Don's Tuesday Column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   1/23/2024

Renewable, delusional power sources

Writing some 300 miles away, at our winter abode ironically waiting for a sunny break in the mountain storms (we ski “on it” not “in it”), local and state goings-on are but an internet click away. Online columnists provide a rewarding view of things not otherwise seen, like water issues, local governance, and so on.

We each have a “part of the elephant” from which to opine, like the parable of blind men who drew conclusions based on their part of the elephant. Regarding California’s loony bin of issues, it’s a plethora of “low hanging fruit”; thankfully, Red Bluff and Tehama County feel like an island of sanity, from the middle of yet another Democrat-run state, Oregon.

We may get some eventual relief, albeit after months of inconvenience, from road problems on the south end of town (no word on repaving the tooth jarring surface of Kimball Road). Has it ever occurred to the transportation gods-that-be that an additional entrance to the south-bound ramp of I-5 from the Montgomery/Kimball intersection would immensely benefit everyone now having to go north to Main Street and then south to the current ramp? Think about it.

More on the solar “farm” planned for the west side of Baker: Readers should know “What keeps the lights on?” (powerlineblog.com), amidst the ongoing, cheerleading propaganda for “renewable energy.” What if solar- and wind-generated power is not—and, more importantly, could never be—anything but a near-irrelevancy to the massive, nationwide energy-producing behemoth of America’s power grid?

The entire justification for such inefficient, investment-heavy “renewable energy” (which, as I pointed out, is not really “renewable” in the long term) is predicated on a nonexistent “climate crisis.” It’s often called “global warming,” except that the warming is marginal and irrelevant to human life. The most recent (Jan. 20) climate-related post at Donpolson.blogspot.com (check daily for CA/national/world articles): “Global Warming? Arctic Ice at Highest Level for 21 Years” (Catherine Salgado, pjmedia.com, with graph).

Using the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “@GridBrief” created a graph showing the sources and amounts of energy from Jan. 10 through Jan. 16 for the lower 48 states, in the hundreds of thousands of megawatt-hours (mwh). Daily fluctuations reveal a trend for increasingly colder temperatures: Total generated electricity was around 500,000 mwh, peaking on Jan. 16 at 600,000 mwh due to the cold weather.

Natural gas provided a little under 200,000 mwh daily but shot up to 250,000 mwh for the cold temps. Coal and nuclear sources were at about 100,000 mwh each until the cold weather hit, when coal responded with an additional 50,000 mwh of juice. Wind power was below both coal and nuclear, dropping to around 50,000 mwh when the weather turned cold (like how wind under-performed in Texas a while back during a cold snap).

Relevant to our proposed solar array, solar energy naturally fluctuated from almost 50,000 mwh to zero mwh at night. Hydro- (dam-) generated power provided under 50,000 mwh with fluctuations due to water releases. Petroleum was a tiny fraction of power produced.

The lesson should be obvious: Wind and solar power were the most unreliable segments of America’s electricity; their unreliability accounted for, ultimately, less than 10 percent of our power needs. Hopes for a “carbon free” nation are little more than “pipe dream” illusions. It is so impractical to think solar and wind can scale up—no matter how many thousands of square miles of otherwise pristine vistas they despoil—as to be literally ludicrous.

While we’re on the “renewable/delusional” topic, let’s revisit the much-hyped electric vehicles, or EVs. Without visiting or calling every dealer in the county, I will assume there are no used EVs; no one with a brain wants to risk buying them. No matter how impractical a new car dealer may think EVs are for a rural area, they will nonetheless likely have a mandated quota of the cars.

You may not have read any of the numerous stories of EV owners of various models from passenger cars to pickup trucks, that found themselves on either a planned or urgent trip of a greater distance than the EV-rated range indicates. I don’t recommend it unless you enjoy 1) “range anxiety” over having to meticulously chart out the recharging locations within your EVs limits; 2) finding inoperative charging devices or ones with inadequate charging capabilities for anything shorter than an hour or two wait;

3) Compounding that with lines of those similarly waiting; 4) finding that your EVs batteries have greatly reduced power in the cold, as your need to stay warm saps that reduced power. Unlike gas vehicles that produce heat as a byproduct of combustion—taking nothing from your mpg—EV energy can run the car or heat you, not both for long.

Relevant news articles: “Hertz gets rid of EV fleet,” “Ford Slashes Electric Truck Production, Because Nobody Wants Them,” “Electric Vehicles Enter the ‘Total Failure’ Phase of Their Existence.” Meanwhile, I say “You’re welcome” to EV owners; it’s only through my and other gas car owners’ taxes that you can afford it.