewable sources” by 2045 or 2050. They and the federal government
also mandate that electric models replace gas-fueled furnaces, water
heaters, driers, stoves and ovens within a decade or less.
Citizens in European countries are revolting against net zero laws
This means electricity demand will double in the near future – at the same time that reliable, affordable fossil-fuel (and nuclear and hydroelectric) electricity generation plummets. Charging massive batteries to ensure power on windless, sunless days would double demand yet again.
Home, hospital, school and business lighting, heating, cooling, cooking and computing costs will likely double or triple, hitting poor and minority families hardest. Blackouts could become commonplace.
No wonder citizens in European countries are revolting against net zero laws, forcing politicians to delay or terminate their green dictates.
And
yet Democrats in Virginia and elsewhere have refused to budge. They’re
so convinced that climate cataclysms are imminent – and government
mandates will magically usher in a renewable energy era – that they are
willing to compel families and businesses to follow them and other
virtue-signaling lemmings off the net-zero cliff.
That’s why – even with attention now focused on Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and other global hot spots – voters also need to think long and hard about looming US energy cataclysms.
This total transformation would require literally millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, and tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines
Democrats, some Republicans, and their media and environmentalist
allies are determined to sweep vitally important energy realities under
the rug. Voters mustn’t let that happen.
Not one village on
Earth – much less a city or state – has shown that wind and solar power
backed up by grid-scale batteries can enable them to function normally
... or merely survive ... for even a week, winter or summer. And yet
President Biden and the Climate Industrial Complex want to impose an
all-electricity "green energy transformation” on the entire United
States.
This total transformation would require literally
millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, and tens of
thousands of miles of new transmission lines. Billions of
Tesla-EV-equivalent battery modules would be needed to stabilize
increasingly large and complex electricity grids ... and back up
sporadic, weather-dependent electricity ... to prevent repeated and
widespread blackouts.
Building this equipment would involve
billions of tons of steel, aluminum, copper, cobalt, lithium, concrete,
plastics and other materials; hundreds of billions of tons of ore and
overburden from thousands of mines; fossil fuels for mining, processing
and manufacturing; and unprecedented greenhouse gas emissions, toxic
air, water and ground pollution, and wildlife habitat destruction.
The costs would be astronomical
Installing all that equipment would impact thousands of square miles
of habitats, scenic areas and croplands – decimating wildlife all
across rural America – to serve major urban areas that have the votes
to impose their views, but not the room or desire to have those impacts
in their own backyards. Disposing of worn out and broken solar panels
and wind turbine blades would require hundreds of huge landfills, also
in rural America’s backyards.
The costs would be astronomical. Net Zero Reality Coalition experts have calculated that grid-balancing and backup batteries alone would cost up to $290-trillion, depending on which capital cost, hourly or daily or weekly electricity generation data, and other factors are employed.
The
wind industry loves to say such-and-such wind or solar project has the
"capacity” to power 100,000 homes. That may be true – when the wind is
blowing or sun is shining at optimal levels. However, that rarely
happens. On an annual basis, those unreliable systems would likely
generate electricity 20-40% of the year, in short intervals, at totally
unpredictable times.
Since the Biden Administration and
environmentalists steadfastly oppose mining in the USA, most resource
extraction will be done overseas. The raw materials will mostly come
from or through China, which often employs slave and child labor, zero
to minimal environmental standards, subpar wage and workplace safety
standards, and minerals as a political weapon.
Personal needs and choices will disappear
That means wind, solar and battery power is actually the antithesisof clean, green, renewable, sustainable and ethical. All the dirty,
evil, unsustainable activities just get done in faraway places, where
they can be ignored; so they needn’t be mentioned in slick product and
campaign ads.
An all-electric economy also requires that home,
neighborhood, local, state and national transmission systems be
significantly upgraded to handle the massive additional electric loads.
That’s more trillions of dollars, further increasing the cost of
electricity and every product and service.
Personal needs and
choices will disappear. You will be told what cars you can buy and how
far you can drive them; how big your home can be, and how warm or cool
you can keep it; how often and how far you can travel on vacation; even what foods you can eat.
Where’s the beef?Not on the menu. And just imagine being in your EV, in a massive
traffic jam, during a blizzard or a hurricane evacuation. But as
California goes, so will you if your legislators demand it.
Delving
into specifics: President Biden wants 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind
electricity by 2030. That would require 2,500 gigantic 12-MW wind
turbines. But even if the wind is blowing optimally, their output would
barely meet New York State’s peak summertime electricity needs – today,
prior to its transformation to a fossil-fuel-free, all-electric economy.
Equally crazy, New York’s plan for 24,000 megawatt-hours of battery storage would provide backup for barely 45 minutes on a sweltering windless day – with today’s power demands. And even that minuscule storage would require 300,000 Tesla 80-kilowatt-hour battery modules.
Mandates for electric vehicles, wind and solar power, and a magical transition to a fossil-fuel-free energy utopia are critical issues this year
The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act requires that utilities have
3,100 megawatt-hours of electricity storage. If that’s provided with
19-MWh Tesla Megapackbattery modules, costing $10-million apiece, Virginia taxpayers and
ratepayers would have to lay out $1.6 billion. For that they’d get one-half-hour of statewide windless/sunless day backup!
Ask your elected officialshow many offshore turbines would be needed to power your state – or the
entire USA. How many onshore turbines with a nameplate capacity of
perhaps 6 MW. How many solar panels sprawling across vast scenic areas,
croplands and wildlife habitats – in sunny Arizona or frosty Wisconsin.
How many battery modules for a full week of backup storage.
Demand to know how much all this will cost– and how much mining, processing, manufacturing, toxic pollution, CO2
emissions, slave and child labor, and habitat destruction would go into
making all that equipment. Watch the politicians bob and weave, run for
cover, or have the police remove you for asking such impertinent
questions.
Mandates for electric vehicles, wind and solar power,
and a magical transition to a fossil-fuel-free energy utopia are
critical issues this year and in 2024. Think carefully about them
before you head to the polls.
Your vote – and whether you help
your friends vote wisely – will determine whether we end this insanity
... or must live beneath the iron fists of increasingly oppressive
climate authoritarians.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:34 PM
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