The Virginia Legislature is considering legislation that would disallow local government intervention when it comes to restricting large scale solar projects. Two radical Democrats, Del. Rip Sullivan and Sen. Creigh Deeds, are advocating for eliminating local control of solar installations. These hideous looking eyesores are no more than tax avoidance schemes for Wall Street investors and utility companies. The question should be, why do Virginia ratepayers have to pay for projects that do absolutely nothing to combat climate change?
The supposed reason for any wasteful renewable project is to achieve a goal of net zero emissions by 2050. In 2021, the International Energy Agency, or IEA, published a report that came up with a plan on how to achieve net zero by 2050. In its Net Zero by 2050 report, the IEA outlines more than 400 milestones, all of which need to be achieved in order to reach net zero by 2050. The document is basically based upon fantasy and an endless pot of money spent by governments that is unsustainable and increasingly not accepted by their citizens. How unrealistic are each of the steps? Here is just a sampling.
- Renewable power generation will reach 88% of world generation by 2050. EIA estimates by 2050 at least 75% of power generation will be by fossil fuels.
- Coal use in 2050 is 90% lower than in 2020; the U.S. Energy Information Agency predicts a 10% increase in coal usage by 2050.
- Oil demand never returns to its 2019 peak of 88 million barrels a day; 2023 demand was about 101 million barrels a day.
- Limiting driving speeds on motorways to 62 mph. (Apparently they’ve never been on I-64.)
Achieving decarbonization of energy use in the sector requires almost all existing buildings to undergo a single in-depth retrofit by 2050.
Oh, by the way, the Hampton roads area would need to eliminate internal combustion engines.
Currently, no signatory of the Paris Climate Agreement is anywhere near a pathway to achieve the net zero pledges. However, Virginia Democrats continue to advocate for unreasonable solutions. 2023 set a new world wide record for GHG emissions. It’s time to end the nonsense that this will be achievable.
By far the largest waste of ratepayer and taxpayer dollars is the Virginia offshore wind project. The ratepayer will be on the hook for $13 billion dollars for old technology — windmills — that at best will generate electricity maybe 40% of the time. And, every 10 years the windmills will need to be “re-powered” costing taxpayers and ratepayers billions of dollars more every 10 years.
When faced with the facts, the always predictable Democrats always revert to scare tactics about the climate. They don’t even take the time to change the wording of their press releases.
Notice the dates from a June 29, 1989, Associated Press dispatch. Today, Democrats continue the same script. Does it sound familiar?
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.
Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.
He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.
As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told the Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.
Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded.
So now, 35 years later, we’re all alive. I do believe the climate is changing, but I don’t believe in the failed policies being imposed on Virginians.
Enough is enough. Virginians should not shoulder the cost of ineffective, expensive and corrupt Democrat climate policies. Virginia does not want to go down the same pathway as California, but Virginia Democrats are sure trying to do so.
Lou Hrkman is from James City County.
