It’s frigid now, but summer is coming, and with the summer will come heat and heated arguments which drive energy policy. Read on and this will make more sense.
This week, as nearly a million Americans were shivering without power from Winter Storm Fern, wind and solar failed us. Fossil fuels — natural gas, coal, and nuclear — collectively provided roughly 80 percent of U.S. electricity. Despite the untold green “investments” of the Biden era, wind and solar combined for only about 15 percent of the total.
When the two sides are stacked against each other, with all the costs, labor, raw materials, production, jobs, revenue, shortcomings, fossil fuels win every single time.
Yet those citizens without actual power have been denied reliable by elected officials wielding political power. That is pure evil.
Climate is the slippery slope to socialism openly favored by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. It centralizes power with the elite few. When states encourage limited electricity usage during times of stress, it’s because they worry about power running out. If that ever happens, you can bet the lights won’t be turned off first at Mamdani’s house or whatever upscale restaurant Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) finds himself at.
How does any of this apply to summer? When heatwaves strike, the climate left pushes for the very agenda which has us in our current energy pickle.
Heat waves are perfect for decrying global warming… err… climate change. The air hangs heavy and sticky. Brows are sweaty. People are ornery. Heat and humidity are physical props the climate left uses as narrative like Tennessee Williams staging a play.
In 1988, the very first major climate change hearing in the U.S. Senate occurred not in January but June. Sens. Al Gore (D., Tenn.) and Don Wirth (D., Colo.) set the stage. Choosing the historically hottest day of the year, they opened the windows and turned off the air conditioning to enhance the testimony of NASA’s James Hansen, the O.G. of bunk climate science.
Climate change seems so real in a 90-degree room with no breeze. One can almost imagine Gore dabbing his brow with a handkerchief.
It was theater, and it worked. Since 1988, America and the entire developed world have shelled out for wind and solar, on batteries, on carbon capture. During that time, global emissions have not gone down and prices have gone up.
Crucially, none of the doomsday scenarios have come true. Hurricanes have come and gone. Seasons have changed and changed back. Life has become more expensive as government attempts to fix a problem which does not exist using metrics that can never be met.
During the height of summer 2022, President Joe Biden stood in an empty lot in Somerset, Massachusetts where the Brayton Power Plant, the largest coal plant in New England, once stood. The climate left successfully shut it down after years of protest. Cooking under the midday sun in a dry field, Biden shouted about the climate threat and promised that one day they would build something green and great on that very site. It would be part of the solution. The audience cheered.
Yet nothing has been built. Nothing likely will be built, and the latest $300 million taxpayer funded “green” project bit the dust while Biden was still in office. Green dreams never materialized but real pain was inflicted. Some 250 jobs and as much as $14 million in tax revenue were lost.
Most salient to the current matter, enough power for 1.5 million homes came off the grid, power that would have withstood this storm. Power that works regardless of the weather. Coal always works.
This week, the 500,000 homes in Massachusetts shivering under the covers are paying the price. Despite untold taxpayer subsidies to wind and solar, those lousy technologies are producing basically nothing. They cannot compete with the reality of weather.
When the Department of Energy issues emergency orders allowing grid operators to operate beyond normal capacity, they’re not turning to wind or solar farm operators.
The stark contrast between “believe in science” and “science” is clear. Believing that wind and solar can work in a snowstorm is much different than working in a snowstorm.
If wind and solar proponents claim conditions need perfection to perform, invite them to use that prerequisite in any other aspect of life. Try telling your boss you can only work in perfect conditions. Our world is not a greenhouse. It is hot and cold, wet and dry, and no amount of money can ever, ever predict if the wind will blow tomorrow. Yet we are basing peoples’ lives on this insanity.
Pray for people in the cold. It claims almost 10 times as many lives as the heat. Humans are much more resilient to heat than cold. But the heat is uncomfortable and fidgety. The heat is when the bad deals are struck. The heat is where the climate devil convinces weak politicians they can control the weather if they just spend more money. The heat is when we need to be most vigilant so that we can survive the cold.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF.
