Similarly, it is suicide for America to try to quickly end its use of coal, currently the source of about half the country’s electricity, in favor of wind and solar. Extreme weather events aside, modern industrialized societies need massive quantities of reliable, high-quality power to run steel mills, internet servers, and transportation systems, even when the wind drops or a cloud passes in front of the sun. While natural gas and nuclear power obviously have important roles to play in our energy future, nothing competes with coal when it comes to providing inexpensive power from plentiful domestic sources. Indeed, more than any other fuel, coal made America great.
Boxer and Whitehouse apparently do not know that, although wind and solar power have had decades to mature, they still cost between three and ten times the price of electricity from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear. The Energy Information Administration shows that even though non-hydroelectric renewable electricity generation received 53.5% of all federal financial support for the electric power sector in 2010, it produced only 3.6% of all generation.
Even if there were a human-caused climate crisis happening, and increasing numbers of experts doubt that there is, the energy policies promoted by Boxer and Whitehouse would have little climatic impact. China, which derives 80% of its electricity from coal, is planning to build 500 coal-fired plants over the next ten years, easily swamping the impact of changes in America’s energy sources.
The only result of a radical change in U.S. energy policy would be one of mass unemployment and millions of Americans joining the billions of people throughout the world already mired in energy poverty. And severe tornadoes and other extreme weather will continue to occur as they always have, with the climatic effect of America’s sacrifice immeasurable in the real world.
Getting American energy policy right will not, by itself, stop the country’s decline. Many problems now weighing you down must be corrected. But following the dangerous approach to energy advocated by Boxer, Whitehouse and other climate propagandists would ensure that the U.S. fails.
For all our sakes, don’t let it happen!