Biden administration approves third major California solar project

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The Biden administration has approved a third major solar project in California, part of a continued drive to achieve carbon-free electricity generation nationwide by 2035.

The Oberon project, authorized by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Thursday, will help meet an Energy Act of 2020 goal of permitting 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on public lands by 2025, the agency said in a new release.

Together with two other recently approved projects - Arica and Victory Pass - Oberon's construction will bring solar power generation on Californian public lands up to 1,000 megawatts.

"The Oberon Solar Project underscores the Biden Administration's commitment to reaching carbon-free electricity by 2035," BLM California State Director Karen Mouritsen said in a statement.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-administration-approves-third-major-california-solar-project/ar-AASMMxA

[hunter]

1. We had to destroy the natural world in order to save it!

These projects should be restricted to lands that have already been trashed by mining, agriculture, car-centric suburban development, etc.

[NNadir]

2. Once again we see the misuse of a power unit, watts, to obscure the uselessness of these systems...

...to provide energy, most importantly, dispatchable energy.

The unit of energy is not the Watt. It is the Joule. Neither solar nor wind garbage average out to 30% capacity utilization.

It is a shame that our party has bought into this highly destructive and meaningless serving of kool-aid.

California's real time energy profile is available here: CAISO Website

As of this writing, all of the wind turbines in California, spread over thousands of square miles laced with access roads for diesel trucks, are producing 2037 MW of electrical power (6:41 PM California Time, 1/14/22), less power than the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant is producing on a 12 acre footprint nestled in 700 acres of barely disturbed chaparral (2,263 MW). The much vaunted solar industry is producing 28 MW, because the sunset is underway.

Demand in California is currently 27,012 MW. The "Green" state is importing over 10,000 MW and the largest source of electrical generation in the State, by far, is dangerous natural gas, the waste of which is being dumped directly into the planetary atmosphere with no known industrial process to remove it, ever. It is thus being dumped on future generations.

This is not 1980, or 1976, when the asshole Amory Lovins told us that solar nirvana would be here by the year 2000. It's 2022. Every bit of so called "renewable energy" infrastructure added to the California junk pile will be exactly that, junk, 25 years after its installed.

The Biden administration has an enlightened nuclear energy policy, albeit understated.

We need the administration not to understate it but rather to say it loud, say it proud.

Those of us who care about the future know that the problem is not simply to have power; but rather to govern well. If we govern poorly people far worse than us will seize power. Building so called "renewable energy" junk is a failure. Right now in Germany, as of this writing, the German carbon intensity of its electricity is over 500 g CO2/kwh. They're burning coal because the wind isn't blowing. That coal waste will be with humanity, as things stand now, forever.

[progree]

3. And there is not a SINGLE mention of nuclear in any of the entirety of this White House statement

from January 12

FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Races to Deploy Clean Energy that Creates Jobs and Lowers Costs, The White House, January 12, 2022 -- New Actions Advance Offshore Wind, Leverage Public Lands for Clean Energy, and Build the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Transmission Lines

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/12/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-races-to-deploy-clean-energy-that-creates-jobs-and-lowers-costs/

[NNadir]

4. Nevertheless, the Biden administration is quietly showing great support for nuclear energy.

At the most profound level, the level of action, they get it.

Secretary Granholm has joined those who are calling for Diablo Canyon to stay open, and nuclear innovation is now an important activity at our National Labs.

[progree]

5. Yup, a couple billion for research and calling to keep existing nuclear plants open

definitely going to turn the tide by 2035, just in time.

Edited to add:
Energy secretary Granholm: "When the winds of change blow, some build walls, others build windmills"

I wonder which is being prioritized.

[NNadir]

6. Nevertheless, despite the disaster represented by the wind industry, real winds of change toward...

...nuclear power are increasingly evident, and, for a Democratic administration - let's face it our belief in so called "renewable energy" is our answer to the right wing's creationism - I see strong signs that there is a growing realization that nuclear energy is the only way out.

Germany's rapidly becoming a laughing stock in Europe for it's claim that "nuclear energy is too dangerous." These assholes have been burning huge amounts of coal this week because they drank the Kool-Aid and shut their nuclear plants.

The "priorities," such as they are, are in flux.

When I first joined DU in 2002, the anti-nuke assholes here were screaming that "if we spent as much money on 'renewable energy' as we spend on nuclear, we wouldn't need nuclear."

Well, we did. We spent trillions of dollars on so called "renewable energy" with the result that the degradation of the atmosphere is accelerating rather than decelerating.

As I've been posting here:

Recently I updated the expenditure on so called "renewable energy" as we happily run along trashing huge stretches of wilderness, rendering them into industrial parks to serve the clearly failed rhetoric of anti-nukes.

Source: UNEP/Bloomberg: Global Trends in Renewable Energy.

I manually entered the figures in the bar graph in figure 8 to see how much money we've thrown at this destructive affectation since 2004 (up to 2019): It works out to 3.2633 trillion dollars, more than President Biden has wisely recommended for the improvement of all infrastructure in the entire United States.

The failure of so called "renewable energy" to address climate change is a fact. Facts matter. Say what you will about us Democrats, we are better than the other guys at facing facts. We may be slow to see them, and certainly we do have our own dogma and faith based attitudes, but in this country, we come around more quickly than they do at the GQP.

I am very excited about my son's decision to seek his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering. It is precisely the right time to do so. The money, and more importantly the will, will be there, simply because there is no other option at this point.