The Greens Want None of the Above Energy Policy

The left-wing environmentalist greens really want a ‘none of the above’ energy policy.   The greens are clearly and vehemently opposed to conventional sources of energy that have not only been proven to work, but provide over 90% of our needed energy.  Driven by their now proven fraudulent  “Global Cooling,” “the Next Ice Age is Coming,” “Global Warming” or “Climate Change” claims, the greens not only want to attack and destroy coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear sources of energy, they are now suing to stop all allegedly “clean” sources of energy.  The examples abound.

In one example, the Portland Audubon Society and Oregon Natural Desert Association are suing to stop a wind farm on Oregon’s Steen’s Mountain, claiming the project will threaten eagles, big horn sheep and sage grouse.  They consider the project to be an irresponsible renewable energy development.  “Environmentalists Fight Solar, Wind, Renewable Energy,” Investor’s Business Daily, 8/10/12, p. 1.  Environmentalists sued a 100-turbine wind project in Kern County, California, claiming it would endanger golden eagles, condors, and other birds.    In remote Valley County, Montana, near the Canadian border, environmentalists succeeded in blocking a 500-megawatt wind project.  Id.

The greens hate coal plants, are hostile to oil refineries and protest against nuclear power plants, but, when it comes to the very type of alternative energy that they claim they are for and that they claim we must have to “save the planet” and keep the “oceans from rising,” they sue to stop it.  Remember that Ted Kennedy, the environmentalists’ poster child, used his weighty power to fight a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, near the Kennedy compound.

Another environmentalist group sued to save the allegedly endangered blunt- nose lizard and the kangaroo rat from a 3,200 acre, 399-megawatt solar power plant in California’s Panoche Valley.  The group claimed it was not a proper site.  The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and Natural Resources Defense Council sued to stop the 4,600-acre Calico solar plant in Pisgah Valley near L.A., claiming it was “one of the most ecologically damaging renewable energy projects in the state.”  Id.  The environmentalists are not only hostile to all forms of conventional energy, they also have allegedly “valid reasons” why all alternative energy is bad.  If one is going to build a solar plant, logically it should be built where there is plenty of sunshine, such as a desert.  However, environmental groups alleged that solar plants, such as the Panoche Valley and Pisgah Valley plants, can disrupt desert ecosystems.  The greens have also sued in Nevada, West Virginia, Maryland, Vermont, Southern California and elsewhere.  Id.

In theory, a wind farm should be built where the wind blows a lot, but the Audubon Society says that’s where the endangered birds fly.  Environmentalists claim that biomass plants emit pollutants, hydroelectric dams disrupt fish migrations and spawning, and transmission lines needed to carry alternative energy from where it can be produced to where it is needed give off dangerous electromagnetic energy. The Center for Biological Diversity has even tried to stop the EPA from issuing an exemption to biomass plants from the EPA regulation on greenhouse gas emissions.  Id.  The bottom line is the greens have gone to the legislatures to have the legislatures mandate alternative green energy, but if anyone tries to produce it, the environmentalists will sue to stop the production of the alternative energy.

The U. S. Chamber of Commerce, in its appropriately name “Project No Project” report, found 140 renewable projects that were delayed or killed by fierce environmental groups’ opposition.  The Chamber’s report found 10 transmission projects, designed to bring solar and wind power to where it is needed, that were challenged by the greens, including killing the Green Path North Transmission Line, which was designed to carry “green” power to L.A. The Policy Review journal found that every one of the solar, wind and geothermal projects in the desert Southwest met with opposition from environmental groups.   Wind and solar projects use too much land.  Offshore wind projects not only use up large areas of otherwise navigable water and kill birds, they are also the most expensive form of electric generation by the Department of Energy’s own estimates.  The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the DOE, found that offshore wind generation costs $330.6/mwh verses $86.6/mwh from natural gas or almost four times as much.

For a while, Greens had supported natural gas as what they called a “bridge fuel.”  But once  completely safe fracking techniques, that had been used for over 70 years, were combined with horizontal and diagonal drilling to make shale oil and gas commercially viable, the greens started a fraudulent and hysterical attack on the very safe, long standing use of fracking.  The environmentalists saw the reduction of natural gas prices caused by combining horizontal drilling and fracking as an existential threat to their green agenda.

Clearly, the environmentalists only want A NONE OF THE ABOVE, NONE OF THE BELOW ENERGY POLICY.  They want us all to live life without power.  You might say they want us to return to wood for energy.  But many areas already have restrictions on burning wood.  Who does the environmentalist fight against all forms of energy policy help?  Clearly their policies do not help Americans.  But their policies do help Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran by driving up the price of oil and natural gas that their economies produce, depend on and export.  We could have wonderfully low energy prices here that would foster prosperity – we have abundant oil, natural gas and coal and, if environmentalists and Federal and local governments stopped attacking all three, we could become the “Saudi Arabia” of oil, natural gas and coal.  But by following the playbook of the U.N.’s Agenda 21, the greens are aiming to reduce the American way of life to a memory.