Editor’s Note: This column was written by Frank Lasee.
Imagine one of your kids freezing to death in your home. Eleven-year-old Cristian Pineda’s mother found her son dead during the Texas blackout in February 2021.
Or you have a power outage for three days, losing a couple of hundred dollars’ worth
of food because your refrigerator didn’t work, as Michelle Jones did last summer.
The food she had just bought to feed herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter spoiled without electricity.
This is likely to become all too common in the future.
Why?
My years as a Wisconsin state senator and in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration gave me some insights. My senate district included a coal plant, a natural gas plant, two nuclear plants, a biogas plant, biodigesters, wind towers, and many miles of Lake Michigan shoreline—and since then it has added a solar plant. Here are some lessons I’ve learned.
First, we need to understand a little bit about how electric grids work. They cannot store electricity without a battery. Batteries are scarce and expensive. Electric demand must be met with electricity generation, always. If supply cannot keep up with demand, the utility will shut down electricity for some or many.
For nearly a week, Texas utilities were unable to meet demand. They shut down the electric grid. Five million people lost power, and from 250 to 700 died. If an electric
grid breaks, all the people it serves will be without electricity for weeks or months.
Nonetheless, Progressives favor energy policies that will make grid failures more frequent, widespread, and prolonged. They want to close coal plants without enough full-time power ready to take their place. They seem unconcerned about reliability. They want coal plants torn down even if we have to keep paying them—like selling your car to get a newer one while you still owe lots on the first.
The people of the upper Midwest will pay the price this summer.
Their multi-state grid operator, MISO, has warned that it will be 5 GWs short of electricity this summer. California also could be up to 5 GWs short, enough to power 1.3 million homes. Texas warned that there might not be enough electricity for last week’s unexpected 90° weather, or for hotter days coming this summer.
What do they all have in common?
Increasing their reliance on solar and wind and closing coal plants. A dirty green secret is that coal is full-time power and wind and solar are not. Electric grids must have full-time, on-demand power all the time—plus some—or blackouts are guaranteed.
Another dirty secret:
Wind and solar produce little or no energy 70% of the time. This means that to replace 1,000 MW of coal, it will take 3,500 MW of wind turbines’ “nameplate capacity,” or 5,000 MW of Solar’s. That’s about 1,200 3 MW wind turbines or 13 million solar panels, in either case occupying nearly 40 square miles.
About 240 coal plants in the United States deliver about 22% of our electricity.
About 71,000 wind towers produce about 9% of our electricity on a part-time, when-the-wind-blows, basis. We are adding about 3,000 wind turbines a year, in the whole country. If wind didn’t have the part-time problem, those 3,000 could replace 2.5 coal plants a year. At that rate, it would take 96 years to replace them all.
Progressives have been demanding that we close coal plants faster than 2.5 a year.
If we want our electric grid to serve us full time, we need to reject this policy. We also need to stop everything they do to make coal and natural gas more expensive because that will raise our electric rates even faster.
Solar installations have slowed dramatically
Because of a law recently passed by Congress that solar panels built by slave labor cannot be used in the United States. The Communist Chinese make 80% of the world’s solar panels using coal electricity, slave labor, and non-existent environmental protection laws. They also control, process, or manufacture 80% of the earth’s rare metals and polysilicon needed for solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries.
is solar electricity cost effective – Bing video
is solar electricity worth it – Bing video
is solar electricity renewable – Search (bing.com)
is solar electricity cheaper – Search (bing.com)
is solar electricity expensive – Search (bing.com)
Mothers who want to make sure their babies live and their grandmothers don’t lose groceries when the electricity stops need to engage this issue. The Progressives’ craze
to close coal plants now, before replacement power is built, is a bad idea.
To top it off,
Progressives seem not to care that communist China, India, and many other countries are building hundreds of coal plants right now, or that worldwide coal usage is up by 9% over the last year and growing. Coal is a low-cost, reliable, full-time form of electricity. Only nuclear and coal can store fuel on site—which makes them the only energy sources that can keep on generating despite a prolonged extreme cold snap like the one that crippled Texas last year.
