By David Strom - January 13, 2023

Climate Communists keep talking about electrifying our economy because it is the only way to conceivably get to zero or near zero ‘carbon’ emissions.

Beege wrote a must-read post on this yesterday. Must. Read. - https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/01/10/welcome-to-new-yorkifornia-n522907

Now I have no problem, in principle, with reducing the carbon footprint of the economy, as long as it can be done with inexpensive, abundant, and reliable power sources that perform the job as well or better than fossil fuels.

And that is the promise that is made by the advocates of electrifying our economy.

Perhaps someday that dream can be achieved, but that day is way way off in the future. In the here and now, a ‘fossil fuel’-free future isn’t even a pipe dream. It’s a nightmare.

Earlier today I wrote about the reasons why the Biden administration is pushing for the elimination of natural gas stoves and the dangers associated with that move, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The activists pushing for uber-electrification (I won’t call them climate alarmists, because I suspect many of them aren’t actually alarmed, but playacting for effect) absolutely know that our current and near-future electrical generation and transmission cannot conceivably produce enough power to keep our economy going.

They simply don’t care. Or rather, they care, but the immiseration and impoverishment of millions of Americans is a feature, not a bug of these policies. In recent months the electrical grid has sagged and even broken under the strain of electrification.

Heat pumps in the South drew more power than was available due to cold weather, and of course, California is utterly incapable of delivering enough electrical power to its citizens reliably.

As they push for 100% electrification of transportation, they also mandate energy policies that create shortages that will strand people at home, without air conditioning or heat, and of course with the lights out. This is as predictable as a sunrise.

Unsurprisingly, the wealthier will have backup generators and will be able to afford massive battery backups for their own use, but the average person doesn’t have the same resources.

And, if they did, the price for such systems would skyrocket due to the lack of enough available minerals to build them.

With minerals that are mined through child labor in countries with little to no environmental protection. Can’t let any mining go on in the US, you know.

In The Telegraph, Andrew Orlowsky wrote about how a lack of electricity generation capacity could doom the electrification of cars.

He pointed to comments made by Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who questioned the wisdom of diving head-first into an all-electric future. He also noted the declining reliability of the power grid in the UK, which applies to the U.S. as well.

But the real issue Mr Toyoda has opened up is this: Western societies are charging into the electrification of transport and heating without actually providing the electricity. This cannot be wished away.

In January, the then secretary of state for trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, told Parliament that “we are going to be requiring up to four times as much electricity” to meet demand for electrified heating and transport. Yet we are not building four times as much electric generation capacity.

The energy legacy of the Conservatives will be the loss of reliable energy. For example, only two years ago, the UK was running 15 operational nuclear reactors, but by 2030 it will be just three, and that’s assuming no further delays.

The reality is that we have created two parallel energy systems; one of which works, while the other does not. The politicised grid mashes them together, making the one that provides reliable and low cost energy both expensive and unstable.

And then along comes a genuine cold snap which exposes our new reliance on nature, and sub-prime energy technologies. Climate change campaigners who are inclined to view any weather event as a policy message dictated personally by an Earth deity should remember this trick works both ways.

During our recent dunkelflaute – a period of high pressure, freezing temperatures and no wind – our onshore wind blades stood still for three weeks, consuming power, but not generating any. What wind power we got, and it wasn’t very much, all came from offshore facilities.

The problem with Mr. Olowsky’s and Mr. Toyoda’s analysis is that they assume that for policymakers, the decline in reliable power and hence the threat to mobility are seen as a pressing problem.

So, too, with Secretary Trevelyan. Yet by their actions, these policymakers have shown that they are at best indifferent to the problem, and even perhaps welcome it.

I simply don’t believe that the people in power care much about whether the electricity is there to keep our economy going. If they did, they wouldn’t rush headlong into the full electrification of the economy without ensuring that there is electricity to power it.

If you are pushing electric cars while closing 4/5ths of your nuclear power plants, ensuring reliability is not a major concern of yours.

The forced electrification of cars, in particular, reveals their intentions: if you can’t charge your vehicle, you are utterly reliant on the government-run transit systems . . .

[SNIP]