Got power?
The Blaze featured an article over the weekend reporting that US solar power production (of electricity) plunged by 50% over the long period smoke has been drifting from the massive Prairie Province wildfires plaguing both Canada and the States.
Here in the Black Hills, Wyoming, and Colorado, we’ve been very aware of the smoke being blown south and east from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and nearby areas for more than a month. Here in the Black Hills and Four Corners, we take periodic episodes of smoke for granted (due to frequent grass and forest fires in the dry lands of the Amercan West, both the Rockies and the Great Plains), California similarly has almost annual experience with dealing with smoke. But the Canadian fires have created conditions that have Easterners freaking out. Earlier in the week it was the Northwest – those powers that be in Manhattan and Boston and DC. Now (a news report as I write this) it is the Great Lakes States. They are “suffering” and there are warnings to “stay indoors” because of the “worst air quality” in the nation.
To Westerners, I admit it is hard to feel as much sympathy as we probably should.
But it does raise some serious questions. Forest fires and grassland fires and the smoke they produce are NOT caused by “manmade global climate change” or “manmade global warming.” We have seen massive forest and grass fires (especially in North America) for thousands of years. Many are the result of human activities, but not because of more CO2 or methane or CFCs in the atmosphere.
But to the environists who are deeply convinced and fearful that mankind is destroying the planet because we are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, these fires are obviously part of the End of the World!
After all, they are not only releasing massive amounts of CO2 and respirable particulates (PM10, PM2.5, etc.) into the environment, they are causing major problems with the “green” and “renewable” electrical power they must have for their “green” electric vehicles and their “green” homes and the factories that produce their “plant-based” fake meat! Especially since the current American regime has been so successful in shutting down more and more fossil fuel power plants.
Coal-fired and gas-fired and oil-fired power plants don’t really suffer any because there is too much wildfire smoke in the air. But clearly solar power is impacted.
And solar power is also impacted by such things as dust storms due to drought. Just to add to the fears of environists! And things like winter snowstorms, and hurricanes, and ash from volcanoes!
Wind power has its own problems, from the materials needed, the variability of wind, its susceptibility to winter and hurricane damage, and of course, killing off all kinds of birds. Oh, and the strange phenomenon of those turbines now and then just falling down!
To rational, sane people who have not drunk the environist KoolAid? Especially those that are concerned about such things as worker safety, dependability, and cost?
The solution is clear. Nuclear power. Like coal and gas and even fuel oil, bad weather, smoke, and many other things have little or no impact on their operation. Or survival. Their emissions of greenhouse gases is nil. They do not require vast areas of land like solar or wind or even coal mining. Their safety record (regardless of the panic and hysteria over Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three-Mile Island) is better than the coal mining and power production, or even oil and gas.
Especially when we look at the advantages of modern modular, thorium-fueled or molten salt reactors, which eliminate many of the most serious concerns of nuclear fission power generation. Wyoming, in particular, is pursuing a constellation of nuclear power stations. But sadly, right now, there are only two active nuclear power station projects underway in the States. And only 57 worldwide.
At the very time that nuclear power is perhaps most needed, and most readily available due to improvements in technology, we see little going on. And much of that is being delayed and sidetracked by government rules and incompetence.
About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.
The Price of Liberty 
The need for nukes
Got power?
The Blaze featured an article over the weekend reporting that US solar power production (of electricity) plunged by 50% over the long period smoke has been drifting from the massive Prairie Province wildfires plaguing both Canada and the States.
Here in the Black Hills, Wyoming, and Colorado, we’ve been very aware of the smoke being blown south and east from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and nearby areas for more than a month. Here in the Black Hills and Four Corners, we take periodic episodes of smoke for granted (due to frequent grass and forest fires in the dry lands of the Amercan West, both the Rockies and the Great Plains), California similarly has almost annual experience with dealing with smoke. But the Canadian fires have created conditions that have Easterners freaking out. Earlier in the week it was the Northwest – those powers that be in Manhattan and Boston and DC. Now (a news report as I write this) it is the Great Lakes States. They are “suffering” and there are warnings to “stay indoors” because of the “worst air quality” in the nation.
To Westerners, I admit it is hard to feel as much sympathy as we probably should.
But it does raise some serious questions. Forest fires and grassland fires and the smoke they produce are NOT caused by “manmade global climate change” or “manmade global warming.” We have seen massive forest and grass fires (especially in North America) for thousands of years. Many are the result of human activities, but not because of more CO2 or methane or CFCs in the atmosphere.
But to the environists who are deeply convinced and fearful that mankind is destroying the planet because we are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, these fires are obviously part of the End of the World!
After all, they are not only releasing massive amounts of CO2 and respirable particulates (PM10, PM2.5, etc.) into the environment, they are causing major problems with the “green” and “renewable” electrical power they must have for their “green” electric vehicles and their “green” homes and the factories that produce their “plant-based” fake meat! Especially since the current American regime has been so successful in shutting down more and more fossil fuel power plants.
Coal-fired and gas-fired and oil-fired power plants don’t really suffer any because there is too much wildfire smoke in the air. But clearly solar power is impacted.
And solar power is also impacted by such things as dust storms due to drought. Just to add to the fears of environists! And things like winter snowstorms, and hurricanes, and ash from volcanoes!
Wind power has its own problems, from the materials needed, the variability of wind, its susceptibility to winter and hurricane damage, and of course, killing off all kinds of birds. Oh, and the strange phenomenon of those turbines now and then just falling down!
To rational, sane people who have not drunk the environist KoolAid? Especially those that are concerned about such things as worker safety, dependability, and cost?
The solution is clear. Nuclear power. Like coal and gas and even fuel oil, bad weather, smoke, and many other things have little or no impact on their operation. Or survival. Their emissions of greenhouse gases is nil. They do not require vast areas of land like solar or wind or even coal mining. Their safety record (regardless of the panic and hysteria over Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three-Mile Island) is better than the coal mining and power production, or even oil and gas.
Especially when we look at the advantages of modern modular, thorium-fueled or molten salt reactors, which eliminate many of the most serious concerns of nuclear fission power generation. Wyoming, in particular, is pursuing a constellation of nuclear power stations. But sadly, right now, there are only two active nuclear power station projects underway in the States. And only 57 worldwide.
At the very time that nuclear power is perhaps most needed, and most readily available due to improvements in technology, we see little going on. And much of that is being delayed and sidetracked by government rules and incompetence.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.