That’s the latest harp by the Demos. let’s get rid of cows, cars, planes, coal, fossil fuels, etc. and make the world green and unpolluted! Whoopee. I can’t wait…except we will have to wait, because it is impossible. Today, if you have solar collectors, or a windmill, and you think all is wonderful? Remember, it wouldn’t be so wonderful, except for the fact that both solar and wind generation is heavily subsidized by governments at various levels. Without the subsidies, you never would have bought in, and without the massive subsidies, there wouldn’t be tens, hundreds, and millions of acres containing ‘wind and solar farms,’ as they are called. Without tax credits, no one would buy an electric car. When you see all those lazily turning, huge propellers, and shining solar collectors, you must think, “Oh boy, they’re generating electricity without burning fossil fuels.”
Mark Mills, an expert on such things, reports, in a column in the Journal last week (Wall Street), that, “Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete, and 43 tons of plastic.” Solar power requires even more cement, steel, plastic, and glass, not to mention other metals. Building enough wind turbines to supply half the world’s electricity, would require nearly two billion tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, and two billion barrels of oil to produce the composite blades, not counting the other required metals and huge labor to erect them. Ever see the pile of dead birds at the base of a windmill? All this, if the wind blows or sun shines. All things wear out, including solar panels and windmills. Old, worn out equipment, like washers, cars, TVs, etc, and including solar panels, require de-commissioning, valuable scrap saved, and the rest buried burned, or in some way gotten rid of and out of the way. The International Renewable Energy Agency, calculates that by 2050, solar panels consistent with the Paris Accords, will result in old-panel disposal constituting more than double the tonnage of all of today’s plastic waste.
Got solar panels generating juice to charge batteries? Electric car batteries, as an example, weigh about a thousand pounds. If you have batteries being charged by wind or solar to supply you with electricity, the electric car battery might be very similar. Fabricating one, requires digging up, processing, and moving, more than 50,000 pounds of raw materials somewhere on the planet. When electricity comes from wind or solar machines, every unit of energy produced, or mile traveled, requires far more materials and land than do fossil fuels. A wind or solar farm stretching to the horizon, requires miles of cable and towers to deliver the power, unlike a central power plant. A two hundred square mile wind or solar farm can be replaced by a handful of gas fired turbines, each no bigger than a tractor-trailer. None of the above includes the necessary cobalt, lithium, silver, copper, and other metals needed for wind and solar, much of it mined overseas in nations somewhat less than friendly to the U.S.
The greenie Democrat candidates, cheerfully endorsing obliterating virtually everything we need or want, in the name of being ‘green,” is so absurd, impossible, and ridiculous, that such proponents need to be in a funny farm, not running for office, so idiotic are their plans. These Democrat ‘intellectuals’ also endorse what is now an almost universal news story or mention in the media, ‘climate change.’ Climate change is another preposterous fairy tale, certain to be exposed as such eventually, just like that mysterious cloud which caused us to spend billions changing our refrigeration, for no reason. The cloud is still there. Even the experts admit that the temperature hasn’t changed in the last 18 years, and 1.8 degrees a hundred years before. Back in the 1970’s, ‘scientists’ predicted that we were entering another ice age, and 30 years ago, these same types said that all cities near an ocean were going to be wiped out, due to melting icebergs and oceans rising. None of it happened. I’m going to get glasses and a white robe, label myself a ‘scientist,’ and urge everyone to protect their assets in real money, which is gold and silver. Just ask Doctor Stott for advice. – coloradogold.com