Is Alternative Energy That Effective?, Part 3

Roger Anghis

Solar power has been pushed for a long time as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. What do you do in Seattle where there are over three hundred days of clouds? The wind is not dependable as a replacement energy source. In America, only 11% of our energy is supplied by renewable energy, wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, wood, and biofuels. Eight percent is supplied by nuclear which means that 81% of our energy is supplied by fossil fuels.[1] America, by the way, has the cleanest of all industrial nations. Russia has a pollution index of 63.49, China is 81.24, India is 75.55, most muslim nations are in the high 70s to the low 90s. America, the nation the world complains about is 35.74.[2]

Keep in mind that air pollution is not just caused by the activities of man. Plants and animals die and create methane gas. Volcanos produce particulates, methane, CO₂ and many other pollutants. The 2010 eruption of the Icelandic volcano erased all the CO₂ and particulate savings of every person on the planet for the previous five years in just two days of its over two-week eruption. It shut down air travel over Europe for over a week.[3] This is the kind of devastation that a single volcano can do. All this hype about cars and planes polluting our world to a point that in twelve years the planet will die is insane! There are over 1500 active volcanos spewing this stuff into the atmosphere 24/7 plus there are 30,000 volcanos on the continental ridge doing the same thing. What man does to contribute to the CO₂ level is minuscule in comparison.

I bring this up because this is the ‘reason’ the enviro-fascists demand that we stop using fossil fuels. Think about this, virtually all of the charging stations for electric cars are powered by coal-fired power plants. The more electric cars that are sold the more coal we have to burn to keep their batteries charged. It seems like a vicious circle to me. Recycling electric cars present problems as well. The batteries will become a major problem as we increase the number of electric cars. The drive to replace polluting petrol and diesel cars with a new breed of electric vehicles has gathered momentum in recent weeks. But there is an unanswered environmental question at the heart of the electric car movement: what on earth to do with their half-tonne lithium-ion batteries when they wear out?

British and French governments last month committed to outlaw the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered cars by 2040, and carmaker Volvo pledged to only sell electric or hybrid vehicles from 2019.

The number of electric cars in the world passed the 2m mark last year and the International Energy Agency estimates there will be 140m electric cars globally by 2030 if countries meet Paris climate agreement targets. This electric vehicle boom could leave 11m tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries in need of recycling between now and 2030, according to Ajay Kochhar, CEO of Canadian battery recycling startup Li-Cycle.

Recycling gap

However, in the EU as few as 5% (pdf) of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. This has an environmental cost. Not only do the batteries carry a risk of giving off toxic gases if damaged, but core ingredients such as lithium and cobalt are finite and extraction can lead to water pollution and depletion among other environmental consequences.[4]

The leftist wackos that are pushing the New Green Deal have no clue as to what they are demanding. Planes don’t fly on solar or electric power and the economic disaster that would follow the grounding of all airplanes would plunge the world into a depression that would make 1929 look like a hiccup. All of the industries that are involved with air travel would have to shut down and that would trickle out to virtually every other industry, housing, clothing, transportation and the list goes on and on. They may fifty to sixty years from now but not now. Big trucks and ships can’t operate on solar either. They want to stop raising cattle too. What will that cost us in jobs, food supply and all the related industries that will be affected?

Their idiocy would plunge the world back to the early 1700s! These ideas are why Democrats should never be in charge of anything. They’ve destroyed Detroit which used to have the highest per capita income in the nation. They’ve turned California into something worse than a third world nation where people are relieving themselves in the isles of grocery stores,[5] as well as in the streets and sidewalks. Oregon has the same problem but then they are governed by the same liberal idiocy.

I am not against alternative energies, but they need to be more efficient than wind and maybe solar. Hydroelectricity has been a good source that can last for many decades. Thermo energy can be very effective for residences and even a lot of commercial. But the removal of fossil fuels at this time is not an economic option. Nor is it a humanitarian option. The technology to be able to do what we are doing today with transportation, heating, cooling, is not there and is decades out.

Even though we have alternative energy it is not that effective and creates worse problems than it solves. Things like that usually don’t bother Democrats because they rarely have to pay for their mistakes. It is you and I that have to pay. Remember the last economic crisis we had in 2008? Our politicians caused it, but they expected us to let them fix it. I don’t think this is something that we can let them get control of. The devastation that will occur will take decades to reverse. Keep that in mind when you vote in 2020. Remember how they handled the impeachment process. That should keep Democrats out of any kind of power for at least a half a century.

E-Mail Roger Anghis: roger@buildingthetruth.org

Foot Notes