Michael Ramirez for March 05, 2023

Regulations and laws are how big business stays big and even grows.{^_^}

One might stop to consider that if the various methods of power generation were evaluated on an equal basis (factoring in ALL the costs of traditionally generated power) if that’s still the case. Solar power is still in its infancy and is building all of the infrastructure needed to put it on an even par with coal/gas/nuclear generated power. ALL those methods of power generation were highly subsidized in their infancy and have a 50+ year head start on solar.

13% higher this early in the game is pretty good.

Build thousands of nuclear plants.

Republicans can only look at the finger, and not where it’s pointing.

Uncle Joe sez we’re gonna need fossil fuels for at least another decade, but he’s puzzled why oil companies aren’t investing in new production. This is what you get when you have someone who spent their entire career in government, and never a day running a business.

We will never get rid of the need for fossil fuels. They now predict the equator will migrate to Chicago due to the weight distribution changes to the Earth – too much water use in India and too much concrete in China.

But when the central US becomes a desert, the left will continue to blame CO2 emissions.

Oh, no. It’s going to be hard work and expensive to do what we all really know we’re going to have to, eventually. So, I’ll just gonna get another beer during the commercial break on “Dancing with the Stars”.

Excellent toon Mr. Ramirez.

Starving and freezing in the dark…the Left’s gift to human progress since Rousseau.

Is this why ERCOT failed so dismally when cold weather happened and the customers got soaked for thousands on that failure? Is renewable still in its early years, or will prices fall when it becomes more common and loses resistance by those trying to sabotage it to protect antiquated power sources? Is the artist being intellectually dishonest when cherry picking the costs from specious sources?

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Good one so true, want to reduce power to the Grid, try Geothermal in your home. Windmills do make electrical prices go up, but as a bonus, all that land taken, causes farm products to go up as well. So you get hit in the pocketbook twice. Congrats.

As bans on the sale of NEW gas powered vehicles go into effect, I can easily foresee those states coming to resemble Cuba – fleets of OLD gas powered cars, lovingly maintained and kept on the roads.

The problem with this cartoon is not that Mr. Ramirez(and people with his point of view) is wrong, it’s that he is short sighted. The world really can not sustain an economy based on fossil fuels. Oil is getting more difficult and expensive to produce. Coal is way too dirty and polluting. Natural gas may be the most plentiful, but the greenhouse gases it produces are not helping our climate. It’s not evenly distributed around the world, so if your economy is dependent on oil, you’re at the mercy of people like Putin or the Saudis, or the Iranians. As time goes on our dependance on fossil fuel will make our economy more unstable. A war in the part of the world rich in oil can tank us even if we’re not involved directly.

Diversifying our energy sources makes a more robust energy grid. Solar power has the advantage of being free. You don’t have to pay for the sun. You don’t have to hire someone to get it for you. Once you have your panels the only maintenance yo have is keeping the panels free of dust. If every house where it was practical, we would have a more robust grid that is producing energy as long as the sun shines. If we diversify our grid with renewables it will be more robust.

The problem, as I see it, is not the technology, but the will. We live in a country that puts profit before the public good. The fact that Exxon had research that said burning fossil fuels was going to damage the climate, and they sat on it, tells you how far they willing to go to keep their money rolling in.

Mike is unaware (or pretends to be) that in developing industries, the more time, money, and effort put in, the quicker limitations are overcome, and the technology improves at a proportionally faster rate.

Circular logic, as demonstrated by my anti-alternative energy coworkers: since alternative energy generation makes up a small percentage of all energy generation, must mean that nobody wants it… so shouldn’t invest in building any more of it or improving its technology… and of course, no need to ask anybody about whether they’re actually interested in alternate energy or not…

Costs to the environment are not factored into the cost of traditional power producing methods. That would probably make it equal.

Ramierez’s toon is stupid. Nuclear is now 18%, and Wind an Solar are more like 13.5%

A few years ago, solar and wind were only a few percent. The time to double the amount of solar and wind energy is much less than the time to double nuclear. A decade versus about two decades for nuclear.

