What could go wrong

“There is not enough money in any country in the world to actually solve the climate change problem” John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate

We constantly hear the barrage of assertions that we are facing an existential climate change crisis. The drum beat is that man-made climate change is going to ruin our standard of living, make the world uninhabitable and eventually destroy the planet.

Just a couple of decades ago the official line was: “The planet is freezing, we are entering into a new Ice Age, and glaciers will again cover most of the earth.”

Now the official line is that man-made heating is going to raise the sea levels, cause widespread new deserts, raise the temperatures worldwide and cause a vast increase in catastrophic storms.

Both of these contradictory claims have been made with very little real data.

The climate change party line is that: In order to save mankind from this impending disaster the government must establish new rules to control how much energy we are allowed to use, and how it must be produced. Wow! Saved again by the government (Leviathan). Thank you, Big Brother!

The government, through the work of the Energy Department, will establish limits on how much energy will be produced and how this energy will be produced. The government is mandating and/or subsidizing the construction of vast farms of windmills to harvest electric energy using the wind.

Iowa is a great center of these giant towers creating vast amounts of intermittent electricity. These controversial towers are being discussed in our part of the state. The residents in some counties are protesting the installation of dozens and hundreds of the rotating towers in “my backyard.” Much like many residents in such costal area as Martha’s Vinyard are resisting the installation of wind towers along the Atlantic coast. They fear the constant noise and vibrations will have a negative impact on native sea life.

It has also been reported the debris from storm damaged towers is washing up on the coast leaving great piles of mangled towers and blades.

Of course, these wind towers only produce electricity when the wind is blowing. Stand-by generation facilities are required.

We are also seeing many solar panel farms being installed locally. Many people are installing the panels on the roofs of homes and businesses. There is a very large array of solar panels being constructed just east of Creston. Another large array is being built on land owned by the Creston School District. The plan is that the school district will receive annual revenue from the power company.

Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong or evil about these projects to harvest electricity from the wind and the sun. I wonder, however, about the time in 20 or 30 years when these projects are no longer useful. Are there plans and funding in place to dispose of the waste materials left over. What about the vast quantities of concrete buried in our farm land to support these giant towers? I understand that the fiber glass material used for the construction of these wind towers is both difficult and costly to recycle.

In the meantime, our United States Navy is very successfully using nuclear power to operate our submarines and aircraft carriers. By their nature these power plants must be very compact, safe and efficient. They have been engineered to provide electric power continuously. This nuclear power plant must be very efficient and safe to operate, even in difficult and dangerous situations. These small and portable power plants could be adapted to provide safe and reliable energy to many communities and industries around the United States.

If we are truly concerned about carbon pollution creating a climate disaster, these small and also larger nuclear power plants have proven to be safe, efficient and relatively cheap to operate. About 22% of our electricity in the United States is produced by nuclear plants.

Our estimated oil reserves will last for about 90 years.

Our estimated coal reserves will last for about 300 years.

Coal and oil and natural gas are plentiful, reasonable and can currently be used with low pollution.

By the way, the jury is still out on the cause of global warming. The earth has historically warmed and cooled, long before humans had any impact on the climate.

Our federal government has suggested that we can put millions of reflective panels in the upper atmosphere to reject incoming heat from the sun. What could go wrong!

Mike Lang, Chairman, Union County Republican Central Committee