It is hard to blame Dominion Resources for trying to find another way to generate energy, thanks to the Obama war against coal. But placing wind turbines on top of beautiful mountains would ruin the entire area for tourism, say local residents whose livelihoods have already been tarnished by the White House.
CFACT advisor Larry Bell explains that wind and solar are intermittent sources of energy that, unlike the 24/7 reliability of fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and even for the most part hydroelectric, tend to be at their peak during low-demand periods and at their low ebb during high demand. The result of shutting down existing power plants for these not-so-green alternatives will surely be blackouts and brownouts -- plus higher energy prices and a lower standard of living.
A possible hidden agenda in the UN's Agenda 21 is world depopulation through not allowing sub-Saharan Africans, for example, the opportunity to improve their standards of living via modern technology, even affordable electricity. Even worse, the grandiose schemes for renewable energy only are ilkely to result in a collapse of the energy grids due to the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy.
CFACT contributor Mary Kay Barton shows how wind farms re in reality tax farms that squeeze local residents out of tax dollars as they dramatically reduce the value of the farms in communities that were doing quite well before some of their elected officials sold out to gain fame and fortune from wind developers. Worse, wind projects are designed to lose money over their lifetimes, even without factoring in that actual lifetimes are about half of promised lifetimes.
The final Clean Power Plan rule actually allows California to INCREASE its carbon dioxide emissions, while forcing Kentucky and other states to cut theirs by over 40%. Some have called the Obama plan an attack on coal -- others wisely see it as a power play to crush anyone who dares oppose the elitist central government. The answers may lie within the federal court system -- or direct confrontations with Washington.
Opposition to the excesses of the Obama EPA and other related agencies is mounting -- unions are seeing jobs die; landowners do not like trumped up "endangered species" habitat designations rob them of economically productive land, and ordinary citizens are recoiling from the higher costs for unreliable renewable energy.
Since Japan shut down all of its nuclear power plants after Fukushima, the nation has suffered from high fuel costs that make Japanese products less competitive in the world economy. Japan thus rejoins a number of nations who rely on uranium (and now thorium) as well as fossil fuels -- because it was the economically wise thing to do. Would that the U.S. would base at least some of its energy policy (sic) on economics.
Because big companies today have learned that they are "too big to fail," even the oil and gas companies whose businesses are under attack from the Green Left are for the most part unwilling to publicly challenge the false and misleading assumptions upon which Green mis-eonomics is based -- or even the strangling regulations that they will have to abide by. The chief reason: They can pass on costs to consumers and they do not want the negative regulatory attention that resistance to bureaucratic fiat can bring.
Imagine! If one little regulatory disagreement with the EPA has led to a years-long effort to salvage maybe half of the electric power being generated at the San Juan Generating Station in Farmington, New Mexico, what will be the full impact of the EPA's much hated Clean Power Plan? The answer -- total chaos, a massive loss of generating power, and economic ruin for millions of Americans.
The climate change crusades are heating up, thanks to an irascible President Obama, who sneers at polls showing Americans no longer believe in the hobgoblin view of carbon dioxide spread by politicians who arrogated science as a tool to be manipulated rather than a guide to rational behavior. CFACT advisor Larry Bell notes that the EPA’s regulatory war on coal rampage will impose major utility cost hikes, with disproportionate burdens falling upon economically disadvantaged residents of colder northern states. But who will pay the political price for this skullduggery?
CFACT contributor Marita Noon points out that wind and solar power are free, but converting them to usable energy typically requires fossil fuel backup systems because neither wind nor solar is 24/7n reliable. Pointing out these facts -- and the higher energy costs for the poorest among us -- typically is met with ugly rhetoric, character assassination and such like, because wind and solar companies and the die-hard supporters of renewable energy cannot refute the facts.
If the U.S. continues on its current path, electricity rates are going to skyrocket (as President Obama promised) and there will be massive power outages because of the shutdown of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. Energy poverty is America's future -- and we know this based on the German experience. There, because of the nation's high renewables requirements, electricity prices have already more than doubled -- and Germans are building new coal-fired power plants to address the intermittency of solar energy (which is often nonexistent in winter).
The enemies of fracking, the Keystone pipeline, and other fossil fuel related activities start with wild-eyed "Deep Green Resistance" types who oppose the entirety of Western civilization (even agriculture), include those with vested interests in alternative energy sources, and even include foreign governments (like Putin's Russia), who recognize that cheaper oil and gas prices will hurt their economies and weaken their grip on nearby dependent countries. Naming enemies empowers those who want to defeat them.
The federal ethanol mandate mut be rescinded, say CFACT Senior Policy Advisor Paul Driessen. Nearly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is devoted to ethanol, and this requires enormous amounts of irrigation water, fertilizers, pesticides, and gasoline or diesel fuel to grow, harvest, and ship the corn -- and then to ship the ethanol. While corn growers are protected by the mandate, they are making money -- but at the expense of chicken, turkey, egg, and hog farmers who are paying an extra $100 billion a year in feed costs. Moreover, energy from oil and gas drilling is much less harmful to the environment -- especially given the high usage of water, the unbearable flow of life-killing nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico, and of course the negative impacts on gasoline and diesel engines from the added ethanol (and the lower miles per gallon it delivers). It is time, says Driessen, to bury the Renewable Fuel Standard and the ethanol subsidies.
Energy policy analyst Marita Noon, a CFACT advisor, points out that India has no intention of kowtowing to political correctness in developing its energy sector. Instead, "India rejects arguments by Green activists that it must move away from coal energy, saying the alternative would be to keep its citizens in poverty.” Meanwhile, President Obama is intent on creating energy poverty in the U.S. through a regulatory assault on coal, oil and gas, and other conventional energy producers -- on top of his intention to veto legislation authorizing the Keystone pipeline. Should he get his way, Americans will be anticipating blackouts and brownouts and higher energy prices across the board to go along with the energy shortages his policies are sure to create.