Nuclear power is expensive in time and money.

“Build thousands of nuclear plants.” - Not even funny. Show us the money!

Nuclear currently provides about 18% of US power. That is with 100 nuclear reactors.

More than 500 new power plants of the same sort would be needed to cover current plus a 20% increase in demand.

Recent estimate of cost of building a 1GW reactor, $2 billion. So figure another trillion bucks (at least) over a few decades.

A 1GW wind farm is estimated at $1.3 billion.

A 1GW solar farm is estimated at #1.1 billion.

It takes 5 to 7 years (if one is very lucky) to build a new power plant.

The number that can be built in a year is severely limited because we have not been building.

We already are importing most of the uranium we use. Now you want to import more? For decades to come?

Oh, and all that concrete and steel means more CO2.

Those reactors produce significant radioactive waste, which we do not properly store as it is, and you want to increase it at by at least 5 times as much. With greater expenses.

It will not happen, and cannot happen. A few more reactors should be added, but that’s about it.

You’ll not get a Fukushima, Chernobyl type event from solar and wind. You won’t get the disaster of a dam collapse from solar or wind.

Sempra energy has record profits. Just saying…https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/sempra-energy-2022-earnings-call/509-cc4c6ec0-1fbc-47be-bf4e-5cc72c35cb03

Never fear Power companies. In my State, they are working on a Bill that will take away solar subsidies and solar buybacks with the premise that it isn’t fair. Not everyone can afford to put in Solar so Solar power should pay more to the Power companies as a Solar tax.

At 35% avg productivity W&S will always require significant, redundant backup infrastructure (eg 100%) from current sources: fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro. These costs are NEVER factored into the conversation. Battery backup for the grid is prohibitively expensive and impractical. Germany & Spain abandoned their 100% renewable quest with W&S after experiencing painful & unsustainable cost problems. My regional NYS utility provider filed for a 31% rate increase effective May 1st. Beware of many more cost increases to follow.

As a person whose career was in the petroleum industry, I expect we will continue to see a transition to electric powered vehicles (hopefully within my lifetime). And it will take many years, just like the horse to petroleum shift, because there are MANY complex and huge and interrelated shifts.

Our electrical generation infrastructure MUST be improved, and one important aspect of that (over Mr. Michael Ramirez’s complaints) is a shift from petroleum and coal to solar, wind, water and potentially nuclear (I’m a fan of the French model of developing one model every decade and getting really good at building and maintaining). We need to improve the RELIANCE of our electrical grid. We string up long distance commercial and local residence lines up in the air, which are exposed to ice and hurricanes and fire; rather than burying in the ground. If we ever get into another world war, you can bet our electrical infrastructure will be a target (see Ukraine-Russia war).

Electrical cars MUST be improved. They are getting pretty good, but the distance provided by a full charge needs to be improved. We need more manufacturers to experiment and develop more ideas, some fail and some succeed, so that we develop a robust industry.

Our electrical vehicle charging industry MUST be improved. I’m seeing some new “energy” stations being built where 90% of the energy infrastructure is for the gas powered car and diesel powered 18 wheeler and 10% for electrical car recharging. Over time these percentages will shift and we’ll eventually have to start searching for a “gas” station for our outmoded vehicle (but that’s many years away).

Solar, wind, water and nuclear are NOT CLEAN energy, they are less dirty, they are less impactful. Creating solar panels requires heavy metal and a TON of energy and they currently have a useful life of 25-30 years requiring replacement and disposal. Same kind of issues for the other methods.

Solar is not going to get me from Harlingen, TX to the San Juan in New Mexico to go trout fishing!!!!!

hey mikie..you are talking about texas right…nothing like yur own grid…except if it gets a bit cold…but i’ve heard they’ve made many improvments…like taking away cancun ted’s mexican frequent flyer miles…