OPINION:
The green dream of a swift energy transition away from oil, natural gas and coal (hydrocarbons) is an American family’s nightmare — a nightmare President Biden is determined to ignore. During a recent press conference, the president minimized the threat of rising energy costs, saying, “When it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place … the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.” His statement is delusional.
The president is limiting 84% of our energy supply. He doesn’t understand that we cannot generate enough wind, solar and battery power this decade to make a dent in our energy needs, no matter how much they are subsidized and mandated. His ideas will cause Americans to pay through the nose to fuel our cars, cook our food, heat our homes in the winter and cool them in the summer.
You see, everything uses hydrocarbon energy including the internet. Plus, 6,000 products are made from hydrocarbons, including things like your toothbrush, plastics and lifesaving medical equipment.
The president’s progressive energy policies hurt us by causing inflation; however, the solution involves more American hydrocarbons, not fewer. The energy nightmare will not be over until we have a government that encourages, rather than cancels and blocks more refinery capacity, pipelines and domestic hydrocarbon production.
Growing our primary fuel sources should be the priority, not attempting to get unfriendly nations, like Venezuela and Iran to produce more. Things did not turn out well for Europe when they relied on Russia for energy production, and we should learn from their lesson.
On one hand, the president’s desired energy transition would take decades to implement at best and cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. Because wind and solar produce little or no energy 70% of the time, massive amounts of batteries would be needed to fill the energy gap left by such sources. Even then, many days’ worth of battery backup would be necessary, or the lights would go out often. In fact, we have already closed so many coal plants that most of the nation is in danger of power blackouts this summer.
Just two days of a U.S. electricity storage would require 1,000 years of output from Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, to meet energy demand. And that would only cover present energy needs. We would need to double our electricity output to electrify transportation.
Meanwhile, the president’s energy policies would make the Communist Chinese Party stronger because the CCP directs and controls 75% of industrial battery manufacturing and rare metals needed for the wind and solar industries. The CCP owns the two largest oil companies in the world, PetroChina and Sinopec. Plus, China burns more than half of the 8.5 billion tons of coal used each year.
China gets more of its energy from hydrocarbons than it did 20 years ago. It surpassed the U.S. as the leading oil refiner and is stockpiling coal and food. Recently, it performed military maneuvers around Taiwan.
The CCP poses a far greater threat to our nation and our freedoms than does climate change, but Mr. Biden mistakenly thinks climate change is the real danger. While China pays lip service to decarbonizing and grows stronger each day, the United States grows weaker and more dependent. We are heading into the energy danger zone!
The president and many progressives conflate or confuse electricity with oil. But they are not the same.
Oil is used for transportation, getting food to our tables, goods to stores and our stuff from Amazon. Little oil is used for electricity. But the president believes that putting up subsidized wind turbines and solar panels will somehow create an energy transition in transportation and agriculture. This will not happen in the next couple decades, no matter how much progressives dream. Wishing doesn’t make it so.
Experts predict that summer gas prices will surge to at least six bucks a gallon. I believe they will go to seven or more because refineries are working to meet the diesel and jet fuel shortages instead of making regular gas. Remember, shortages drive prices up and shift production.
Bjorn Lomborg, an economist and a man-made climate change adherent, tells us to adapt, not panic. He says we would be far wiser to spend our limited money on adapting to climate changes as they become imminent rather than attempting to stop carbon emissions.
We should all take Mr. Lomborg’s advice. Tell your congressman, enough with this expensive, inflation-causing green energy transition. We can’t build enough wind towers and solar panels fast enough to make any real impact. So slow down and don’t panic. We want affordable energy again!
• Frank Lasee is a former Wisconsin state senator and former member of Gov. Scott Walker’s administration. The district he represented had two nuclear power plants, a biomass plant and numerous wind towers. He has experience dealing with energy, the environment and the climate.
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