There’s nothing “green” about “green energy” unless you’re talking about nuclear energy. Sadly, most of the loudest agitators for green energy are also virulently anti-nuclear. Most people don’t even understand what they’re talking about when they regurgitate phrases like “green energy” or “green jobs”, and just assume that “green energy” is simply “not fossil fuels.” Though, ironically enough, fossil fuels are probably more legitimately “green” than the charlatans posing as “green” like Wind and Solar. What do you want when you want “green energy”? You probably want more open and untouched land, less environmental impact, more greenery, less ecological damage, right? Political power-grabbers might have convinced you that green energy means stopping global warming, and are constantly claiming a non-existent scientific consensus that unless you transition to wind and solar power then you will destroy the planet via a completely incomprehensible process of man-caused climate change. They convince you of this in spite of never once in 25 years making a valid prediction of an observable phenomenon, and in spite of being forced to radically revise and scale back their theoretical arguments. Arkansas Nuclear One is a two-reactor nuclear power plant—the only nuclear plant in the state of Arkansas. Built in 1974, is cranks out 1800 Megawatts round the clock—with a lifetime efficiency rating of over 90% (i.e. peak capacity has been maintained 90% of the time, day and night, 365 days a year, since 1974). The facility takes up 1.7 square miles of space, in a pre-existing city (Russellville, AR). Coal and natural gas plants use basically the same area for similar production capacity. By contrast, a wind farm of the same capacity would require 169 square miles—and those miles could not be in most cities, but would have to be spread out over some of the most scenic wilderness areas of the state. A solar farm would take up 21 square miles of photovoltaic cell panels, and all of those miles would have to be clear cut and stripped of all vegetation and wildlife. Oh, and one more thing: that’s assuming that the wind and solar farms operated at 90% efficiency. If they operated at the realistic operating efficiency of the real world (33% for wind and 25% for solar), then those farms would take up 512 square miles and 84 square miles, respectively. Someone might complain that this does not take into account the environmental impact of mining nuclear fuel and the risk of nuclear contamination in a worst case scenario. These people also ignore the environmental impact of the massive—MASSIVE—materials requirements of installing wind farms, the horrifying chemical wastes of photovoltaic cell manufacture, and the fact that every solar or wind farm added to a utility grid is accompanied by new gas or goal generative capacity in order to compensate for the inevitable stretches of time when solar and wind simply can’t maintain basic use rates. So—that argument is completely invalid. As far as land and natural resource use, nuclear and fossil fuels are by far the “greener” option. Wind turbines are 300-foot diameter machetes chopping birds out of the air—especially raptors and other birds of prey, many of which are endangered—like Bruce Lee chops henchmen in “Enter the Dragon.” Commercial solar farms burn birds alive by the hundreds of thousands. And that solar farm was built by first destroying every natural habitat in a 40 mile radius—often in very fragile desert ecosystems. Fossil fuels… well, they don’t. The burning of fossil fuels is associated with the problems of “acid rain,” which has been largely mitigated (at least in the United States and European Union) via much-needed ecological regulation. (Indeed, you might not know it, but the primary acid rain gas, Sulfur Dioxide, was brought under a cap-and-trade regime in the United States in 1989, which has been largely successful—cutting Sulfur Dioxide emissions by fossil fuel power generation in half, and yielding a 65% decrease in acid rain and lake acidification.) It should also be noted that the mining of coal is generally a huge operation, with hundreds of square miles of land ripped away. Coal mining is also one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. However, considering the thousands and thousands of coal plants stocked by relatively few coal mines, it’s still less impactful on local fauna and flora than either wind or solar. And then there’s the wonderful benefit of adding all of that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Research going back at least 200 years has demonstrated repeatedly that increased ambient carbon dioxide levels increases plant photosynthesis, plant water retention, and plant nitrogen fixation, while reducing water loss due to transpiration. This means that plants grow easier and healthier, use water more efficiently, and both natural and synthetic fertilizers become more effective. So fossil fuels are quite literally the “greenest” energy around—if you define “green” as “greenery”. Researchers have estimated that the value of the global agricultural yield increase due to increased atmospheric CO2 levels was over $3.1 TRILLION between 1961 and 2011, and is now more than $140 billion every year, and will accumulate nearly $10 trillion by 2050. At this point, a global warming alarmist will whine about how much damage will have been done to the climate by 2050. Unfortunately for the alarmist, he has no concrete or tangible reason to be alarmed other than his own bias. Over the last 25 years, no global warming prediction has been realized. No claimed or pretended global warming—CO2 causation has been demonstrated, no claim of correlation between CO2 concentrations and natural disasters, forest fires, extreme weather events, or temperature trends has stood up to scrutiny. But in the meanwhile, CO2 emissions have been having a direct benefit on global food production. Coal, gas, and nuclear power plants have NOT been demonstrably burning, machete-ing, or otherwise destroying wildlife in alarming quantities. Literally BILLIONS of people have had their quality of life improved by the cheap availability of fossil fuels. In 2009, President Obama’s secretary of the Interior, known mountebank Ken Salazar, uttered the comically ignorant and dishonest assertion: Windmills off the East Coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, the coal-fired power plants in the United States.... The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility. It is not technology that is pie-in-the-sky; it is here and now.” Such a wind farm, if restricted to the East coast as Ken stipulates, would stretch from the northernmost tip of Maine to the southernmost tip of Florida, consist of 200 ranks of turbines, and cover 483,000 square miles. And ignorant green energy lemmings hear a political charlatan suggest it without batting an eye. But try to open 3.1 square miles of the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling, and they would have lynched him. Some caveats: I do acknowledge that fossil fuels are problematic. They have problems. But their benefits far outweigh the social and ecological costs. I am not completely insensitive to the ecological concerns of so-called climatologists (a discipline and “science” that didn’t exist until the last 20 years because it was too close to alchemy and rolling heads down the stairs of a pyramid on the Yucatan Peninsula to ensure a good harvest) as to potential long-term impacts of unfettered fossil fuels consumption. But the risks have not been demonstrated. It would certainly help if they had ever made a valid prediction, or if they hadn’t had to completely redesign their theories every few years. I acknowledge that fossil fuels are not a permanent solution, and that innovation in the energy industry is the number one strategic economic imperative of any post-industrial society that wants to remain stable, sustainable, or relevant. At the moment, though, fossil fuels are the best option. And will be for the foreseeable future. And they aren’t just the best economically—in many ways they are the “greenest” too. The only legal way to kill a bald eagle in the United States is with a wind turbine.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 17:37:21 +0000
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