Juan Cole and Wind

I always knew University of Michigan comedian Juan Cole was a windbag, but here he proves it with a treatise on why off shore wind power is the energy source of the future. Actually, his co-treatise is that Donald Trump, his least favorite president, is an ignoramus and a loudmouth. It always comes back to that. In fact, that’s what he says about Trump in his introductory paragraph. This is from his blog, Informed Comment.

https://www.juancole.com/2019/08/offshore-industrial-revolution.html

Let me begin by saying that the whole question of power is out of my league. But nothing is out of Cole’s league. He’s an expert on everything!

As for all those scenic wind towers (The Kennedy family disagrees. They have long opposed having them ruin their view of the sea at Chappaquiddick, I mean Hyannis Port), I can’t sit here and tell you they are ineffective (if the wind doesn’t blow), or that they are a waste of time and money because, unlike Captain Cole, I am no scientist. Like Trump and everybody else not named Juan Cole, I am an ignoramus. I have heard reports of dead eagles who fly into the wind towers, but that might just be animal/bird rights wackos talking. Besides, we’re talking about places like Wyoming (which doesn’t have a shore-yet.)

I do know a couple of things, however: Whether we like it or not, there are many different sources of power, like water, oil, coal, nuclear, and anabolic steroids. Coal may not like Cole, I mean Cole may not like coal, but he should ask Hillary Clinton what happens when you go to West Virginia and tell everybody that they will soon be out of work and in need of re-training because she’s going to shut down the Cole coal mines!

It doesn’t take a scientist (like Cole) to tell me that COAL can be rather toxic. Just ask all those retired minors with black lung disease. Even I know that breathing in the pure thing (which I don’t normally do) can lead to lots of bad things.

“Plus it causes global heating and climate crisis.”
-Juan Coal, Cole

Cole points out that Denmark gets over 50% of its energy from wind.  Great. What about the other 40+%? Where does that come from?

Then Cole drops this curious passage into the body of his article:

“Kansas, Iowa and Oklahoma all get over a third of their electricity from wind. Kansas and Oklahoma have governments that are beholden to Big Oil and to a rigid Republican ideology that has ruined their education and social services infrastructure, so those states are not doing this out of ideology. Wind is good business.”

I don’t know when Cole became a fan of business, but no matter. If Kansas, Iowa and Oklahoma are getting one-third of their electricity from wind, great. Where are they getting the other two-thirds from? Well, in the case of Kansas and Oklahoma, it must be Big Oil because of those rigid Republicans and their ideology “that has ruined education and the social services infrastructure”. 
Cole obviously envisions the day when we will all talk about Big Wind-in affectionate terms, of course.

In conclusion, I will not attempt to argue with the experts quoted by Cole from Earth.com, Axios, Cleantech, and Wind Power Monthly. Let’s say wind towers are the wave of the future (although I’m not sure about having them the size of football fields). Fine. I’ll go along with it as long as it can give us all we need, they are cost effective, and they won’t kill eagles. Since I am not an informed expert like Cole, I don’t know the answer to those questions.  And what is Cole’s conclusion……..?

Oh wait! He doesn’t have one. He doesn’t even have a concluding paragraph-unless it’s that Informed Comment bonus video.