America’s light usage reveals insanity of relying on weather-dependent wind & solar
By Ronald Stein
The U.S.A. Light Usage Map demonstrates that most of America’s population is East of the Mississippi which represents areas most susceptible to erratic weather patterns, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and ungodly amounts of rain and snow and frigid temperatures extremes, which perpetuate the unreliability of any intermittent electricity attainable from wind and solar.
The northern hemisphere turns on bitter winters – getting wind turbines and solar panels to turn on during one, is another matter. Wind chills below zero from a nor’easter have recently hit much of the country. The push to go Green at any cost would leave America dependent on weather-dependent intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels. This would be an energy disaster.
The wild weather swings around the world have been supported by continuous uninterruptable electricity generation from zero-emission nuclear generation, natural gas-powered generations, and coal-fired power generation.
Interestingly, coal-fired power plants continue to be dominated by China and India for abundant, reliable, and AFFORDABLE electricity. Today, neither China nor India, the two fastest growing sources of GHG emissions, have committed to make reductions by 2030.
Today, a few wealthy countries like German, Australia, Great Britain, and America are wishing to go ‘green’ via wind turbines and solar panels for intermittent electricity. Under ideal weather conditions, these “renewables’ have yet to perform under perfect weather yet alone under severe weather conditions. Freezing Germans, desperate for coal-fired power, are probably having a good, hard think about their obsession with ‘green’ energy.
The same wealthier developed countries that have access to continuous uninterruptible electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear, also have access to heating, air conditioning, and insulation that has virtually eliminated weather related deaths. In the last 80 years, climate-related deaths have gone down by a rate of 98%. Globally, the individual risk of dying from weather-related disasters declined by 98 percent from a high of almost 500,000 deaths in 1920 from floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures.
The Democratic platform loves California and wants to clone its policies and regulations for the other 49 states. The Democrats should open his eyes to what is going on in California, before cloning it for the other 49 states. To meet its electrification goals of the state, California, with some of the most temperate climate in America professes to be the leader of everything but has become the State that imports more electricity than any other state, through its dysfunctional energy policies, as renewables have proven to be a failure in replacing those reliable generating plants that have been, and are being shuttered.
California has achieved the dubious record of having the least reliable electrical power system in the nation. Between 2008 and 2017, California was the leading U.S. state for individual power outages with almost 4,297 blackouts in the ten-year period, more than 2.5 times as many as its closest rival, Texas. Power outages are now commonplace in California.
As a result of California following the failures of the green energy programs in German and Australia, California’s energy policies of phasing out nuclear and natural gas power plants, and pioneering a system of subsidies for industrial wind and solar have made the state’s electricity and fuel prices among the highest in the nation which have been contributory to the rapid growth of “energy poverty” for most Californians including the 45 percent of the 40 million Californians that represent the Hispanic and African American populations of the state, i.e., 18 million.
In recent years, California continues to downsize its natural gas fleet. At the same time, the states “green” religion remains adamantly against coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro power plants. In the near term, California has five more power plants to shutter in the cross hairs – the last nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon and four more natural gas power plants. Renewables in the temperate climate of California have failed to fill the void of the shuttered electricity generation.
To compound the dysfunctionality, ramifications from Governor Newsom’s recent Executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 will be devastating to the state’s economy and environment, as the Governor wants to add more electrical charging demands onto a dysfunctional energy program. The state has already sacrificed reliable electrical power on the altar of the fight against global warming.
Reliance on intermittent electricity from wind and solar, is promoting a reversal of the climate-related fatalities as few other states have the temperate climate as California. The state of California can survive on dysfunctional energy policies as the growing outages are not impacting the public and businesses like they would in other states with much harsher weather inclusive of tornadoes, hurricanes, and ungodly amounts of rain and snow and frigid temperatures extremes, which perpetuate the unreliability of any intermittent electricity from wind and solar.
Yes, getting-off-fossil fuels would reduce those fossil fuel emissions, but it would also drastically impact the lifestyles that we have become accustomed, and would result in reverting to extensive diseases and weather-related deaths, which fossil fuels and electricity from natural gas, nuclear, and coal have virtually eliminated.
With the nor’easter storm that recently hit much of the country, maybe we should learn something about Europe’s experiences with wind and solar during those harsh times when continuous, uninterruptible, reliable electricity is required to maintain the basics of living in extreme climate conditions as chaotic wind and solar collapses are threatening an entire Europe-wide blackout.
The current trends to shutter continued uninterruptible electricity generating plants is revealing the insanity of relying on intermittent electricity generated from weather-dependent wind and solar. While intellectual infants continue to babble about our ‘inevitable transition’, the grown-ups can see the looming and inevitable disaster, with remarkable clarity.