In a mere few years I’ve went from concerned to informed via many Substack writers/articles. It is obvious the legislators and regulators and bureaucrats pushing “green energy policies” have not taken even the slightest time to really understand the true consequences of these policies. Thankfully we have EBB and a large group of others trying to get the facts straight before it’s too late.
Then why not? Because they were buying the propaganda and likely in on the grift or wanted more control. Anyone should have been able to ask “ what happens when they wear out”. It’s elementary school questions.
an alternative when it comes to policymakers, especially those of the elected variety, is they simply don't understand the issues and therefore cannot make up their own minds. they parrot talking points of large donors, i.e. the grift
Great piece, folks. I've been working my way through "Shattered Green Dreams," and am very impressed with the data. Takes a lot of work to find and compile that kind of reference. Thank you.
As I read EBBs, MM, THB and others I am constantly wondering where we (us 'boomers') lost sight of environmental concepts such as 'sustainable' and 'best and highest use.' The mandate of "net zero" contradicts both of those philosophies. Personally, speaking as one who has been canceled and labeled a "denier," in all future correspondence and writing I will refer to that stupid idea as "nut zero." A person would have to be nuts to believe it will work!
In his comprehensive analysis “Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050 - Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome” published last year, Vaclav Smil also shattered all dreams of so-called “net zero.” Moreover, it is not only a question of the availability of raw materials, but above all of the fluctuating availability of energy sources: solar energy and wind power. What most politicians have not yet grasped is the fact that it is dark at night and PV power plants deliver exactly 0 kWh. It doesn't matter how many hundreds of gigawatts are installed, zero always remains zero. Even if wind energy is available at 2-5% at night, the grids remain almost empty. For this reason, these wishful thinking ideas of “net zero” will always be shattered by the laws of physics. I recently addressed this topic on my Substack.
Well of course it can be done and must be done with nuclear energy. Which is in fact the most renewable of all energy sources. Funny how the grifters promoting Net Zero despise Nuclear energy more than fossil, even coal. If Germany had spent their green energy funding on nuclear power their grid would already be 100% clean energy, the cleanest on the planet. Instead they are burning the filthiest of coal or lignite.
My immediate concern at the moment is that the Senate Finance committee seems to have adopted language that would allow the IRA subsidies to go on forever, instead of ending them as the House Bill would have done.
I'm not celebrating victory on ending these horrible policies implemented as horrible counter-productive wind and solar generators, until the senate passes something equal to or faster than the House bill with no loop holes.
Time to write letters again. I know my letter to Cornyn will fall on deaf ears. When I wrote to him encouraging him to end all IRA subsidies I got back a form letter bragging about how he's a proud supporter of Hydrogen and carbon capture and EVs. Also, he's on the committee that adopted the new swindling language.
Still, it can't hurt.
Writing to Ted Cruz is probably asking him to do what he already intends to do, I hope.
Still, it can't hurt.
And I usually add a letter to Trump asking him to exert his influence on the process.
And screwed up and lost my clipboard copy, again. I must start saving to Notepad before coming to post here. Sigh.
Edit: Browser seems to have kept a copy. That's never worked before. Here's my letter to Cruz. Feel free to copy and edit for your congress critters:
==============================================
Dear Senator Cruz:
Please use whatever influence you have to end all the IRA subsidies immediately.
It is my understanding that the Finance Committee and your colleague, Senator Cornyn, have adopted language that would greatly extend the IRA subsidies over the House Bill schedule and effectively guarantee that they never, ever end.
This is totally unacceptable. These subsidies have been set to expire ELEVEN times and every single time a majority of congress demonstrated cowardice by renewing them, yet again.
Wind and solar drive up electricity prices everywhere they are built and are causing our electrical grids to become catastrophically unreliable. They have destroyed Germany's economy; we do not want to imitate the abject failure of Germany. Batteries, EVs, Hydrogen of any color, and "carbon capture" are all similar boondoggles which exist solely to profit cronies and do absolutely nothing to help or enrich the citizenry of the USA.
In case you believe they haven't driven up Texas electricity prices, consider that natural gas was $8 - $13 per mmBTU back in 2008 when the wind boondoggle began. The cost of gas is 85% of the operational expense of a gas electrical plant. Gas is now less than $3 per mmBTU. Coal and nuclear have stayed constant in cost. Texas electricity should be vastly cheaper than it was in 2008, not considerably more expensive.
