Combine ignorance, Marxist ideology, and pseudo-science, and you get climate alarmism. No matter how many decades of evidence prove the alarmists completely wrong, they still scream that anyone who disagrees with them is a conspiracy theorist.
A lefty found himself majorly ratioed after sneering at Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Sears for noting that windmills do not, in fact, function properly when there is no wind, and solar panels need sun, which ought to be a self-evident proposition, but which this looney believes is crazy because The Science (TM) told him so. All hail The Science, may it be forever blessed, amen and awomen.
Chris Mowrey smugly and disdainfully posted, “the republican nominee in Virginia believes solar panels don’t work when it’s dark outside and windmills don’t work when ‘there’s no wind’. Stunning levels of incompetence and garbage.”
Since the satire writes itself, I will immediately move on to a response from Townhall and CFACT analyst Gabriella Hoffman, who debunked him thus: “Hi, Virginia-based energy policy analyst here. [Sears] is correct that solar panels don’t optimally work because they’re weather dependent. It’s why Virginia’s energy mix is predominately nat[ural]gas and nuclear (87%).”
She highlighted how totally unreliable “green” energy is: “Solar optimally works 25% of the year. Least reliable energy source today. Even with battery storage, it’s an inferior source. If solar is great and affordable, it doesn’t need subsidies. Yet, it’s wholly dependent on them. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.” In fact, solar panels and windmills are expensive, unreliable, inefficient, and toxic for the environment. They also rely on abusive and child labor in Africa and China.
Mowrey eventually realized that he had said something which the majority of sane people knew was stupid and laughable. But he doubled down, producing some tired old talking points. “Solar Panels have batteries that store power for when it’s dark or send extra power to the grid. We don’t put windmills where there’s no wind. And it doesn’t take much wind to spin one. This is basic stuff.”
Actually, what is basic stuff is that windmills and solar panels are simply incredibly unreliable, and, of course, every area has some unpredictable weather alterations. That ought to be obvious to anyone but an ideologue. But just for the sake of argument, let’s address Mowrey’s claims.
First of all, Heritage Foundation sums up why windmills are such failures:
For every megawatt of power capacity, a natural gas power plant requires about 1 ton of critical minerals, while...onshore wind plants require 11 tons.
Because the wind does not always blow, these turbines are running at maximum power only about 35% of the time… Wind energy requires vast expanses of land. According to a study by the Breakthrough Institute, wind energy takes about 30,000 acres per terawatt-hour of electricity generation annually, whereas nuclear energy uses 18 acres. Moreover, wind energy takes six times as much space as a natural gas power plant… In addition, wind turbines have a disposal problem.
Experts estimated that switching entirely to so-called green energy would require up to half of America’s landmass.
Read Also: Mass Federal Layoffs Begin
As for solar panels and Mowrey’s “storage” claim, I direct you to some hard facts from an environmental author:
Currently, batteries can power the US for less than 7 minutes
— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) December 26, 2024
To avoid blackouts, solar and wind need months of storage, costing trillions
Fossil fuels don't need storage because they are their own storagehttps://t.co/X41kKcmCIthttps://t.co/0Z6UWCe3lu
Solar or wind alone… pic.twitter.com/SKcoLLwLh5
Mowrey is as full of toxic garbage as a landfill of dead solar panels.
