“While quiet transformers and inverters exist [to reduce pure-tone transformer noise], due to premium cost, it is generally not a specification point the solar facility designers are willing to consider…. There is a real need for acoustic evaluation and noise control with respect to nighttime operations of solar energy components.”
“Clark County regulators have substantiated 37 of the 49 complaints they have received about the project from the public. ‘Can’t breathe from all the dust coming off the solar field!!!!!!,’ one person wrote to the county on Sept. 15. ‘Someone need to take care of this it happens way to often.’”
Anti-fossil-fuel environmentalists, when pressed, will state that all energy choices have environmental drawbacks and tradeoffs. But they do not take this seriously when it comes to wind and solar power, which have infrastructure requirements (including land and power lines) that are a multiple of other choices on a per kWh basis.…
“Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.”
“For critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.” (NYT, below)
Let history note that the February 23, 2022, print edition of the New York Times admitted that “net zero” was a long shot. This breaks the narrative that Net Zero was the inevitable future with politics and business and high technology leading the way. Forget energy density; energy reality would be remade by a shared narrative of hoping and wanting it to be remade.…
“Mr. President, America is the world’s energy superpower. It is time we started acting like it again.”
We live in ironic political times when it comes to petroleum, a pillar of the master resource of energy. But consumers know and like their best energies, prominently including gasoline and diesel at the pump.
When citizen voters fuss about key petroleum products, politicians take off their ‘green’ masks and bow to reality. Remember Al Gore in his 2000 presidential run when motor-fuel prices became an issue? The author of Earth in the Balance stated:
…I have made it clear in this campaign that I am not calling for any tax increase on gasoline, on oil, on natural gas, or anything else. I am calling for tax cuts to stimulate the production of new sources of domestic energy and new technologies to improve efficiency.