Most of the land cannot survive and thrive on intermittent electricity
By Ronald Stein
Ambassador for Energy and Infrastructure, Irvine, California
Sub-zero wind chill from a Nor’easter hit much of the country. President Biden’s drive to go green at all costs would make America dependent on intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels. This would be an energy disaster.
The Democratic Platform loves California and wants to clone its policies and regulations for the other 49 states. Biden should open his eyes to what’s going on in California before cloning it for the other 49 states. In order to meet its state electrification goals, California admits to being the leader in everything, but its dysfunctional energy policies have made it the state that imports more electricity than any other state.
California has the most unreliable power grid in the country. Between 2008 and 2017, California was the leading U.S. state for single power outages, with nearly 4,297 power outages in the ten-year period, more than 2.5 times as many as its closest rival, Texas. Power outages are now commonplace in California.
California’s energy policy has made the state’s electricity and fuel prices the highest in the nation, contributing to the rapid growth of “energy poverty” for most Californians, including the 18 million (45 percent of 40 million Californians) who represent Hispanic Americans. and African American population of the state. Why does Biden want to clone California for the other 49 states?
The wealthier developed countries, which have access to uninterrupted electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, also have access to heating, air conditioning, and insulation, virtually eliminating weather-related deaths. Over the past 80 years, climate-related deaths have fallen by 98%. Globally, the individual risk of dying from weather-related disasters fell by 98 percent after nearly 500,000 people were killed in floods, droughts, storms, forest fires and extreme temperatures in 1920.
With Biden’s plan to go green and rely on intermittent electricity from wind and sun, he is promoting a reversal of climate-related deaths, as few other states have the temperate climate like California. The state of California can survive from a disrupted energy policy because the growing outages will not affect the public and businesses as much as other states with much harsher temperature extremes.
Yes, opting out of fossil fuels would reduce those fossil fuel emissions, but it would also have a drastic impact on the lifestyles we have become accustomed to, and surprisingly, few would live to be over 40 as the fossil fuel phase-out increases A return would result in extensive disease and weather-related deaths that have been virtually eliminated by fossil fuels and electricity from natural gas, nuclear and coal.
With the northeast storm hitting much of the east coast, perhaps Biden and America should learn about Europe’s experience of wind and sun during these tough times when continuous, uninterrupted and reliable electricity is required to sustain the foundations of life in extreme climates chaotic wind and sunshine threaten a whole Europe-wide power failure.
California has pursued Germany in leading the way on climate change by phasing out nuclear and natural gas power plants and developing a subsidy system for industrial wind and solar power plants to further combat global warming.
In recent years, California has continued to downsize its natural gas fleet. At the same time, the states’ “green” religion persistently opposes coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydropower plants. In the near future, California has five more power plants that need to close in the crosshairs – the last nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon and four more natural gas plants.
To further exacerbate the dysfunction, the impact of Governor Newsom’s recent order to ban sales of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 will be devastating to the state’s economy and the environment as the governor has a dysfunctional energy program more electrical charging requirements want to add. The state has already sacrificed reliable electrical energy on the altar of the fight against global warming.
Biden may not be aware that the temperate climate on the west coast is not representative of the extreme weather conditions found in most parts of America. California may be more tolerant of dysfunctional energy policies that rely more on intermittent electricity from the wind and sun, but the rest of the country needs continuous and uninterrupted electricity for life and business to survive and thrive.
Ronald Stein, PE
Ambassador for energy & infrastructure
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