Why has Texas electricity risen in cost instead of falling? Wind and the ERCOT charges to move it across the state and the greater expense to all other generators to compensate for wind's intermittency.
The fall of gas prices has partially masked how Texas' foolish drive to wind energy has driven up prices.
You have shown that you truly care about the USA. Please, please do what you can to end all the IRA subsidies now --earlier and more stringent than the House Bill is acceptable, later or with loopholes is not.
Sincerely,
Jeff Walther
=========================================
I sent a similar, but somewhat less complementary letter to Cornyn. I sent a slightly modified letter to Trump. I always open letters to the president with a quick sentence thanking him for what he is doing for the USA.
Thanks for highlighting the “to re-qualify for the Production Tax Credit” as I always wondered why a firm who owned a large warehouse outside of Bakersfield, CA swapped out their perfectly functional Mitsubishi 170 watt PV panels for newer ones after 5 years of service. This happened back before Trump's first term! It sounds like “financial incentives make a mess..” in the PV markets too.
Less than robust economic modeling has led to poor policies in the EE area too-
I thought this was one of the most interesting conclusions in the decommissioning and repowering section — these repowers are driven by the tax credits for both wind and solar, and very little else. Thanks for sharing that link! You're spot on with energy efficiency too.
Respectfully, ma’am I think the ‘boomers’ do need to apologize. Our generation has produced many great achievements, one of which has been to demonstrate that energy is the critical essence of our economy.
But after Three Mile Island, “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal” and “no more nukes” became the cries of well-meaning but short-sighted politicians of our generation. The consequences of abandoning nuclear in the 1970s have “come home to roost,” so to speak. Alarmists have convinced many that global warming will be the end of civilization, and that “net zero” is our only alternative to stave off extinction.
Instead of lifting 1.2 billion people out of energy policy, those boomers would have us meet 21st Century energy needs with 10th Century energy technology. Because of decisions made decades ago, we are paying interest in the form of overly cautious regulations, loss of design and construction expertise, and a never-ending stream of lawfare. Once we led the world; now we trail countries like China, Sweden, France, and Canada.
Yes, ma’am. I believe we boomers owe the country an apology. It's going to take folks like yourself and so many others on Substack to once and for all obliterate the voice of fear and caution that has become a trademark of the boomers, and replace that with a voice that espouses physics, not platitudes (as Doomberg would say), and a voice that cries for growth and flourishment.
Very interesting article with valid arguments on the need to consider all aspects of generation resources. The issue of land use is very real with two immediate examples coming to mind. The drive past Desert Center California was once dominated by raw desert scrub. It has now been replaced the 100's of MW's of solar. Our largest combined cycle plant west of Phoenix was also once surrounded by raw desert, but is circled by large solar plants...endless rows of single axis trackers.
It disturbs me that we're so happy to sacrifice concrete environmental goals, like protecting fragile habitats and endangered species, for acres upon acres of solar panels.
...but it is obvious why: the green energy industry/lobby has more power than the well-meaning leftists who just care about the environment.
Plus, carbon is OBVIOUSLY much more deadly than anything else. Carbon can DESTROY. THE. PLANET. The ret of the eco stuff just doesn't have the scare juice to get voters to vote for Democrats.
Excellent article - thank you Sarah! I'd like to raise a little-discussed up-side to solar energy. I write from the UK: here too solar farms are being installed on prime agricultural land, though in this part of the world, solar farms primarily collect subsidies rather than photons. However, I like to think of their benign effect on livestock able to shelter under the panels from the rain.
Great piece Sarah/Team. I am a mechanical engineer designing products that run on solar panels... I mean acid batteries charged by toxic solar panels.
Here in Chisago County MN our most precious farmland is being covered with this toxicity that doesn't work for main power; it only is productive 4 hrs per day and not when snow covered.
Now think as these toxicities wear out and start draining Cadmium - which is outlawed in all other industries - on our precious farmland and the farmers are going to have to actually PAY for their removal...
Do not doubt the Chinese Communist Party has a lot to do with this.
Google Earth Chisago County more to the southern end of the county to view the panels. It really pisses me off to be honest. All lies and grift of taxpayer monies.
Why do our nonsensical elites not listen to the experts? Instead ideological virtue signalling and total economic and scientific illiteracy rules, this has to change soon. The world can’t afford this moronic behaviour any longer.
