Windmills Of The Mindless

A brief blackout of electricity due to a storm in my area left me in a house in which the lights didn't work, nor the computer, nor anything else. Without electricity, I was thrust back to a time when burning wood in the fireplace was the only source of warmth and only way to cook a meal. Think about that the next time some idiot talks about alternative forms of energy.

The cabal of environmental organizations in collusion with the Democrats has succeeded in denying Americans the ability to tap billions of barrels of its own oil. It has already managed to drive out many mining operations in the nation. The environment will be the primary issue Democrats will pursue in the November elections and they will be lying to you.

To listen to the environmentalists – Greens – talk you would think that there weren't billions of barrels of oil reserves yet untapped around the world. You would think it was a good idea to be reliant on the tender mercies of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and other nations who, last time I checked, hated the U.S. You would think that the US doesn't have centuries' worth of coal as yet untapped.

Brace yourself to listen to Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry talk endlessly about the need for all of us to drive around in very small cars that use very little gasoline or, worse, to waste more millions on ethanol, made from corn, grown and processed with prodigious amounts of energy, in order to "save" energy. Never forget that Al Gore wants to "eliminate the internal combustion engine." The enemy that the Greens are most determined to eliminate are cars, trucks and vans.

You will hear much talk of solar energy and the use of the wind power. These are the so-called "alternative" sources of energy. Before you fall for this Green scam, you better read Dr. Howard C. Hayden's book, The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World. Dr. Hayden is a Professor Emeritus of Physics from the University of Connecticut and Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Colorado. He publishes a monthly newsletter, "The Energy Advocate", now in its sixth year. What he doesn't know about energy and its production isn't worth knowing.

"The solar fraud is the litany of unrealistic, rosy predictions of a solar future. It involves lying with statistics and attempting to manipulate the public through numerous coercive means. It is a sure path to Brownout Nirvana."

The US has an enormous capacity for producing the energy we require for everything. Fully 40% of our electricity is produced by burning coal. The Clinton administration put vast deposits of high grade coal off limits to use in Utah. We also have vast hydroelectric capabilities and, if we had any sense at all, we would be building nuclear generators that don't "pollute" at all.

"Together, photovoltaics, wind power, wood burning and waste burning in 1998 resulted in a mere 1.6% of the electricity used in the US," writes Dr. Hayden. "For industries, homes, commercial establishments, and utilities, the total 1998 contribution from wind and direct solar energy (of all kinds) was one part in every 862 – 0.116 percent – of the total US energy budget."

With refreshing candor, Dr. Hayden notes that "If the world's citizens were suddenly to stop using coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower, geothermal power, firewood, direct solar heat, photovoltaics, animal labor, and all other sources of energy, there would be no trucks, trains, boats, or animals to deliver food or anything else.

There would be no mechanized farming, There would be no clean water delivered to homes. There would be neither heat nor refrigeration. Very few people would be around at this time next year to comment about it. People would die off by the billions."

You can't say it any more plainly, but be assured that you and everyone else are going to continue to be assailed with the lies of the Greens who will insist we don't need that oil in Alaska. These enemies of our nation will tell you that, not only do we need to continue paying billions to Arab and Persian nations that hate us, but we need to conserve, conserve, conserve. You cannot conserve your way to anything but darkness when it comes to energy use.

Before you start thinking windmills are the wave of the future, Dr. Hayden reminds you that "California has some huge windmills — some 3200 of them — covering mountain sides in their windy areas. All together, they produce — at a rare full wind — about 300 MW, which is about 1/4 as much power as a moderately large nuclear power plant produces, and is less than 10% of the electricity the small state of Connecticut consumes."

Ask the Greens and they will tell you we mustn't build any nuclear energy producing utilities and, of course, hydroelectric utilities threaten fish and require dams. They are opposed to coal and all mining activity. If we listen to these traitors and idiots all of our remarkable, life-enhancing technologies will have to be abandoned. This is nothing less than a policy for national energy suicide. It is a policy that Congress has just endorsed with its vote against drilling in a tiny part of Alaska

"The most dangerous aspect of energy is not using it," says Dr. Hayden. He's right.

Editor's Note: To learn more, visit www.energyadvocate.com. This site is jam-packed with excellent information about energy-related issues and facts.

>Think about that the next time some idiot talks about alternative forms of energy.

