So Let It Be Written...

A blizzard clobbered Virginia a couple days ago, shutting down major interstates and stranding drivers in their vehicles for up to 30 hours. In the inevitable rush to play partisan games, several social media scolds blamed Virginia's new governor, Glenn Youngkin, for the snarl. As it turns out, Youngkin doesn't actually take office until next week, so many faces ended up with much egg.

In the context of the forced and recklessly rapid electrification of America's cars and trucks, this event should be a major slap-in-the-face wake up call. Imagine if even half of those stranded vehicles were battery powered, and a fraction of those batteries depleted overnight as people kept themselves warm. An emergency vehicle with a jerry jug can put a couple gallons of gasoline in an empty tank in the blink of an eye, while a dead battery turns an EV into a road block. Of course, you won't hear any such concerns on legacy media or from any of the forward-thinking folks out there, because it would affirm what everyone knows - there are cons to EVs that go along with the pros. To speak this truth is, of course, anathema to those who believe that the masses must be managed, and their knowledge curated, toward an end that they know is the only correct one.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, where it was decreed that wind and solar are the sole acceptable power sources, and (greenest of all) nuclear plants are being shut down, coal is 'back in black'. Since the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun doesn't work so well in northern climes in the winter, Germans' power shortages are being resolved by going backwards, to the dirtiest of all energy sources (coal particulates kill tens of thousands each year world wide).

So much for energy policy by decree.

These and other lessons notwithstanding, President Biden issued an Executive Order that all the electricity that the federal government uses be from "100 percent carbon pollution-free" sources by 2030. Currently, about 20% of American power comes from “renewables," such as solar, wind, and hydro, another 20% from nuclear, 40% from natural gas, and 20% from coal. With nuclear out of favor (and plants being taken offline), and no viable large-scale storage technology at hand to provide juice when the sun is set or the wind doesn't blow, this proclamation borders on farce.

Yet, this is what passes for energy policy in America (and elsewhere in the West). A politician says "it shall be so," and peons have to figure out how to make it so. That what has been commanded requires inventions not yet at hand is of no matter, apparently.

At least until the voters feel the inevitable squeeze of this Pharaoh-esque form of governance. When their houses get dark and cold, when their utility bills skyrocket, and when they or people they know get stranded on a highway, some political heads will roll.

It’s a tragedy that such avoidable pain will be incurred.