Tuesday, Feb 13, 2024 - 06:30 AM

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Electricity is among the most essential sources of America’s unparalleled prosperity and productivity; it is also the greatest vulnerability.

EXCERPTS

Giant wind turbines are powered by strong winds in front of solar panels in Palm Springs, Calif., on March 27, 2013. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

The United States has become so utterly dependent upon an uninterrupted supply of affordable electricity that, as our grid becomes ever more fragile American society has become fragile along with it.

........if America’s electric grid were to go down for an extended period, such as one year, “there are essentially two estimates on how many people would die from hunger, from starvation, from lack of water, and from social disruption.

“One estimate is that within a year or so, two-thirds of the United States population would die,” Mr. Woolsey said. “The other estimate is that within a year or so, 90 percent of the U.S. population would die.”.............................

................The North American electric grid is rapidly being transitioned from one in which coal had once dominated to one that is seeing an ever increasing share of wind, solar, and natural gas. In the process, America’s electric grid is changing from something that was once so reliable that consumers rarely thought about it, to one that increasingly features rolling blackouts and may, one day soon, be on the brink of long-term failure.

The destabilization of the power grid is the result of what analyst and author Meredith Angwin deems the “fatal trifecta.”

“The Texas grid almost collapsed because of what I call the fatal trifecta,” Ms. Angwin states. “The first part of the fatal trifecta is over reliance on renewables, which go on and off when they want to................................

.................At the same time, the drive to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions has led to political and corporate campaigns to shift ever more products onto the electric grid. This includes such essentials as home heating, transportation, and cooking.

Laws and regulations in Europe and the United States have sought to ban or phase out oil and gas heating in homes, along with gasoline-powered cars, trucks, and buses. The effect of this will be to make people more dependent on electricity while pushing up demand to levels that many say the grid cannot meet.

“The grid is already cracking under existing demand,” Mr. Bryce said. “We’re seeing the grid’s reliability, resilience, and affordability all declining, while these pressure groups are trying to put yet more demand on it.

“This is a date with disaster.”.............................

..................Many energy experts and environmentalists are coming to the conclusion that nuclear energy is the best choice to generate reliable, affordable energy, while cutting CO2 emissions. Despite headline nuclear catastrophes at plants in Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, many countries are building new plants or delaying closures of existing nuclear plants, considering it the cleanest and least environmentally harmful source of electricity.

According to a report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, wind farms require up to 360 times as much land area to produce the same amount of electricity as a nuclear energy facility, and solar facilities require up to 75 times the land area. Compared to coal and natural gas plants, wind and solar consume at least 10 times as much land, according to the left-leaning Brookings Institution.

In addition to a smaller footprint, nuclear power stations also typically do not require the construction of thousands of miles of new transmission lines to reach remote locations, where wind and solar facilities are typically built.

With nuclear, Mr. Bryce said, “we don’t need to expand the grid; we can use the grid we have.”...............................

.............................“With the Inflation Reduction Act and the investment tax credits, production tax credits, all of the financial incentives in the power-gen sector are to build more wind and solar,” he said. “To me, that is just absolute crazy town.”

The documentary is available to watch for free on YouTube or at juicetheseries.com.

https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/date-disaster-net-zero-pulling-plu...

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