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Globalist energy projects are destroying rural America — with GOP help
Liberal Republicans like Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon are allowing our beautiful rural landscapes to be colonized by dystopian environmental hazards such as solar panels, wind turbines, and carbon pipelines. These projects destroy our property and freedom under the guise of saving the environment.Imagine Norman Rockwell’s America now overrun by anti-environment wind turbines and solar panels. Much of that part of America is under Republican stewardship. Globalists need vast amounts of land to promote their “transition” to unworkable energy projects. GOP governors willingly offer their land for these projects to create temporary jobs built on government lies, mandates, subsidies, and misallocation of resources that would never succeed in a free market.These untested and unnatural green grift projects are like the COVID shots. They are unnatural mandates and subsidies imposed by the global government monopolizing the public square, law, and economy.After Gordon announced his plan to make the Cowboy State “carbon negative,” foreign companies, supported by anti-market tailwinds from the federal government, are entering the state to fill the landscape with unsightly wind farms. Spanish energy giant Repsol plans to establish a massive wind farm several miles northwest of Cheyenne. The company has already received approval for a Rail Tie wind power project west of Cheyenne in Tie Siding. Now those traveling north of the capital city on I-25 or west on I-80 will be subjected to this Agenda 2030 blight. Additionally, traveling south of Cheyenne on I-25 will reveal the great blight of 1.2 million conspicuous solar panels turning rural America into something worse than an urban asphalt jungle.Meanwhile, an $80 million “carbon capture” facility is being built in the southwest part of the state to sell “carbon credits” in the ultimate form of venture socialism. Carbon capture is cumbersome, costly, unfeasible, untested, and built on Gordon’s lie that carbon, which is essential to human life, is somehow a pollutant.Homeowners at Fish Creek Preserve outside Laramie oppose the Rail Tie wind project due to environmental concerns and the potential lowering of their property values. Red-state legislatures and county governments should support these homeowners by placing as many zoning obstacles as possible to obstruct such projects nationwide.Although this might sound like the left’s tactics against natural, effective fuel sources, it differs significantly. Coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear power serve as public goods that help power the nation. Mindful zoning of any project is vital, but these energy sources are ultimately necessary.In contrast, wind farms harm the environment, incur high costs, rely on fossil fuels for operation, and cannot sustain themselves in a free market without federal and state subsidies and mandates. Addressing these projects with regulatory headwinds exercises free-market governance to counter the artificial support they receive from subsidies and mandates.As part of the Green New Deal, the Biden administration is using every tool of government in its arsenal to implement 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind-generating capacity by 2030. Plus, half the states, including many red states, have Renewable Portfolio Standards to mandate the use of these ridiculous products. Projects like wind farms, solar panels, and carbon capture enjoy a 30% investment tax credit as part of the broader subsidy scheme. An April 2023 Goldman Sachs report estimated that all of the subsidies included in the “Inflation Reduction Act” will add up to $1.2 trillion by 2032.Too many Republican governors hide behind an “all of the above approach.” They might support fossil fuels, but in a world with so many subsidies and mandates for unworkable energy, this approach unnaturally tips the playing field toward anti-market forces. Wyoming, for example, is the nation’s leading producer of coal. Without government propaganda, such as Gordon’s push for “carbon negative,” nobody would destroy the state’s beauty with wind turbines, solar panels, and carbon capture when they have access to more efficient, cheaper, and less conspicuous energy sources.The ultimate tragedy of this green grift lies in the detrimental imprint on the land, resulting in a worse environment after sacrificing our quality of life and prosperity on the altar of this pagan god of the sun and wind. Nobody has a plan to deal with the retirement of an endless array of solar panels and turbines, of which the first generation is now heading toward retirement. They do not biodegrade and pose numerous environmental and health risks.“It’s going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now,” said Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency, in an interview with the BBC. An estimated 2.5 billion solar panels are in use globally, and the first generation, with a life cycle of about 25 years, is now coming due for disposal.As Alex Epstein explained in a recent column, it would take 10 watts per square meter of solar projects to power the world. Which would mean you’d need 1.8 million square kilometers of solar photovoltaic projects, which is “more than all cities, towns, villages, and human infrastructure combined ([around] 1.5 million square kilometers).” That’s before we get to the land needed for mining of all the metals needed to produce panels, turbines, and batteries, as well as the transmission lines.The more usage we have, the more space we will need for disposal.If fossil fuels are allowed to remain in use, the carbon capture scheme will require us to use significant underground storage space. Robert Bryce observes that we would need storage space equivalent to 41 oil supertankers each day, 365 days a year. This would result in an absurd amount of metal blighting the landscape and carbon being stored underground, which raises concerns about safety and effectiveness.All this effort is based on claims about climate and carbon that disrupt human life, economy, and health, similar to the disruptions caused by the response to COVID-19 and the associated vaccines.In many respects, these untested and unnatural green grift projects are like the COVID shots. They are unnatural mandates and subsidies imposed by the global government monopolizing the public square, law, and economy. They are untested products, not subject to the sort of trial and error that would make them safe and effective. The vaccines were absolved of all market forces that confer safety.We are now witnessing a rash of electric car fires across the country, with firefighters being trained to handle the intense heat these fires produce. These incidents, much like sudden unexplained deaths, often go unnoticed by the media unless one actively looks for them. This pattern is likely to continue with solar and wind energy unless we change the culture and priorities of Republicans in red states.Red states have the regulatory authority to impose hurdles on mass wind and solar farms, carbon capture, and electric vehicle infrastructure until these industries prove the safety and efficacy of their products and offer a realistic long-term plan that doesn't consume our scarce land with unsightly, out-of-place structures.We must ultimately end this nonsense at the federal level. Conservatives need a commitment from Trump and GOP leaders not just to expand oil drilling in the budget reconciliation bill but to fully repeal the Green New Deal. The GOP donor class and industry lobbyists are pushing to only partially loosen parts of the bill, much like the fight to repeal Obamacare. This approach is a colossal mistake. We need our own all-of-the-above strategy, but only for fuels proven to work and that don't rely on subsidies and mandates to survive.
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