Lawmakers push back on Biden’s wind-energy efforts
FOX Business correspondent Madison Alworth converses with Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who details the security risks from wind turbines on ‘Fox & Friends.’
While jetting across the country trumpeting the supposed success of "Bidenomics," Vice President Kamala Harris had this to say, "Most Americans are a $400 unexpected expense away from bankruptcy." What’s not to love?
The White House must not be seeing the same headlines we are about record inflation, declining income, and concerning job trends. President Joe Biden’s rampant spending has destroyed the economic comfort and prosperity of the previous administration — something even the most devout anti-Trumpers are becoming nostalgic about as family budgets grow tighter and tighter.
Biden erroneously claims that his energy policies are a panacea that will offer Americans the best of both worlds, saving money and protecting the environment. The president has made poor policy choices about many things – but when it comes to energy, he’s never been more wrong and has weakened our country in the process.
BIDEN NOMINEE WHO FAILED SENATE CONFIRMATION STILL LEADING ADMIN'S CRACKDOWN ON GAS CARS
Every second of our lives revolves around energy. It’s not just about electricity for our fridges and gas for our cars, although those are significant. We need energy to power the production, manufacturing, packaging, shipping and marketing of every item we purchase. From eggs and aspirin to socks and dish soap, literally everything we use depends on energy.
Bidenomics has been at war with carbon-based fuels. FILE: The cooling towers at the Stanton Energy Center, a coal-fired power plant, are seen in Orlando. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Rising energy costs have been particularly painful. Biden wasted no time declaring war on fossil fuels: tightening regulations on fossil fuel producers, bloating the federal bureaucracy with a "whole of government" approach to climate change, and forcing green investments on public pensions at the expense of return on investment.
Wind and solar energy have always turned out to be more expensive and less reliable than fossil fuels. (Their environmental record isn’t great, either.) The pro-energy, pro-business policies of the previous administration saved the average family of four an estimated $2,500.
Since Biden’s inauguration those savings have been completely wiped out as gas prices have doubled, now costing the average family $2,800 more per year.
Environmentalists claim that renewable energy will alleviate all these woes if it can only get the right boost from the government (which, of course, means from us, the taxpayers).
Like his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, Biden has boldly claimed that "green jobs" will kickstart the economy and save America — that all we need to make wind and solar energy viable is a little more money from the federal government. Not surprisingly, it’s too good to be true.
In the 2010s alone, the federal government dropped over $200 billion on energy subsidies. Wind and solar companies receive over $20 per megawatt hour in federal subsidies, while natural gas receives just 25 cents.
Yet, despite decades and hundreds of billions in financial aid from federal and state governments, renewable energy moved from 3% of our energy supply to just 4%.
And enticing more workers to the industry won’t solve the problem. The main flaw with green jobs is they’re an inefficient use of the workforce. Energy expert Robert Bryce calls it the "iron law of power density": that renewable energy is less useful because it requires vastly more resources than fossil fuels.
Wind and solar require significantly more workers per unit of energy created than fossil fuels and nuclear. FILE: Wind turbines are seen at Duke Energy's Top of the World energy facility, April 23, 2013, in Rollings Hills, Wyo. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)
Bryce means primarily natural resources like mined minerals and land, but the same applies to labor. Wind and solar require significantly more workers per unit of energy created than fossil fuels and nuclear.
Imagine pulling up to a drive-through to order a burger and discovering your food is agonizingly slow to prepare and 12 times more expensive — not just because of inflation, but because 12 workers were required to put a burger together.
Say one person slices the bun, one person chops onions, another digs pickles out of a jar, and still more workers individually assembling each ingredient. You would probably drive across the street to a competitor the next time you need a quick bite
This is the problem with Bidenomics. You pay more for less efficient and less reliable service. While the president and vice president travel about America touting their plan to create more jobs, it’s because renewable energy isn’t dense energy or efficient.
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For example, launching 50,000 "green" jobs in Spain costs $38 billion — over $700,000 per job. That massive cost to taxpayers meant Spaniards had less money in their pockets to spend on essentials, let alone to invest for their families’ futures, give back in charity, or put toward education and personal betterment.
Eventually, the burger analogy falls apart because when it comes to energy, you can’t just switch brand loyalties or pack a sack lunch instead. Our lives revolve around and are impossible without energy.
On the long-term scale, propping up unreliable renewable energy and promoting green jobs would cause catastrophic economic fallout and catastrophic attrition from other industries.
Bryce means primarily natural resources like mined minerals and land, but the same applies to labor. Wind and solar require significantly more workers per unit of energy created than fossil fuels and nuclear.
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In Biden’s fantasy world of renewables only and zero emissions, only the wealthiest of the wealthy would enjoy the luxury of constant electricity, easy transportation, and affordable goods and services. Unfortunately, that may be the goal, not the consequence — at least if you listen to Biden advisors advocating for a "liberal world order."
Unfortunately, it seems serving the American people isn’t the Biden administration’s priority. Otherwise, it would unapologetically support the affordable, reliable energy resources produced right here in America — oil, natural gas and clean coal — that can return our nation to economic prosperity.