The Great American Energy Scam

by Mustang

How can you be dumber than a rock?  Honestly, it may not be possible — but if anyone could achieve it, it would be Joe Biden (and his political party), and if anyone could produce an example of it, it would have to be Joe Biden’s (and his political party’s) emphasis on renewable energy.

Simply stated, renewable energy is an energy source that doesn’t run out.  Of course, that’s a silly proposition because we know that the sun will burn out at some point in the future.  Without heat produced by solar energy, there can be no wind.  No wind, no wind turbines.  Like that.  At the same time, we know that non-renewable energy sources are also at risk of disappearing.

There is only so much gas and oil — when it’s gone, it’s gone for good.  So, it does make sense to look around for alternative energy sources, and if they’re renewable, all the better.  What does not make sense is for people (with an agenda) to announce a final solution to energy challenges when there is no definitive solution.  The most significant number of boobs telling us fairy tales about energy is the Democratic Party — which is Joe Biden’s party.

Let’s start with transportation.  Joe Biden, Inc. wants Americans to buy battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs).  If Americans do that, we can solve our pollution problems — which is total B.S.  Currently, there are 290 million registered automobiles in the United States.  The number of BEVs is around 300,000.  Does anyone seriously think that BEVs will replace gas-powered vehicles anytime within the next 100 years?  I don’t.  Moreover, I don’t see battery-powered 18-wheelers stopping every 100 miles to recharge their batteries, either.  Or battery-powered bulldozers, military tanks, or solar-powered aircraft.

I admit that some things look good on paper — such as science fiction.  But just like we cannot now (and probably never will) conquer travel into deep space, we also cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  BEVs may be great on the golf course, but not in a highly mobile society, such as in the U.S.  In any case, the problem with BEVs include:

• They’re too expensive to purchase, operate, and maintain
• Americans like to travel; BEVs don’t.
• BEVs require six times the number of minerals as gasoline-powered vehicles.  That is to say, more copper, lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt, graphite, chromium, molybdenum, zinc, silicon, and other rare-earth materials.  Also, in total, six times the electrical energy now expended.  The demand for more minerals will force the U.S. to import many of those listed, which is fine and dandy as long as the world remains at peace.  Good luck with that.  By the way, the lead time for mineral extraction and provision is around 16 years.
• The proposition that BEVs can be recharged through solar energy is “pie in the sky” idiocy.  In some places in the U.S., there are only 100 days per year of sunshine.  So, where will those locations get their solar energy?  Answer: they won’t.  So how logical is the proposition?
• The government’s focus on BEVs (intellectual and economic) takes away from serious consideration of other solutions — because, as I said earlier, non-renewable energy will at some point disappear. For the record, zero emissions aren’t achievable. There has to be a plan B.

Special report : Inside the Congo cobalt mines that exploit children

But BEVs aren’t the worst of it.  Let’s channel (briefly) over to wind turbines.  For wind turbines to work, there must be wind — so we already know that wind-turbines lack efficiency when there is no wind.  When there is wind, modern wind turbines can generate 2 megawatts of electricity.  The cost of one wind turbine is $3.5 million (installed).  The people who invest in these wind farms will argue that 2 megawatts of power are enough to power 420 average size residential dwellings.  The claim is false because the wind doesn’t always blow hard enough to turn the turbines.

Note that false claims are common in the alternative energy racket because people want to sell their goods and will tell you almost anything to get your signature on the bottom line.  Solar panels, for example.  For some reason, people hate their electric provider, and this condition opens the door to people who are happy to sell you solar panels.  Fact: solar panels are inefficient and costly.  If you live in an ideal location for solar energy, the best you can hope for is a 22% conversion rate — and that’s with the best and most expensive technology available to that market.  The questions one should ask include:

• What do solar panels do to my roof?
• How much of my roof do I give up for solar panels?
• What if storms damage my solar panels?
• What if I don’t regularly clean my solar panels of dust and dirt?
• What is the cost and efficiency of solar power storage systems?  A four-bedroom home requires four storage batteries at $8,000.00 each.  Do the math.
• What is my initial cost, and how long will it take to reach my break-even point?  Note: the break-even point is an estimated twenty years.

