Most Americans don’t know it but China has a monopoly on the renewable green energy technology market such as solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium batteries. Two problems I have had with this are as follows:
- Much of what is being made in China could, and should, be made here in the US by US labor.
- Much of the materials China uses in these products contain bio-hazards and are not recyclable.
So, as I was literally in the middle of researching and writing this piece when Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin put the Pentagon and Federal Government on blast yesterday for their plan to put millions of dollars of Chinese made solar panels on the Pentagon and other Federal buildings in the country.
“Youngkin calls out Pentagon’s plan to gift China millions with rooftop solar panels” – Fox News
Thank you, Governor Youngkin, for unwittingly contributing to this article for me!
Turbine Blade Graveyards
There are a number of problems being created with wind turbine farms more so than other areas of renewable energy fields. To be blunt, they create more waste by volume. For example, their lifespan is not as long as one might imagine and when you ask their promoters, what happens when their life is over, answers are not always forthcoming. Questions asked such as; who pays for their removal, where are they removed to, and are they recyclable, are often met with silence.
Sky News Australia with James Morrow does a better job of reporting news of the United States these days than our own mainstream media. Recently Morrow featured a video producer of Yucca Films Ron Kendall Jr. where he investigated the lifespan of wind turbines and where they go once used.
“The Texas Energy Project – Episode One” – Yucca Films
Electric Vehicles and their Lithium Batteries
The main reason climate change is a hoax is it operates from the premise that carbon dioxide we create in what is now termed our “carbon footprint” is a bad thing. The truth is carbon dioxide is taken in by plants with a byproduct of oxygen given off by them, the exact opposite of how animals and humans breathe.
Contrast that “Intelligent Design” with: For every ton of lithium made, it makes 75 tons of acidic waste and it takes half a million gallons of water to process it. There are hidden pollutants to electric vehicles (EVs) and the fact of the matter is the electricity they use has to be generated by local power plants on the power grid coming to our homes. Most of those plants generate electricity by steam generators run by heat of burning coal, gas, or nuclear fusion. It takes a bigger carbon footprint to make an electric car than an internal combustion engine (ICE) in the first place so the EV car has a long way to go (miles driven) to catch up to the “greener” ICE car.
“6 Real Facts Of EVs And The Environmental Damage!” – EVCarsHorsepower
Another big concern that was not properly addressed by the climate change advocates is that of spent lithium batteries. They contain chemical elements that will cause long-term harm to our water tables around the world. Only about 5% of lithium batteries are said to be recycled today.
Solar Collection Panels
There was a very good article published in Forbes that explained the down-side of solar collection panels from a scientific point of view three years ago.
“Dark Side To Solar? More Reports Tie Panel Production To Toxic Pollution”
Michael Shellenberger is a writer who specializes in writing about energy and the environment. In his article of 2021 he opened with this paragraph.
“Three years ago I published a column at Forbes arguing that solar panels weren’t clean but in fact produced 300 times more toxic waste than high-level nuclear waste. But in contrast to nuclear waste, which is safely stored and never hurts anyone, solar panel waste risks exposing poor trash-pickers in sub-Saharan Africa. The reason was because it was so much cheaper to make new solar panels from raw materials than to recycle them, and would remain that way, given labor and energy costs.”
There has also been recent discussion about solar panels actually contributing to global warming due to radiant heat they reflect off of their panels. For many years we have known cars in asphalt parking lots create a lot more radiant heat than cars in asphalt parking lots with shade trees strategically planted in islands throughout the parking lot.
CONCLUSION:
I have had a keen interest in the electric energy market growing up in northern Illinois for years. Some of what I learned fascinated me and some of what I learned disturbed me.
What has fascinated me is 100+ years ago cities like St. Charles and Oregon along the Fox and Rock Rivers were some of the first to have electricity thanks to hydroelectric dams built on their rivers. While those dams still exist, they do not produce electricity. On the other hand, Dixon (Where President Ronald Reagan grew up) still does have a working 3,000-kilowatt hydroelectric generating station.
What has disturbed me about electric generation in Illinois has been our nuclear power plant waste. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big believer in nuclear power and indeed these plants have employed some of my college graduates. What I am against is something most people would be too young to know about. When nuclear plants burn fuel they turn uranium as fuel into plutonium as a waste. That waste is not recyclable and is said will last at least 4,000 years. The original agreement before these plants were built was all of this waste would be sent by armored trains to western desert states for safe storage where the weather never gets severe and water tables are non-existent. That never happened.
Years ago I drove some 50 miles from my home to attend a town-hall meeting with Illinois Senator Charles Percy. When my turn came to ask a question, I asked him about this issue and told him of my concerns since northern Illinois is big in agriculture and feeding the nation. He told me the western desert states refused to accept any of the nuclear generated waste of the eastern states even though we are the ones pumping much of the power into the power grid we share as we feed their faces.
Two more recent issues I have with the renewable energy thrust of the Joe Biden administration are as follows:
- Americans get government subsidies to put solar panels on their homes. We have one home near us that has solar panels placed on the north side of their house facing away from the sun. That homeowner and panel installer should be penalized for that. That constitutes fraud!
- The other issue I have over this is the insider trading done by our members of Congress such as Nancy Pelosi and her husband. It is unethical for our political leaders to profit from their policy decisions they knew were coming the rest of us did not.
Mostly, I worry about the environment and the fact these supposed ounces of prevention to cure carbon levels around the globe aren’t really creating a pound of real crises for the future instead!
Copyright © 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau
