Environment & Energy

Places with aggressive renewable energy programs tend to have the most expensive electricity in the developed world. Solar and wind energy themselves may be free, but capturing this energy and integrating it into a reliable electric grid is not.

Places with market-driven renewable energy programs tend to have the least expensive electricity but the the carbon intensity and other adverse environmental impacts of this electricity are high.

Nuclear power has the smallest environmental footprint of all the major energy resources, costs less than solar and wind power, costs more than dirty energy, and is essentially unlimited.

You can do that research yourself. Here in the renewable energy utopia of California, outside of the municipal power districts which have first dibs on inexpensive but environmentally destructive hydroelectric power, off-peak electricity costs around 43 cents a kilowatt hour. In the late afternoon and early evening it costs more than that.

In Lansing Michigan people pay about 15 cents a kilowatt hour most of the time, and 17.4 cents during peak hours.

High electric rates in California have probably reached the point where they are having a negative impact on economic growth. In Germany, where they shut down their nuclear power plants in favor of Russian natural gas imports and renewable energy, high electric rates are causing an economic crisis.

These sorts of economic crisis may or may not be a good thing depending upon your economic and environmental perspectives. If you are affluent, consider yourself "green," but don't give a shit about people currently living in poverty, then you might not care about the cost of electricity. Similar to, as in previous dark ages, the ruling classes did not concern themselves with the price of bread.

"Let them eat cake."

Now the saying is "Let them have solar."

Sorry, you people living in poverty, you can't have what are own great grandparents had -- three simple wires coming into your homes providing reliable and affordable electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nothing else to worry about, winter ,spring, summer, and fall.

Generally speaking, affluent and wealthy people have huge environmental footprints compared to people who are not affluent or wealthy. It's almost impossible for an affluent or wealthy person to reduce their environmental footprint. If they are not spending their money on one environmentally destructive thing they are spending it or investing it in another.

The people who have the smallest environmental footprints tend to live in cities, don't own cars, have a mostly vegetarian diet, and have little or no "disposable income." Nuclear power could raise the living standards of people living on the edge with the smaller environmental impacts than any other energy resource.

This isn't about someone living in California with a Tesla in their driveway, a Powerwall in their garage, and solar panels on the roof of their large suburban home.