CHAPTER TWELVE: I DON’T CATCH THE SUSTAINABILITY OF YOUR DRIFT, PARDNER – Part One, A Primer for the Sustainable Gallup Board
SUSTAINABILITY: The basic idea is ‘indefinitely repeatable’ however sustainability has become an euphemism for a fundamentalist faith marking out a new and larger ideological territory in which curtailing economic, political, and intellectual liberty is the price that must be paid now to ensure the welfare of future generations. The cavemen certainly had tremendous difficulties obtaining sustainable resources however nowadays to say we’ve only scratched the surface is to significantly understate how little of this planet’s potential we’ve unlocked. We already know that we have enough of a combination of fossil fuels and nuclear power to last thousands and thousands of years. The amount of raw matter and energy on this planet is so incomprehensibly vast that it is nonsensical to speculate about running out of it.
UNSUSTAINABLE: Medicare, Obamacare, Social Security, the federal debt and renewable energy. That’s right, wind and solar energy are so heavily subsidized they cannot survive subsidy cuts as European countries have learned the hard way as they are forced to scrap wind and solar projects in favor of fossil fuels.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: An euphemism for ‘woefully inadequate substitute’.
RENEWABLE ENERGY: A meaningless term with no established standards. Wind and solar don’t deliver concentrated energy (the ‘diluteness problem’) and require massive amounts of energy and non-renewable materials (many of them rare and toxic) to produce a unit of energy. The erratic intermittency of the wind and sun allows them to only be used as a costly backup to fossil fuels since there are no batteries large enough to store the energy.
EUROPEAN RENEWABLE ENERGY COSTS: Since the European Union wind and solar energy revolution took off in 2006 their average electricity rates increased by 43% to 26.57 cents per kilowatt hour kWh in 2013. In the same time period the US experienced a 17% increase to 12.12 cents/kWh.
US GREEN ENERGY COSTS: Despite the downward pressure on electricity prices by natural gas availability, the recent forced use of wind and solar energy by new EPA government regulations has led to the largest US electricity price increase in six years in 2014. This is in step with President Obama’s green energy goal he set in 2008 that “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”.
FUEL/ENERGY POVERTY: The state of being unable to afford heating one’s home adequately. Almost unknown in Europe in 2006 the World Health Organization claims renewable energy costs in Europe now take tens of thousands of lives every winter. The solution is affordable energy from fossil fuels, thus the silence of green activists.
CO2 REDUCTION POVERTY: Green policies hurt the poor and working class the most. Soaring electricity, vehicle, transportation, heating and appliance costs, opposition to modern mining and drilling techniques and blocking infrastructure projects leave a heavy footprint on the less fortunate.
WOOD BURNING STOVES: The greatest cause of both outdoor and indoor air pollution. When energy costs rise due to absence of fossil fuel energy, renewable wood sources are utilized for heating.
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION: The world’s and Navajo Nation’s greatest environmental health hazard and killer (4.3 million people each year) caused by wood, coal and dung burning stoves as a consequence of fuel poverty. Virtually ignored by green activists since affordable fossil fuel energy is the solution.
OUTDOOR AIR POLLUTION: Thanks to our advanced technology in fossil fuel energy the United States is ranked in the top six of over 90 countries for clean air quality by the World Health Organization in 2015.
ELECTRIC CAR POLLUTION: Whether powered by coal, solar or wind, they each leave a larger environmental footprint than gasoline. On the positive side, despite being so expensive the wealthy owners (the top income quintile) of plug-in cars receive large tax credits.
CANCER VILLAGES: Over 400 in China, many associated with unsafe mining and manufacturing of rare earth minerals for solar panels, wind turbines, electric car batteries as well as recycled American plastics, paper and e-waste processing. Cancer rates have risen 80% over the last 30 years making it China’s leading cause of death. Ignored by green activists.
SOLAR FARM POLLUTION: The behemoth Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the Mojave Desert opened in 2014. The amount of natural gas required to operate the solar farm would have produced enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 17,000 California homes. So now for all those $billions spent on crony corporate interests, for all that destroyed pristine desertscape, dead birds, displaced tortoises and more – the darn thing emits more CO2 than an ordinary power plant would’ve anyway, twice as much as the threshold required to pay carbon taxes. And not only that, it costs four times as much per kilowatt hour produced than a natural gas power plant. Ivanpah makes Solyndra look like petty larceny.
SOLAR IMPOTENCE: Despite over 20 massive solar farms constructed over the past decade the total US energy production for solar is less than one half of one percent. They are quite impressive as an elitist community status symbol though.
PV BRUSH-OFF BLUES: Salesmen may whisper sweet promises in your ear however reliability, installation and safety issues abound with PV solar panels often putting forth less than half what promised (50 years rather than 25 to cover costs) and lifespans of only 15 to 20 years triggering performance anxiety. By that time the fly-by-night operation is long gone with not even a Dear John letter. Solar regret is a terrible thing….. Pssst, I got a can’t miss deal on some cheap PV cells – made in China.
THE CRONY SOLAR SWINDLE: Without both explicit and hidden large government subsidies paid for by citizens the solar industry would collapse as is currently happening in Europe. Competitive claims by crony solar company proposals ignore the costs associated with unreliability, water usage and backup fossil fuel plants since solar farms generate such a tiny amount of energy only during daylight hours. The cost is passed on to the utility customers with the connivance of the government. As with virtually all green projects it is the poor who suffer the most, particularly here in McKinley County where affordable energy should be a priority.
**You can have all 13 chapters of the Lexicon in a booklet for $2.00 at the UPS store, 2418 E HWY 66**
