Alternative Power's Dirty Secret

I worked for a electric company for over 20 years and during that time I learned a lot about where our electricity comes from. At one time the company I worked for was doing research on alternative energy sources. They had wind, solar, geothermal, coal gasification, nuclear, hydro, and natural gas power plants. This was all back in the 1980s and 1990s.

We are being told today that we need to get away from fossil fuel generated electricity. That sounds great, let's do it. Here is the big secret that the environmentalist don't what you to know. What do you need to build your alternative power plant on? The answer, land. Where are you going to find large, vacant parcels of land? The answer, deserts, or rural areas. Where do people mostly live? In cities. How does the power get from the power plants to the cities? It travels via transmission lines. What do you need to get before you can build your plant or your transmission line? First you have to purchase large amounts of property and then get the permits to build your plant and transmission lines. Here in lies the dirty secret. The environmentalists don't want the transmission lines built nor do they want rural or desert lands converted into power plants. So they come up with endangered animals or plants in the areas to be developed. Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) are a time consuming, expensive process that also delays construction, sometimes for years.

So, on one hand the environmentalists want alternative power. On the other hand they fight the construction of such plants. So what is their goal? Think about it. If they complain about the pollution existing plants produce and how bad they are (and that pollution has been greatly reduced over the past 40 years) and they don't what new plants, what's left? Cap and Trade.

Cap and Trade is nothing more than the environmental left forcing new energy standards that will only result higher energy cost, not alternative power sorces. What do higher energy cost create? They create more expensive utility bills for home owners already struggling to make ends meet, higher fuel costs at the gas pumps, and everything we purchase will cost more. Cap and Trade will NOT make America better. If you think unemployment is bad now and the cost of gas was bad last year, just let Cap and Trade get passed.