"these costs should be more important than virtue-signaling one’s ‘eco-friendliness’ with wind turbines and solar panels."
What planet are you from?!?
Virtue signaling is *far* more important than any of the so-called costs you mention.
You also leave out the one thing even more important than the virtue-signaling, or indeed even the actual saving of the planet (or species, or...) - the election of leftists to public office!
One would think a so-called expert would understand this, geez...
Due respect, while you’re not *entirely* wrong, I don’t think you are correct.
Leftists have to make people feel *worse* about themselves, in order to say “elect us, and we will use the authoritarian power of government to address the issue and punish the ‘others’ who are most responsible for why you feel worse.”
So they offer the promise of feeling a little better (virtuous) only after first explicitly making their believers feel even worse.
It’s like the logic of the drug dealer who gets you addicted to heroine, then they sell you heroine so you can “feel better”.
This is why I say that the Both/And is not actually correct.
Recent encounters with people who, like the vast majority of our Uniparty politicians here in the UK, fret about alleged but practically non-existent dangerous man-made global warming and believe in the practically non-existent so-called transition from fossil fuels to weather-dependent renewables has left me wondering. Maybe they are not bad, just mad. Maybe such madness is a congenital human condition. As the Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” said over 150 ago years ago “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
In a mere few years I’ve went from concerned to informed via many Substack writers/articles. It is obvious the legislators and regulators and bureaucrats pushing “green energy policies” have not taken even the slightest time to really understand the true consequences of these policies. Thankfully we have EBB and a large group of others trying to get the facts straight before it’s too late.
I don't think anyone truly thought about materials and recycling until the policies were well underway. EBB are the best in the game!
Then why not? Because they were buying the propaganda and likely in on the grift or wanted more control. Anyone should have been able to ask “ what happens when they wear out”. It’s elementary school questions.
an alternative when it comes to policymakers, especially those of the elected variety, is they simply don't understand the issues and therefore cannot make up their own minds. they parrot talking points of large donors, i.e. the grift
Great piece, folks. I've been working my way through "Shattered Green Dreams," and am very impressed with the data. Takes a lot of work to find and compile that kind of reference. Thank you.
As I read EBBs, MM, THB and others I am constantly wondering where we (us 'boomers') lost sight of environmental concepts such as 'sustainable' and 'best and highest use.' The mandate of "net zero" contradicts both of those philosophies. Personally, speaking as one who has been canceled and labeled a "denier," in all future correspondence and writing I will refer to that stupid idea as "nut zero." A person would have to be nuts to believe it will work!
Thank you, Barry, it's so appreciated! And no need to apologize for the 'boomers.' :)
In his comprehensive analysis “Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050 - Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome” published last year, Vaclav Smil also shattered all dreams of so-called “net zero.” Moreover, it is not only a question of the availability of raw materials, but above all of the fluctuating availability of energy sources: solar energy and wind power. What most politicians have not yet grasped is the fact that it is dark at night and PV power plants deliver exactly 0 kWh. It doesn't matter how many hundreds of gigawatts are installed, zero always remains zero. Even if wind energy is available at 2-5% at night, the grids remain almost empty. For this reason, these wishful thinking ideas of “net zero” will always be shattered by the laws of physics. I recently addressed this topic on my Substack.
https://open.substack.com/pub/soyrich/p/grids-without-power-why-grid-expansion?r=1gyigb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Right! Solar fails predictably every day.
Well of course it can be done and must be done with nuclear energy. Which is in fact the most renewable of all energy sources. Funny how the grifters promoting Net Zero despise Nuclear energy more than fossil, even coal. If Germany had spent their green energy funding on nuclear power their grid would already be 100% clean energy, the cleanest on the planet. Instead they are burning the filthiest of coal or lignite.
My immediate concern at the moment is that the Senate Finance committee seems to have adopted language that would allow the IRA subsidies to go on forever, instead of ending them as the House Bill would have done.
I'm not celebrating victory on ending these horrible policies implemented as horrible counter-productive wind and solar generators, until the senate passes something equal to or faster than the House bill with no loop holes.
Time to write letters again. I know my letter to Cornyn will fall on deaf ears. When I wrote to him encouraging him to end all IRA subsidies I got back a form letter bragging about how he's a proud supporter of Hydrogen and carbon capture and EVs. Also, he's on the committee that adopted the new swindling language.