None of the answers to these questions make converting to solar panels an attractive proposition, and no one is talking about the toxic compounds found in solar panels.

I have one neighbor who installed solar panels; it set him back $30,000.00.  He gets 5-7 KwH of power for this amount of solar energy.  Now he pays only 88% of his electrical energy costs, a savings of 12%, and his monthly bill for the solar panels is around $250.00 a month.  Maintaining the battery storage gizmo is an additional cost; he won’t tell me how much.  My other neighbor installed an emergency power generator; it cost him $4,000 at Home Depot.  As for myself, I’ve made peace with my electric company.

Some say that nuclear power is one of mankind’s greatest mistakes.  Perhaps.  But I’d like to suggest that “mankind” didn’t come up with that idea — scientists did.  The rest of us simply had no choice in the matter.  One of my good friends (one of the few internet companions I’ve actually met) is a champion of fusion energy as an alternative to fission nuclear power.  Cleaner, he says — and safer.  I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve read.

According to the experts, fusion power offers an “almost” inexhaustible energy source — but since the engineering doesn’t yet exist to make it work, we can’t get there from here.  The research continues, and I do not doubt that when (or if) scientists, engineers, and politicians work it all out, none of us will have a say in the matter.  Plus, it may be far more than an engineering problem.

Experts say that fusion is not possible because strongly repulsive electrostatic forces between the positively charged nuclei prevent them from getting close enough together to collide.  If they cannot collide, they cannot produce fusion energy.

Conclusion

“Humankind” will have to do something about energy in the future, and we are inventive enough to address such challenges.  What we should do, in the meantime, is ignore most of what Biden, Inc., tells us about the future of energy.  Biden hasn’t a clue.  None of the Biden cabinet has a clue, either.  So instead of wasting another gazillion dollars (of the people’s money) chasing science fiction, why not slow down the process, stop wasting time on things that simply won’t work (BEVs), and begin to concentrate on realistic solutions to future energy problems?

Here’s one example of what I mean.  For all the money spent on the construction of major highway systems and transforming these systems from two to four to six lanes of traffic, the federal and California governments could have constructed a significant network of “Walt Disney” type electric trains linking Los Angeles County bedroom communities with the downtown areas — with similar systems servicing Oakland, San Francisco, and San Diego.

And, in fact, every decision made by the Federal DOT or CALTRANS made the West Coast highway system worse — and add to that, the problem of exhaust emissions (which state officials have always laid at the feet of the people of California).  So far, California’s only solution to these problems is higher taxes, more expansive highways, and more significant restrictions imposed upon the citizens of California.

Notably, California intends to prohibit gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035 [source: Cal-Matters-Org].  After 2035, Californians will either purchase BEVs or bicycles, or they’ll walk to work.  It is precisely this kind of nonsense that prompts people to think of California as a soviet state.

Why is there an energy scam in this country?  Because scamming makes people a lot of money — Al Gore, for example — and because the government can force people to do what government wants.  Is there any way to defeat this madness?  Sure.  Knowledge — and a healthy amount of skepticism of government officials, policy, expenditures, and mandates.

Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

Bunk adds this to Mustang’s fine post:

Earlier posted in May:

EPA Blocks Critical Major Mining Mineral Project

Within a week of the memo shutting down Oil and Gas Leases, the Federal government moves to shut down the Pebble Mining Project in Alaska of the very minerals that Biden just proclaimed essential under the Defense Emergency Production Act. Its location is in a 24,000 sq mile area in Alaska. Largely undeveloped.

Copper and molybdenum for green energy technology like electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels. Gold. Not for us. Possibly one of the largest mines in the world.