Closing coal plants before replacement electricity is ready puts our economy, our national security, and our lives at risk. We need grown-ups who live in the real-world making decisions.
The lowdown?
is wind turbines expensive – Search (bing.com)
is wind turbines renewable or nonrenewable – Bing video
is wind turbines good for the environment – Search (bing.com)
How do you anchor wind turbines in the ocean – Bing video
How does wind turbines work – Bing video
Don’t embrace large-scale wind and solar unless you’re happy to suffer increasingly frequent, widespread, and prolonged power outages—and the deaths and other losses
they cost.
Frank Lasee served as a Wisconsin state senator and in the administration
of Gov. Scott Walker. He is the president of Truth in Energy and Climate and
wrote this column for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.
electric cars versus gas cars – Search (bing.com)
electric cars versus home electric systems – Search (bing.com)
electric cars versus hydrogen fuel cell – Search (bing.com)
electric cars versus diesel and petrol – Search (bing.com)
electric cars versus gasoline cars – Search (bing.com)
electric cars versus ice cars – Search (bing.com)
electric cars versus hybrid – Search (bing.com)
What is electric produced from – Search (bing.com)
Global automakers face electric shock in China (msn.com)
Owning an EV is mostly cheaper over time than a gas car, study shows.
Government adviser calls for taxation on EV tires due to dangerous particles
What GM’s idea for an EV with two charging ports says about the car market,
As more electric vehicle drivers hit the road, largest Tesla charging station in
U.S. set to open between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (msn.com)
Emissions Analytics finds pollution from tire wear can be 1,000x worse
than exhaust emissions – Green Car Congress
History is never as simple as it was taught in high school!!!
1830 Louisiana Free Blacks Owned Black Slaves – Search (bing.com)
Scientist finally has figured out if dinosaurs are warm or cold blooded.
Opinions | When a teenager wants a semiautomatic rifle,
that’s enough of a red flag.
What is Monkeypox and how dangerous is it? Cases are rising globally (cnbc.com)
Also, someone ask me,
If I am right about the Sheriff having the power to set Washington D.C. Straight… This is very important, considering that most peace officers are “sworn officers”, who take oaths to support the state and U.S. Constitutions.
The oath being sworn by the sheriff when constitutionally elected to office is significant in the fact that he or she is the first line of defense in preserving the Constitutional rights of a citizen. When we look at the Office of the Sheriff, combined with the historical powers held by that office, he stands as the upholder, defender, protector and servant to the liberties of the people within the county.
In addition to upholding the law, the sheriff is also charged with upholding the supreme law, the Constitution. The law enforcement powers held by the sheriff supersede those of any agent, officer, elected official or employee from any level of government when in the jurisdiction of the county.
The vertical separation of powers in the Constitution makes it clear
the power of the sheriff even supersedes the powers of the President.
Furthermore, it is this responsibility that grants a Sheriff the Constitutional authority to check and balance all levels of government within the jurisdiction of the County.
And other peace officers, including police officers and others with arrest powers, join with the Sheriff and deputies, as Constitutional Guards, with one and the same mission: to protect life, liberty and property.
The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association brings together We The People of the United States with peace officers and sheriffs, educating all in an effort to restore America peacefully for our posterity.
About – Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (cspoa.org)
Bonus: Sugar-Studded Protein Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease
Your personality might be linked to the risk of developing dementia, a study reveals.
Cars are going to stay expensive for one reason: Dealers and automakers are loving it.
The average age of a car in the US is up to 12.2 years, a new record. How old is yours?
The Human Heart Can Repair Itself, And We Now Know Which Cells Are Crucial for It.
Physicists predict Earth will become a chaotic world, with dire consequences.
Man on a mission to interview World War II veterans and share their stories.
Another nuclear plant closes: Get ready for electricity shortages.