YOU DON’T SAY: Road to renewable energy is filled with potholes of ‘magic thinking.’

Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson’s “roadmaps” for states to reach a 100 percent renewable energy portfolio by 2050 has become the new benchmark for aspiring politicos who hope to chart their own political course with promises to bring their states and eventually the entire United States to green salvation.

Among them, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) has launched his own gubernatorial campaign in Colorado on just such a declaration, and backed it up with a federal bill, the 100 by ‘50 Act, ”that fully envisions a complete transition off of fossil fuels for the United States.” Polis is joined by Rep. Paul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate.

“To remain a global economic leader, we must invest in renewable energy technology and fully embrace a cleaner, carbon-free future,” Polis said. “I’m proud to introduce this bill to advance 100 percent renewable energy nationally by investing in energy generation, transmission, and storage solutions of the future, rather than throwing taxpayer dollars into the past.”

Unfortunately, the research underpinning the bill and similar efforts elsewhere, has been roundly criticized, with a peer-reviewed paper finding “significant shortcomings” and “errors, inappropriate methods, and implausible assumptions” in Jacobson’s work. The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, has led Jacobson to advise the 21 authors who contributed to the peer review that he has lawyered up, rather than push back on the substantive criticisms of his work.

That hardly seems auspicious.