3 AM

Steve Schwartzman

Sep 15

Rain falling on the roof at 3 AM yesterday woke me up. No way would I not go out after the sun came up so I could photograph something wet in nature for the first time in over two months. I went to the Sierra Nevada side of Great Hills Park and found plenty of subjects. Above is a large raindrop—probably the result of smaller ones coalescing—on an Ashe juniper tree (Juniperus ashei). Below is a ripe, raindrop-covered tuna, which is what people call the fruit of the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia engelmannii).

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Fantasy land

The Biden administration is misleading the country about the amount of land that will be required to meet its ambitious renewable energy goals, RealClearInvestigations has found. 

The Department of Energy's official line – echoed by many environmental activists and academics – is that the vast array of solar panels and wind turbines required to meet Biden's goal of "100% clean electricity" by 2035 will require "less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area." This topline number translates into 15,000 of the lower 48's roughly 3 million square miles.

However, the government report that furnished those estimates also notes that the wind farm footprint alone could require an expanse nine times as large: 134,000 square miles. Even that figure is misleading because it does not include land for the new transmission systems that would connect the energy, created by the solar panels carpeting the ground and skyscraper-tall wind turbines filling the horizons, to American businesses and homes.

"It's hundreds of thousands of acres if not millions for transmissions alone," said David Blackmon, an energy consultant and writer based in Texas. "The wind and solar farms will take enormous swaths of land all over the country and no one is talking about that."  

So begins a September 12th article by James Varney for RealClearInvestigations. To give you a sense of perspective, 15,000 square miles is approximately the area of New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. To get a feel for how big 134,000 square miles is, along with those four states you'd have to add Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Indiana—and you'd still be a few thousand square miles short.

The RealClearInvestigations report goes on to give many more specifics showing how advocates have grossly underestimated the amount of land that they claim will be needed. You're welcome to read the full article. And if you want to corroborate the areas of the states I've mentioned, you can find them in Wikipedia's list of states by area.