Quiz: which is bigger: 50 million or 10 million?

Before we answer that, some thoughts on fossil fuels. Lots of talk this week about fossil fuels, zero net emissions, reducing CO2 emissions, cutting oil and gas consumption, etc. But the Biden campaign, taking a page from the once great state of California, wants to force the nation towards the Green New Deal…

Consider California. California aims for zero net emissions by 2035 and the Governor has signed off on that. So, California is shutting down coal and oil fired power plants, and has only 1 nuclear power plant (2 reactors at Diablo Canyon) left in operation; power costs are going to be climbing in California. What does that mean for California?

Well, California already has, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 3rd highest unemployment in the US (only Nevada and Hawaii have higher unemployment). But with higher energy costs California will be fighting for that “top spot.”

By the way, California is 37th in quality of K-12 education.

But it’s in standard of living that California soars to the head of the pack. Or, well, to the rear, with the worst overall standard of living in the country (as President Obama observed, elections have consequences, and for California, you need to add, “sorry.”)

And it’s likely to get worse, with more and more people – those who can afford it – leaving the state, the tax base will shrink as state mandated expenses continue to climb. And oh, yeah, California has water hours – sort of like being back in the Navy. That’s because 3 or 4 decades ago they chose to not finish the reservoir and aqueduct system that had been laid out about 100 years ago. Like the man said, election have consequences. And California is living with them.

So, back to Mr. Biden’s energy plan for the country. Mr. Biden wants to “Go Green,” which includes – depending on when you listen to him and his VP – ending fracking, ending oil leases on federal property, ending tax exemptions for oil companies, and further subsidies to the solar and wind industries (remember Solyndra?)

The problem with solar and wind is that they aren’t “on” much of the time – and they’re expensive. Solar only works when the sun is up and there are no clouds. Wind only works in a fairly small wind speed range – the ones near my house work between 8 and 19 mph wind speed. Outside that range: no power. Further, data from wind and solar farms in Europe have shown that estimates for operating costs are routinely too low, and windmills and solar panels don’t last as long as forecast. Further, solar panels in particular require certain materials that are expensive and difficult to acquire, and which also leach out of the solar panels over time. In particular, certain metals, cadmium for example, leach out of solar panels and can rapidly reach toxic levels in the soils under the solar panels, mandating that a containment system and a mitigation scheme be in place to prevent these metals from reaching the water tables or the ocean. Unfortunately, often no such mitigation plan exists.

More to the point, modern, first world societies survive on what is known as baseline power, the electricity that is “always there.” As a general rule total baseline power generation capacity should be about 125% of peak power requirements. Thus, on a hot day (summer days consume more electric power than winter days) when air conditioners are running, power consumption should represent about 80% of available power. This provides capacity for continuing maintenance on various generation plants, while also addressing any localized issue (a transformer station has an incident and shuts down, etc.) with ample extra power to allow re-routing power to otherwise affected areas.

But due to more bad decisions by various elected officials over time, baseline power across the US now operates much closer to 100% of capacity. In California this is particularly true. Obviously, the nation needs large power stations that can operate all the time, yet don’t pollute. We have these, they’re called nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, these aren’t being built because of another election that had more of those consequences.

Why the US doesn’t process spent nuclear fuel, but rather lets it build up into huge amounts of low-grade radioactive material is because Jimmy Carter shut down most of the processing capacity because of fears that fuel would fall into the hands of terrorists. Then, the Three Mile Island catastrophe was used to cement in the public mind the dangers of nuclear power. So, the spent fuel and a bunch of other radioactive material builds up. And no one really knows what to do with it – at least politically. By the way, how many thousands died in the wake of Three Mile Island?

Electric power generation, and secondarily power for transportation, are critical to the health and well being of the nation. And we have a state – California – which has been making bad decisions for a decade and more about these issues. Yet, Biden and Harris want the nation to follow California down that road.

We are at a fork in the road; one way leads down the path California has chosen. We really need to choose the other path.

As for how many thousands died? Zero. No one died as a result of Three Mile Island. Three Mile Island might well be the most glaring example of good design in a bad situation. Nearly every bad decision that could have been made was made, and still the radiation release didn’t kill anyone. That should be a testimony to how safe nuclear power is. But it was turned on its head by a hostile press.

Finally, today’s quiz. From the mid 1920s to the mid 1930s – the hottest decade in the US (except for the last two decades, courtesy of some very fat pencils) – forest fires consumed more than 40 million acres of forest per year. There were actually two years in a row where more than 50 million acres burned. But by the 1950s, because of aggressive forest management – clearing the forests and removing dead trees and kindling, and the use of controlled burns, forest fires were consuming less that 5 million acres per year. That trend continued into the 1990s, until policies were changed to make things “more natural,” to let nature do its own “house cleaning.” This year fires will consume more than 10 million acres of forest – because of more choices by bureaucrats appointed by elected officials, elected officials who chose over the years to pursue more bad policies.

Elections have consequences…

Copyright 2020 Arrias
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