If you building your life around electricity, then you are foolish to depend entirely on sources outside yourself for an un-ending supply.

Things happen. Supply lines break.

People who see electricity as the "life blood" of modern living should act accordingly and take some responsibility for planning for tough times. Small generators are available from places like Sears, which can be powered up in an emergency. More ambitious people can even put together a wind-based solution similar to what many cruising people use on boats, where a small wind generator inputs to a battery bank and an invertor changes that to house current...

I'm not saying everyone should become a hippie and drop off the grid.

I'm saying for the whiners and complainers who see energy as some kind of modern "entitlement" which the state or industry is "required" to provide them should simply recognize that blackouts happen and if electricity is SO pivotal to their life, they should deal with emergency planning themselves...

Mark W.

I thought it was a fairly well-written piece defining the idiocy of the Green advocation of "alternative forms of energy", particularly solar- and wind-powered generation.

Yeah it's particularly idiotic to attempt to diversify energy resources. And it's really ludicrous to attempt to use sources of energy which are in effect free for the taking.

Try using your brain next time.

---max

Just one example of why this article is "stupid"

""Together, photovoltaics, wind power, wood burning and waste burning in 1998 resulted in a mere 1.6% of the electricity used in the US," writes Dr. Hayden. "For industries, homes, commercial establishments, and utilities, the total 1998 contribution from wind and direct solar energy (of all kinds) was one part in every 862 – 0.116 percent – of the total US energy budget."

And the entire California field has the ability to produce only 10% of the electrical requirements of Connecticut ...

Yeah, that's real diversification for you.

Everything about an article that trys to paint the use of alternate energy as stupid is stupid.

It is stupid to suggest that we must keep doing things exactly the way we are. Even the big oil companies know that solar and wind are the future and are investing billions in it. People who write like this simply have an image of a tie died long haired hippy stuck in their minds that they can't get over.

This paragraph is a good example of stupid. It is a total lie and totally illogical. It is even more stupid than Rush's statement that liberals don't have an energy plan.

And it's really ludicrous to attempt to use sources of energy which are in effect free for the taking.

It's the "taking" part that's expensive.

"Try using your brain next time"

-- WG

Then we should drill for more oil, dig out more coal, and build more nuclear plants ... they offer far more solid results than the pie-in-the-sky hopes of starry-eyed Greens or Watermelons who believe that anything approaching energy independence can be reached by using windmills and solar panels.

"Under penalty of law", we live our lives overwhelmed by government schemes creating economic inefficiency, regulation upon regulation until our energy markets cannot operate without price spikes from temporary shortages, directly due to foolish regulations, "for the children".

IMO, this turmoil is a goal of the socialist central planners who know better than we the subjects of the State. Rights to private property, the foundation of freedom and capitalism, continues under assault. Regulation has long ceased to be for the social good, but rather the means to control in the eyes of the regulators. Power corrupts.

I have no problem with the efficient use of coal and oil. Nukes suck, always have and always will. It is foolish and un-Christian to boast on tomorrow for 30,000 years thinking that you can safeguard nuclear waste.

Renewable energy becomes more viable every day. Are you totally ignorant about wind power in Germany, a country with almost no wind resource compared to the USA? I thought so.

"Renewable energy becomes more viable every day."

1.6% of the electrical output of the US? Sounds like arguing that Pat Buchanan's candidacy becoming more viable every day. When it's capacity becomes at least a sizable majority of power output, then you will be talking facts. Until that time, I do have an image of you as "a tie-died long haired hippy" living in never-never land ... and proud of it.

diversify energy resourcesEnergy resources and production WILL be diversified as the cost becomes competitive with cyrrent methods of poduction unless the governmentrequires diversification which would, of course raise the cost of energy production and of everything else. The government can require a complete phaseout of nonenvironmentally friendly (by greenie definitions)energy production ove 10 years or 20 and the society will enter over that same time a depression- the "slightly lower standard of living" that the redgreens tell us we must accept. Food will especially rise in cost and we will have begun the reversal of human progress which is based entirely on the reduction of the cost of food. Progress is the excess of effort over that required to eat enough to stay alive long enough to reproduce. Progress comes from the ablity to maximize that excess effort because that energy expended beyond bare survival is all progress. Increasing the amount of effort necessary for food reduces progress. Increasing that amount more than a tiny percentage over a protracted period is regression.

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