Daydreams are nice, aren’t they? But they don’t pay the bills or put food on the table, or make sure that your home is clean and free of unwanted other species.
There’s a huge push from many sides to transfer everyone to what is commonly referred to as “green energy” resources. This includes solar and wind energies as resources, with a large portion of it being politically motivated with no thought to the consequences.
In Australia, because they’ve shut down coal-fired plants and have only wind and solar facilities for generating electricity, with gas-fired plants as backup, electricity charges for residents are apparently spectacular and in some cases, enough to make it unaffordable, period. Angela Merkel has been harping on wind energy during her reign as the EU’s head, with disastrous results including the deaths of thousands of ordinary citizens from cold exposure in the winter, when those people could not pay their utility bills. Some had resorted to trying to stay warm by candlelight. It is a disgraceful thing to do to put your personal daydreams ahead of the welfare of people who voted you in, and Merkel is losing her job because of her insistence on using “green power” instead of reliable gas and/or coal. Germany is now, in fact, building new coal-fired power plants because Angela screwed up so badly. France has nuclear-powered plants, so all those protests have been partly over Macron’s plan to raise fuel taxes and partly over his reducing taxes on wealthy people.
China only gave a crap about coal-fired pollution when the air in Beijing got so smog-ridden, it made both Los Angeles and New York City in the 1960s look like pikers by comparison. Coal-fired plants in the USA have scrubbers to remove particulates from their exhausts, and gas-fired plants are replacing coal in some areas because natural gas is cheaper than coal.
In the daydream world of the greenbeans, solar and wind energy are freebies. There are no consequences involved. In the real world, however, you have $500 million in government subsidies given to companies like Solyndra who start the business and then go belly-up, leaving behind the detritus of their scam in the form of empty facilities and unemployed people whose livelihoods disappeared while they were watching.
There’s also the cost to the environment, in the matter of solar farms like the Ivanpah solar facility in the Mojave Desert, which has a record of incinerating migrating birds because the mirrors that focus sunlight toward the three towers embrace the routes of migrating birds.
“As many as 28,000 birds are killed each year — that’s one every two minutes — by the Ivanpah solar plant in the Mojave Desert, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . Ivanpah focuses more than 300,000 mirrors on three 459-foot towers, generating heat of up to 800 degrees — enough to fry birds that happen to fly by. “ – from the article That’s just that solar furnace in particular. There are other solar facilities that endanger wildlife as well.
But this isn’t just about birds, in case you’re wondering. These winged migrants are part of the control species that eat pests like bugs that destroy crops. It’s the food on your plate that’s at stake, not some abstract concept. Birds and bats are natural pest control. Migrating birds feed on the local pests while they are on their way north or south.
“Estimates for bird deaths by wind turbine run from 100,000 a year (the National Research Council) to 300,000 (American Bird Conservancy). Bloomberg News puts the toll at 573,000 birds in 2012. At the high end of the estimates, that’s well more than 1,000 birds chopped to death each day.” – Article
These numbers are not remotely matched by the deaths of 161 birds in a 2015 oil spill off the coast of California, or the 2,303 that died during the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The worst portion of this is that the majority of birds killed by wind turbines are raptors, which includes hawks, vultures and eagles. These are apex avian predators that prey on pests both large and small, and dispose of carcasses as well.
Yes, cats, feral or domestic, allowed to run around outdoors, are also responsible for preying on birds. And so are squirrels. They will rob nests and eat the young when they think the coast is clear. My cat is, therefore, an indoor kitty.
The cost of so-called green energy is considerably higher than it should be. You, the customer who decides to use that, have to pay for the construction, equipment and delivery, which you chose to use. And it is not cheap, either, especially when a company that made big promises goes belly up and unemployment lines lengthen.
So you can understand my curiosity when an offer to switch “green” and “sustainable” energy (meaning wind and solar) arrived, and I read through the offer as outlined, finding that the per KwH charge is $0.095/KwH, never mind the delivery charges and taxes. This is a 50% rise in my usual charge, which is $0.065/KwH, plus delivery and taxes. I did the simple math, based on my current month’s usage compared to last year, because the furnace is running now, which runs up the bill. Whereas my normal winter usage runs around $52.00/month, this 50% hike in the KwH rate will boost my charges to well over $80.00/month, just to have a furnace running, plus a couple of appliances, and a few lights in my little house. The offering also says that rates are variable and may rise as needed. And this source of this power is to come from wind and solar energy farms in my area. Since there are no such things within 250 miles of where I live, it means that wherever it originates, the possibility of breakdowns and outages increases with distance, never mind storm damage to the “farm” itself.
The offering for this marvel of modernity comes from some group located in Washington, DC.
It would be far more constructive to start building more nuclear power plants in this country.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty
