"Until the 'greenies' get the *blank* out of the way of building more nuke plants, shut the *blank* up about global warming. These brainwashed kids might want to take this country back to the stone age, but I sure don't!"
Here are some interesting stats from the World Nuclear Association, as energy pertains to these United States. In 2018, this nation produced 4178 TWh (billion kWh) of energy - a formidable amount. That amount was derived from natural gas (35%), coal (27%), nuclear (19%), hydro (6.6%), wind (1.6%) and solar and all others, the remaining percentage. What did these numbers tell me?
First off, the percentages have not changed too much in the past few years. Second, if we really want to be a prime time clean energy player, the 19% on solar needs to about double. And finally, to get to the Excel Energy's goal of 100% renewable by 2050 - there is no possible way that can happen.
Here comes the punch to the solar plexus for the clean energy crowd. The World Nuclear Association also feels that coal will remain a large part of our energy mix until at least 2035. Hello? This is reality speaking. Without coal being a major player in our energy mix, we are not going to make it. Yet, what has been taught to our youngins, is that coal is public enemy number one. So much so, that many coal fired electrical plants have gone through the expensive conversion to natural gas. And now natural gas is also looked upon by the "greenies" as a energy villain.
Here is the long and the short of it. We might have been able to come closer to the goal of 100% clean energy by 2050 IF we had not been so scared of nuclear fuel. That Three Mile Island scare really threw us off the tracks. After the energy embargo in the 1970's, we should have gone full speed ahead on building new nuke plants, as well as upgrading the older ones. If we had, our percentage of energy from nukes might now be 40%, instead of the present 19%. And wind? At less than 2%? That has a long, long way to go to be a major player.
I keep hearing and reading stories about our youth, and how afraid they are of man-made climate change. I would be too, if I got non-stop lies and falsehoods taught to me every day in school. With the truth taking a back seat, some of these kids are so scared (according one kid in the paper this morning), he can't even stand to think about it. Plus (here comes the real scary part) - all that fear is going to be channeled into votes for those who are 18 or older. We have the chance of voting ourselves right back into the dark ages.
Meanwhile, for the first time in forever, the United States is a net energy exporter. According to some reports, it is because of our current world wide strong energy presence, that oil futures did not go up like a Roman candle after the Saudi oil fields attack. The oil fields in North Dakota are going crazy right now, and next month could be crazier. Yes boys and girls - I am talking about the dreaded oil and natural gas. Two products which continue to make this country great. And that IS the truth.
Bottom line, what does our energy future look like? Good to very good. If we get off our collective butts, and authorize many more nuke plants, our future would look excellent. Wind will continue to be only a hobby. Solar does have a future, but not right now. For "clean" energy, our best choice continues to be solar. Until the "greenies" get the *blank* out of the way of building more nuke plants, shut the *blank* up about global warming. These brainwashed kids might want to take this country back to the stone age, but I sure don't!
A couple of things: Here are two questions for you; you can guess the answer. 1) Would you rather run around the outside of Three Mile Island for the duration of the "terrible accident" or take a free flight to Denver and back? 2) Which gives you a bigger radiation dose, sleeping next to a nuclear power plant or sleeping with your spouse? Yep, you guessed it.
ReplyDeleteSecond thing, you must be constantly on gaurd when these "percent of power" numbers are produced because green freaks like to use CAPACITY rather than actual generation. That is, the best windmills in MN produce power-- that is, their "availability factor"-- about 37% of the time. Solar power, as you might guess, has an availability factor around 10%. The REST of the time we rely on natural gas power plants. So when somebody tells you renewables are much cheaper than gas, Be suspicious, because over half of the energy from renewables is actually FROM gas! And when we put up a wind farm, we have to build a natural gas plant to go with it, so the capital cost is ALSO double what it would be if we had no windmills at all.
OK, and a third thing. Do the math, or consult the infamously over-hyped and erroneous computer climate models, and you find that all this expensive and unreliable green energy is going to save us somewhere between 0.02 and 0.37 degrees of warming over the next 100 years. It's a religious crusade that will impoverish us all.