Still, it can't hurt.
Writing to Ted Cruz is probably asking him to do what he already intends to do, I hope.
Still, it can't hurt.
And I usually add a letter to Trump asking him to exert his influence on the process.
I sent letters to Cornyn, Cruz and Trump.
Here's how:
House: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Senate: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
And screwed up and lost my clipboard copy, again. I must start saving to Notepad before coming to post here. Sigh.
Edit: Browser seems to have kept a copy. That's never worked before. Here's my letter to Cruz. Feel free to copy and edit for your congress critters:
==============================================
Dear Senator Cruz:
Please use whatever influence you have to end all the IRA subsidies immediately.
It is my understanding that the Finance Committee and your colleague, Senator Cornyn, have adopted language that would greatly extend the IRA subsidies over the House Bill schedule and effectively guarantee that they never, ever end.
This is totally unacceptable. These subsidies have been set to expire ELEVEN times and every single time a majority of congress demonstrated cowardice by renewing them, yet again.
Wind and solar drive up electricity prices everywhere they are built and are causing our electrical grids to become catastrophically unreliable. They have destroyed Germany's economy; we do not want to imitate the abject failure of Germany. Batteries, EVs, Hydrogen of any color, and "carbon capture" are all similar boondoggles which exist solely to profit cronies and do absolutely nothing to help or enrich the citizenry of the USA.
In case you believe they haven't driven up Texas electricity prices, consider that natural gas was $8 - $13 per mmBTU back in 2008 when the wind boondoggle began. The cost of gas is 85% of the operational expense of a gas electrical plant. Gas is now less than $3 per mmBTU. Coal and nuclear have stayed constant in cost. Texas electricity should be vastly cheaper than it was in 2008, not considerably more expensive.
Why has Texas electricity risen in cost instead of falling? Wind and the ERCOT charges to move it across the state and the greater expense to all other generators to compensate for wind's intermittency.
The fall of gas prices has partially masked how Texas' foolish drive to wind energy has driven up prices.
You have shown that you truly care about the USA. Please, please do what you can to end all the IRA subsidies now --earlier and more stringent than the House Bill is acceptable, later or with loopholes is not.
Sincerely,
Jeff Walther
=========================================
I sent a similar, but somewhat less complementary letter to Cornyn. I sent a slightly modified letter to Trump. I always open letters to the president with a quick sentence thanking him for what he is doing for the USA.
Full agreement here, the Senate version leaves a lot to be desired. Keep up the good work in writing letters to your congressmen!
Just the job - not too many big words!
Thanks for publishing. A must read!
I'm glad you liked it!
Thanks for highlighting the “to re-qualify for the Production Tax Credit” as I always wondered why a firm who owned a large warehouse outside of Bakersfield, CA swapped out their perfectly functional Mitsubishi 170 watt PV panels for newer ones after 5 years of service. This happened back before Trump's first term! It sounds like “financial incentives make a mess..” in the PV markets too.
Less than robust economic modeling has led to poor policies in the EE area too-
https://www.masterresource.org/krebs-mark/inefficient-products-rebuttal-hass/
I thought this was one of the most interesting conclusions in the decommissioning and repowering section — these repowers are driven by the tax credits for both wind and solar, and very little else. Thanks for sharing that link! You're spot on with energy efficiency too.
Respectfully, ma’am I think the ‘boomers’ do need to apologize. Our generation has produced many great achievements, one of which has been to demonstrate that energy is the critical essence of our economy.
But after Three Mile Island, “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal” and “no more nukes” became the cries of well-meaning but short-sighted politicians of our generation. The consequences of abandoning nuclear in the 1970s have “come home to roost,” so to speak. Alarmists have convinced many that global warming will be the end of civilization, and that “net zero” is our only alternative to stave off extinction.
Instead of lifting 1.2 billion people out of energy policy, those boomers would have us meet 21st Century energy needs with 10th Century energy technology. Because of decisions made decades ago, we are paying interest in the form of overly cautious regulations, loss of design and construction expertise, and a never-ending stream of lawfare. Once we led the world; now we trail countries like China, Sweden, France, and Canada.
Yes, ma’am. I believe we boomers owe the country an apology. It's going to take folks like yourself and so many others on Substack to once and for all obliterate the voice of fear and caution that has become a trademark of the boomers, and replace that with a voice that espouses physics, not platitudes (as Doomberg would say), and a voice that cries for growth and flourishment.
Barry, thank you! This is eloquent. All I can say is that you are certainly one of the good ones. :)
An excellent read on this uncomfortable truth that I've added to my own blog on this topic.
https://kevinhester.live/2016/05/14/sustainabilitys-place-in-killing-the-living-planet/
Very interesting article with valid arguments on the need to consider all aspects of generation resources. The issue of land use is very real with two immediate examples coming to mind. The drive past Desert Center California was once dominated by raw desert scrub. It has now been replaced the 100's of MW's of solar. Our largest combined cycle plant west of Phoenix was also once surrounded by raw desert, but is circled by large solar plants...endless rows of single axis trackers.
It disturbs me that we're so happy to sacrifice concrete environmental goals, like protecting fragile habitats and endangered species, for acres upon acres of solar panels.
...but it is obvious why: the green energy industry/lobby has more power than the well-meaning leftists who just care about the environment.
Plus, carbon is OBVIOUSLY much more deadly than anything else. Carbon can DESTROY. THE. PLANET. The ret of the eco stuff just doesn't have the scare juice to get voters to vote for Democrats.
Excellent article - thank you Sarah! I'd like to raise a little-discussed up-side to solar energy. I write from the UK: here too solar farms are being installed on prime agricultural land, though in this part of the world, solar farms primarily collect subsidies rather than photons. However, I like to think of their benign effect on livestock able to shelter under the panels from the rain.
Haha, a good point!
Great piece Sarah/Team. I am a mechanical engineer designing products that run on solar panels... I mean acid batteries charged by toxic solar panels.
Here in Chisago County MN our most precious farmland is being covered with this toxicity that doesn't work for main power; it only is productive 4 hrs per day and not when snow covered.
Now think as these toxicities wear out and start draining Cadmium - which is outlawed in all other industries - on our precious farmland and the farmers are going to have to actually PAY for their removal...
Do not doubt the Chinese Communist Party has a lot to do with this.
This is so concerning! Thank you for sharing!
Google Earth Chisago County more to the southern end of the county to view the panels. It really pisses me off to be honest. All lies and grift of taxpayer monies.
Why do our nonsensical elites not listen to the experts? Instead ideological virtue signalling and total economic and scientific illiteracy rules, this has to change soon. The world can’t afford this moronic behaviour any longer.
"these costs should be more important than virtue-signaling one’s ‘eco-friendliness’ with wind turbines and solar panels."
What planet are you from?!?
Virtue signaling is *far* more important than any of the so-called costs you mention.
You also leave out the one thing even more important than the virtue-signaling, or indeed even the actual saving of the planet (or species, or...) - the election of leftists to public office!
One would think a so-called expert would understand this, geez...
Haha! Perhaps you should revoke my 'expert' card. :)
There is no cost so great, nor any damage so severe, that it can stop us from ruining the planet just to feel better about ourselves.
But it is NOT the purpose to "feel better about ourselves". That is merely a possible side effect.
The purpose is to help get authoritarian leftists elected to power.
Both/And.
Due respect, while you’re not *entirely* wrong, I don’t think you are correct.
Leftists have to make people feel *worse* about themselves, in order to say “elect us, and we will use the authoritarian power of government to address the issue and punish the ‘others’ who are most responsible for why you feel worse.”
So they offer the promise of feeling a little better (virtuous) only after first explicitly making their believers feel even worse.
It’s like the logic of the drug dealer who gets you addicted to heroine, then they sell you heroine so you can “feel better”.
This is why I say that the Both/And is not actually correct.
Point taken, thank you!
. . . . . . . WIND POWER . . . . . . .
.
Wind Power's a fraud, don't you know?
'Cause a subsidy's what makes it go!
Greens cry, "Give us your trust!"
But their program's a bust,
'Cause so often the wind doesn't blow.
Recent encounters with people who, like the vast majority of our Uniparty politicians here in the UK, fret about alleged but practically non-existent dangerous man-made global warming and believe in the practically non-existent so-called transition from fossil fuels to weather-dependent renewables has left me wondering. Maybe they are not bad, just mad. Maybe such madness is a congenital human condition. As the Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” said over 150 ago years ago “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
For good mockery of UK government’s climate and energy madness, see https://cliscep.com/2025/06/26/the-cats-out-of-the-bag/.