Demand in U.S. electricity elevates the risk of wind/solar & highlights need for nuclear power

For at least four decades, we have been faced with some difficulties in the production and delivery of electricity in the United States. More recently, the primary concern has been the advent of a large increase in demand, mostly due to data centers, cryptocurrency "mining," and the apparent transition to EVs and appliances.

The next concern is the aging national electric grid delivery system. In addition to refurbishment for age, the grid is not ready to accept the huge rising demand expected for electricity. The electric grid is also vulnerable to cyber and EMP attacks, nature, and onerous regulations.

Common sense dictates that solutions are needed to ensure that the most important factor in Americans' quality of life is that electricity remains available, affordable, and robust. Despite massive Federal funding toward renewables that only generate electricity under favorable weather conditions, the solutions for continuous and uninterruptible electricity seem to be farther away than ever.

Consider the situation in which imagined fears regarding climate change have driven a government-subsidized transition to "green electricity." This transition is focused on "renewables," which is supposed to mean that the fuel used is to be constantly replaced by nature (wind, solar, biofuels, and wood). This sounds good on the surface, but it's costing taxpayers hugely.

Despite at least $5 trillion in subsidies for green technologies (including direct payments, tax credits, investment credits, and state subsidies, with no scrutiny of Environmental Impact Statements) taken from your tax dollars, only 2% of the fossil fuel reduction has been realized.

Wood and biofuels are renewable but not clean. Wind and solar are proving to be hugely expensive, and it is difficult to integrate that unreliable electricity into the national grid. Despite all the subsidies, these forms of power are raising California customers' bills as high as $600 per MWH in peak times.

To those who believe these subsidies are good for taxpayers, we would ask: Would you invest your own money in "renewable" electricity companies if there were no Government subsidies? If the answer is "no", it means that you are being forced to invest your money through your taxes anyway. If you answered "yes, " why do we need subsidies since private investments should be sufficient? We mention this as an example of the folly we are subjected to in our country's electricity production and generation.

The noisiest protesters want all fossil fuels eliminated. They do this without considering how their lives would change without them. Thus, before we chastise "big oil" for impacting climate change, we must ask ourselves, "Do I want to suffer the extra cost and detriment to my quality of life without fossil fuels?" These compact energy sources for electricity and transportation have raised our quality of life to the highest per capita in the world.

Yet, this constant drumbeat wants to destroy the source of products and transportation fuels before any other viable, affordable replacement appears to make the same products and fuels now made from fossil fuels. Breaking a system that works before you find a better one does not make much sense.

What appears to be free government money, i.e., "subsidies", is really coming from your pocketbook. In a true free enterprise system, you would vote with your patronage. However, with so much free money coming from the government, you are no longer the customer. He who pays the gold makes the rules. You become merely a pawn in the government machine. It seems like liberty would lend itself more to customers making their own decisions rather than being forced into a contrived decision.

In fact, under free enterprise, you could buy all the "green electricity" you want from vendors while others could buy whatever electricity they want from other vendors. If there were such a groundswell of Americans who favor "green electricity", we would simply pay more to get it. But you know we will not.

We all want the cheapest, most available electricity, products, and transportation fuels that we can get. Since renewables cannot make any products or competitive fuels for our transportation infrastructures, fossil fuels will be with us for many decades, no matter how much tax money our government throws away. Protest all you want, but that is how people manifest their desires.