If you've been following the arguments around climate change and renewable energy, as I have - and since you're reading this, I presume you are - then you're also sadly aware of the billions of taxpayer dollars the United States government and the various state governments have poured into these boondoggles. Massive solar farms are taking up land that could otherwise be used for more productive purposes, from farming to grazing to housing. Wind turbines are killing birds, especially large soaring birds like eagles and hawks, in numbers so significant that the United States Fish & Wildlife Service doesn't want to release their estimates.
So why does Washington keep wasting money on this? Why do the several states keep doing so?
A recent piece over at Empowering America, by Gary Abernathy, has some startling numbers.
In their zeal to force “renewable energy” into every nook and cranny of society, advocates have been consistently guilty of getting the solar-powered cart ahead of the wind-powered horse. In other words, time and again we realize, usually too late, that everybody is getting ahead of themselves.
Large-scale solar power is still an emerging technology. Nevertheless, the Obama and Biden administrations threw billions of tax dollars at states and local communities urging – in some cases, mandating – that they “transition” away from reliable energy sources. As a result, anywhere from 650,000 to nearly one million acres of former farmland are now covered with solar panels, depending on estimates.
American Farmland Trust predicts that as solar installations expand, “the top 12 states will also lose, fragment, or compromise between 306,000 and over 2 million acres of farmland.”
Such a waste. Why? Because even for those who fervently believe in the need to transition to “renewables,” patience would be rewarded by advances in technology that would allow solar arrays to generate the same amount of energy with a much smaller footprint.
Note the names attached to this waste: The Obama and Biden administrations. This fish is rotting from the head, as we might expect, although it's tempting to be charitable in the case of the Biden administration and note that old Joe himself probably had very little idea what was going on. Not that this excuses his administration from wasting billions, presumably approved by whoever was running the autopen.
But Democrats, mind you, are owned by the climate scolds, the environmental lobby, most of whose members have not even a nodding acquaintance with the actual environment. No, going for a once-a-month hike in a city park doesn't count.
Mr. Abernathy continues:
The price of throwing tons of money at a “solution” while the technology is still evolving was driven home by the case of the Ivanpah Solar Power Plant. I wrote last year about the plant, which, I noted, was “built from 2010–14 at a cost of $2.2 billion—including $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees from the Obama Energy Department—(but) is now ‘set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy,’ according to a recent story in the New York Post.”
The plant was already considered outdated because as the technology rapidly evolved, the Ivanpah facility “couldn’t compete with newer and less expensive forms of creating solar power,” the Post reported. I pointed out that “the reckless hurry to ‘go green’ once again ended up with a project deep in the red.”
That's par for the course, where these sorts of things are concerned. And note the names of the administrations that tried to put a stop to all this:
But here’s a troubling update: Rather than eating the loss and closing the plant as planned last
year, the facility is caught in a costly nowhere land.“Both the Trump and Biden administrations — along with the utility company that buys its power — have sought to shut (Ivanpah) down, saying it underperforms, produces expensive electricity and has been overtaken by cheaper energy sources,” Fox News recently reported. “But California regulators have refused to allow it to close, warning that closing the plant could strain the power grid.”
The Trump administration, in this second term, has turned America's traditional energy taps back on, but we must remember these things only last as long as who's in power. Imagine what a Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom presidency would do to America's energy policy, and if you want a good example, look at the Ivanpah Solar Power Plant.
There is at least a partial answer to this in the offing, but as we might expect, it's languishing in Congress.
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That answer is Representative Troy Balderson (OH-12)'s proposed legislation, The Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act, or ARC-ES. Rep. Balderson's office describes the proposed legislation as supporting "an all-of-the-above approach that guarantees affordable, reliable energy based on evidence and science rather than far-left 'green new deal' political ideologies."
Note that federal legislation won't necessarily import sudden political sanity back to California, but we can at least shut off the tap of federal money - our money - into all this.
Remember, midterms are in November. If you want to see more "green" energy subsidies, more billions of taxpayer dollars poured into renewable energy boondoggles, then stay home. If you'd rather that money not be spent, then go vote, and vote for candidates who are against the Green New Deal horse squeeze. That's all.
