“Green energy” politicians are placing their bets (with your money) on wind and solar power to save the planet, but as the profiteers who are exploiting the trend have found, it isn’t working out both financially and in practice.  

There were two recent reports that highlight the predictable problems associated with poorly thought out energy policy.  The first is a work-around dreamed up by yet another profiteer over in the Central Valley.  

The press report says, “Known as the Willow Rock Energy Storage Center, the plant promises to deliver 500 megawatts of carbon-free electricity with eight hours storage capacity.”  This project is being built by a Canadian green energy company.  

Santa Barbara County Supervisor Das Williams and some of his fellow supervisors are strong supporters of the green energy fantasy team. Williams is also a board member of Central Coast Community Energy, which was created a couple of years ago to address delivery of green power.

The press report goes on: “Santa Barbara County electrical customers could find themselves relying on compressed air to meet their green energy needs from 4 o’clock in the afternoon ’til 9 at night, when solar energy is typically in short supply.”

The theory is that the project would use other green energy sources during the daylight hours to generate compressed air, and then store it in underground vaults for use when the sun goes down and the wind is slack.

Maybe Supervisor Williams should consider where the power will come from between 9 p.m. and mid-morning the following day when solar and wind farms start delivering power again. That’s assuming it’s a sunny day and the wind blows hard enough to spin windmills.

Then there are those wind farms; they aren’t doing so well for profiteer developers either, so tears are falling in the board rooms.

One of the largest wind farm group, Siemens Gamesa a German company, is reporting a $967 million loss in a recent three-month period on a project off the East Coast. So, their answer is to beg for more taxpayer money to help their bottom line.

The report says the “Inflation Reduction Act, the $739 billion climate and tax bill” signed into law by a one-party vote, “would help its business, but that those measures weren’t enough.”

One windmill project south of Lompoc is just one example of how intrusive these installations can be on our environment.

The hills are scarred by road construction to reach the locations of the wind turbines; thus, during recent storms there was significant erosion. And, ironically, since this project began the winds have been relatively calm for much longer periods than in the past – maybe this is an omen that shouldn’t be overlooked.

And as many environmentalists warned, these projects aren’t very good for plants or wildlife either.

One example is that 10 large humpback whales, which are protected under both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, have been found dead on East Coast beaches since December. These deaths were attributed to acoustic survey’s (using underwater explosions) during the Siemens Gamesa construction process.

And in California many endangered birds have been knocked out of the sky by the huge blender-like blades that whirl in the wind.  

I have an idea; why don’t the members of the moneyed and political classes who are forcing green energy upon us put up solar or wind arrays on their estates and try running their large houses on green energy? That should put this matter to rest as they try living in the dark for 8-12 hours a day.

Electrical energy demand already exceeds supply, and the development of electrical products faster than the supply and infrastructure can accommodate them is exacerbating the cost impacts to consumers.

Meanwhile, clean energy sources like hydro and nuclear, which could efficiently resolve the electrical supply-and-demand imbalance, are vilified for their potential environmental impacts, and yet the environmental impacts caused by used electric batteries, wind farms, and solar panels go largely unspoken.

My friends, you and I, no matter what race, gender, or political affiliation, we are paying for these projects whether we like them or not. The politicians who were elected have concluded, without any energy engineering background, that these projects will work while creating no harm to the environment.  

Experience is proving them wrong, but they will continue to throw your money away eradicating endangered species while chasing an impossible dream.