Bogged-Down In Bullshit: The US is Now a "No Can Do" Country, Part 2

In my post Bogged Down in Bullshit: the US is a “No Can Do” Country, I discussed how the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, a natural gas pipeline to supply natural gas to N. Carolina, Virginia, the East Coast is still being built after being harassed and stymied by environmentalist “lawfare” for 10 years and is still not quite finished.

The opponents are hindering it due to ‘environmental’ reasons, saying “oh, but..but…but think of the carbon!” I hate to tell these idiots that no carbon literally equals no economy— no jobs, and a return to the economy and population of the US in 1890. The truth is that we’d be back in the Stone Age. That’s where we’re heading.

As I sit this morning, natural gas futures are $1.75 per 1000 cubic feet, which is dirt cheap. It’s priced at the equivalent energy content as $10 oil! What a bargain! Oil is pushing $90 per barrel this morning. Of course, this abundant natural gas is a by-product of our abundant US oil production.

The truth is that natural gas transmission lines should be constructed and massively extended into New York state and all of New England. There, they currently have to deal with much more expensive LPG truck deliveries and burning oil or electricity for heat in the winter. They could have safe, inexpensive and clean-burning natural gas if they wanted.

The Mountain Valley Project is just ONE project of THOUSANDS of projects that are “bogged-down in bullshit.” Nothing can get done in a timely manner.

Take the entirely green TransWest Express (high voltage) electrical transmission line. You see, Wyoming and other places on the high plains, have A LOT of wind.

Some seventeen years ago, that transmission line was proposed to link the power generated from wind farms in Wyoming to electricity grids in Las Vegas and SoCal. But all those wind projects have been on-hold for 17 frigging years while the above ground transmission line was “bogged-down in bullshit” until this year.

And this is true even though the $5 billion Trans-West Electrical transmission line is an entirely “green project.” If the transmission line is not available, then either Wind farms are idle or also not constructed. As I said in my recent post Bogged Down in Bullshit: the US is a “No Can Do” Country:

From the LA Times: “TransWest Express transmission line, which will move electricity from the $5-billion, 3,000-megawatt, 600-turbine Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind farm in WY to Southern California, a place legally mandated to switch to clean energy. The wind farm(s) will be the country’s biggest yet.”

It took them all those years to get all the final permissions. SO AFTER 17 YEARS OF WASTED TIME, THEY JUST STARTED CONSTRUCTION this year. So there are many more years before the lines are energized. 

Now, we’re hearing that Biden’s $7.5 billion investment in EV charging stations has only produced 7 stations in two years since authorization and funding.

Resident Biden has vowed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the United States by 2030. Those stations, the White House said, would help Americans feel confident purchasing and driving electric cars, and help the country cut carbon pollution.

But now, more than two years after Congress allocated $7.5 billion to help build out those stations, only 7 EV charging stations are operational across four states. (From the WaPo via MSN, the funding should be enough to build up to 20,000 charging spots or around 5,000 stations, according to analysis from the EV policy analyst group Atlas Public Policy.)

That’s 7 stations out of 5,000 proposed and budgeted. It’s only been too years, but I guarantee that nearly all of these stations won’t be built at all. The government and industry can’t do anything in a timely way.

Already demand for electric vehicles is already subsiding dramatically due the cost of the cars and their driving range and/or reliability in cold weather.

The so-called “Green Transition,” which is an enormously expensive boondoggle based on a hysterical misunderstanding of slight global warming, will not be possible. This is true because I say in my post Electrical Generation And Grids and Must VASTLY Expand To Accommodate Transportation Loads, the entire US power grid must be upgraded which would cost $5 TRILLION or more. That’s 1000s of big projects. It’s not going to happen, because nothing can happen in a timely way in this country.

Already there are a surprisingly abundant number of alternative “green” energy projects awaiting for grid modifications and connections. And at the current rate of progress, we’ll literally need 100 years to complete them. Of course, by then the US will be anything but united, definitely broke and/or completely collapsed or Balkanized or BACK TO THE STONE AGE.

From an excellent article A Silent Threat to the Energy Transition: America’s Broken Infrastructure Policy, indicates the extent to which alternative projects are UNAPPROVED. They said:

“There’s a massive gap between our efforts to transition to sustainable energy and our ability to make it happen. Countless examples and data points bear this out. Here are just a few:

1. The Inflation Reduction Act included hundreds of billions of dollars for solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and other technologies to tackle climate change. Yet if we can’t build new transmission at a faster pace, around 80% of the emissions reductions expected from that bill might not happen, according to researchers at Princeton University’s Repeat Project. [Doug here— Read: IT WON’T HAPPEN]

2. At the end of 2022, there were over 10,000 projects in the U.S., most of them wind, solar, and batteries, waiting for permission to connect to the grid, up from 8,100 the year before, according to researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

3. In 2021, backlogged projects sitting in the queue represented 1,300 gigawatts of solar, wind, and battery projects – technically enough to supply about 80% of the country’s electricity demand. [Doug here: Remember, installed capacity and actual generation are two entirely different things. Solar is guaranteed offline for 1/2 of the day on average, so the installed capacity is double the delivered quantity of energy.]

4. Most energy storage projects never get built. A Clean Energy Group report found that “lengthening wait times and rising interconnection costs dramatically restrict the rate at which renewable generation and energy storage resources are installed.” This creates obstacles to hitting so many goals, including emissions reduction targets, renewable generation and energy storage procurement targets, and grid modernization plans.

5. California’s big three utilities may need to invest up to $50 billion by 2035 to upgrade their grids in order to meet the state’s ambitious electric vehicle goals. That’s a staggering sum, what is arguably the greenest and most forward-looking state regarding renewables, and it highlights the needs every state will face when tackling energy infrastructure investment.

A recent Department of Energy draft analysis cited “a pressing need for additional electric transmission,” especially between different regions. The McKinsey study framed it more dramatically: The U.S. grid will need to expand by 60% by 2030, and doing so would require “a mind-boggling acceleration of the typical ten-year capital project timeline. It is, arguably, a century of work to do in less than a decade.”

In my post Electrical Generation And Grids and Must VASTLY Expand To Accommodate Transportation Loads, I not only estimated that the US power grids will have to nearly double in capacity but we’ll require significant additional (and parallel) fossil fueled generating plants for back-up to the “intermittents.” I guesstimated the cost to do so would be $5 trillion. Of course, this estimate will balloon to $10 T or $20 T as everything drags on and delays and lawsuits halt progress.

Yes, 2050 will come and go and, if the US still exists, (which is doubtful) many or most of the “Green transition” ambitions will NOT be fulfilled. Owners of the MANDATED electric cars will be frequently in the dark for about 50 years waiting for new power lines.

Alternatively I’m guessing that electric cars owners will only be able to only charge between 12 am and 5 am, if then, and during all other times there will be huge penalty pricing. Suddenly, all the “cost advantages” of using electricity “fuel” vs. gasoline will go away. Bye bye electric cars for now.