All of the above.
That is the right answer on the U.S. energy situation. But it is not, definitely not, the answer coming from the Biden administration. Indeed, when asked how to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump, President Joe Biden says he has no answer.
I say that he does, but he just doesn’t like the answer. Or rather, the answer doesn’t fit his worldview. His worldview is that renewables are the answer, the only answer.
It is useful to remember that the United States achieved energy independence as recently as four or five years ago, only to slip back to energy deficit as a result of President Biden’s policies and decisions. That would seem to be a step in the wrong direction but not for the climate-change crowd. Indeed, global warming and its various iterations are a form of secular religion to believers.
No, we are not a climate-change denier. The climate is definitely changing. The climate has been changing throughout human history. The question is what to think about it: Is it all or mostly manmade? Or is it inherent in nature for the climate to change?
All of the above.
President Biden wants to invest mostly or all in solar and wind energy. Both of these are a very good thing. All who have invested in solar panels for their roof praise the outcome. Many of these installations can be hooked into the electrical grid, so that on bright, sunny days, they are selling electricity to the utility company.
It also is a good thing when we install windmills and harness the wind’s energy. But there is one big negative to both wind and solar. It is that both are more expensive than electricity generated with fossil fuel. A lot more expensive in many cases.
Worse, both are unreliable. If the sun doesn’t shine, solar panels produce a lot less electricity than when it does. And when the wind doesn’t blow, windmills produce nothing. Hence, in order to produce the electricity mandated by law, utilities companies have to have backup generating for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. This, at least partially, defeats the whole purpose.
President Biden wants us to drive electric cars. Great idea, right? Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., recently boasted that she had just bought an electric car and driven it from Michigan to Washington, bypassing all the gas stations on the way. Except that she didn’t bypass all the charging stations on the way.
The best electric cars can go about 250 miles on one charge. That means she would have had to stop to charge twice. Recharging a full-sized Tesla takes about one hour. Refueling a full-sized Chevrolet takes less than 10 minutes. Hmm.
One thing that tells us is that, until either battery strength is improved (and it has been vastly improved in recent years) or until a much faster recharging method is invented, traveling long distances in an electric car will be quite inconvenient unless you have the patience and the time to sit there for an hour every 250 miles while you recharge.
Except for one more thing. What happens if one runs out of electricity. If an internal-combustion car runs out of gas, you call someone, and they come with a 5-gallon can of gas. You can’t do anything comparable with an electric car. You have to be towed to a recharging station.
But that’s not the worst of it. What the electric-car advocates won’t tell you is that they haven’t bothered to consult with the Con Edisons of the world (any and all utility companies) to find out if there will be enough energy generated in future years to run all the electric vehicles, including trucks. An 18-wheeler is going to take a lot more electricity than a Tesla.
It seems pretty clear that those amounts of electricity won’t come from solar panels or wind turbines. If not, where? Well, now, we’re back to natural gas and coal, right where we started.
It’s all good but don’t forget the operative word in this sentence. It is “all.”
“All” also applies to cars and trucks. Electric vehicles are great, and we should have them if we wish. But they aren’t and won’t be, in the near and medium term, the total answer.
That means fossil fuels, anathema to the progressives. As noted, the United States enjoyed energy independence on Jan. 20, 2021. President Biden immediately canceled the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Houston and threw up lots of roadblocks to oil and gas drilling and production in the United States.
So now, he’s headed to Saudi Arabia to implore them to produce more oil. And begging our nonfriends in Venezuela to do the same. Sounds like a great idea, right?
Ye gods. What are they thinking?
Reid K. Beveridge has covered politics in Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Delaware and Washington, D.C. He resides in Milton.
