Green New Deal is Unplugged from Reality

June 16, 2021

One of the many problems with the Green New Deal and the radical environmentalist agenda is that it is completely untethered from long-term realities. For example, demand for electricity. Americans are more plugged in than ever before. Charging stations are now practically a requirement at any airport or sports arena. The trend of ‘smart’ appliances and the Internet of Things will only increase the need for power in American homes and workplaces.

But as more things need to be plugged in, more electricity infrastructure will be needed – and therein lies the problem. Most communities do not want to house the electrical substations and high-voltage power lines that will be needed to carry the renewable electricity from its sources.

In The New York Daily News, Robert Bryce writes about these challenges:

…as I show in a recent report for the Center of the American Experiment, local governments across the country are rejecting large-scale renewable energy projects. Since 2015, some 300 government entities have rejected or restricted wind projects. In New York, so many communities are rejecting Big Wind and Big Solar that Gov. Cuomo’s administration pushed through regulations that will allow Albany poobahs to override local zoning laws and issue permits for renewable projects.

Despite the raging rural backlash against Big Wind and Big Solar, numerous studies have been published by academics at elite schools like Princeton, University of California and Stanford that assume building massive amounts of renewable capacity and transmission can be done quickly, and for a mere few trillion dollars. None of the studies mention rural opposition to renewables or the difficulties of building transmission. For instance, the “Net-Zero America” study published last year by Princeton said the U.S. would have to double or triple its high-voltage transmission capacity in just three decades. That will not happen.

The punchline is obvious: It’s far easier to stop infrastructure projects than it is to build them. Activists who believe we can simply swap out the energy from Keystone XL with power from “clean” renewables are in for a rude awakening. That wake-up call may not happen tomorrow or next week. But eventually, physics, math and sanity will prevail.

As Bryce demonstrates, the Green New Deal is as unplugged from reality as it seemingly will be from the nation’s electricity grid.