Much like the old (more honest) days: What so called "renewable energy" is all about.

[NNadir]

There has been, in Iowa, talk about restarting the Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant, which obviously, for anyone who doesn't know me, I regard as an excellent idea.

I was unaware of this, but a person on my mailing list sent me notification of a hearing on the topic, which is discussed as a news item (in Iowa) here:

Area residents outline hopes, concerns for Duane Arnold nuclear restart at public meeting

Subtitle:

Thursday meeting was part of regulatory process for state certificate

The person on whose mailing list I'm on is from Generation Atomic, an organization of youngish 20ish and 30ish, I think, who want to do something about the awful condition in which we, elderly folks of my generation, have transferred to them with what I regard as contempt.

The event, which will be in the near future, is described here:

Public Hearing for Docket No. GCU-2025-0013
When
Tuesday Apr 21 – Wednesday Apr 22, 2026
Location
The Hotel at Kirkwood Center, 7725 Kirkwood Blvd SW, Cedar Rapids, IA 52404, USA

(No, I will not be attending, but I'm pulling for the good guys, the members of Generation Atomic who may show up.)

Before I tell you who else will be attending, I'd like to point out something about the red state Iowa, which is what their electricity profile.

It was last updated on the IEA website, during the last happy days of the Biden administration, 2024, when the moral, economic and political collapse of the United States now underway seemed unlikely but is now observed for the world to see.

All Energy in Iowa:



Electricity in Iowa:



IEA States IA Overview.

Don't worry, be happy. Iowa has an update of its own from its benighted State Government run by the Pedophile Party:

In percent talk, in 2024, according to that site, which is here, Iowa produced 62.84% of its energy from WIND!!!!!!!!.

Magic!!! We're saved, right? Rah! Rah! Rah!

From the figures from the State reported data above, one can calculate, from the capacity figures compared with the actual generation figures, that the capacity utilization of wind turbines in Iowa is 38.6%, a rather high figure compared to most regions in the world littered with industrial wind turbine plants.

Nevertheless, this magic renewable energy stuff aside according to the Iowa Environmental Council, probably not an arm of the Pedophile Party run government there, reported that in 2023, heat related dates in the State rose to 2,385 from 1,069 in 1999.

Let's get all Wizardy of Ozy and pay no attention to the coal figures in the graphics and links above.

Let's hand wave about heat waves and say that every time there is an extreme heat wave, the wind will be blowing and everybody can run inside to their air conditioned nightmares.

Or let's not?

Will the wind always be blowing during an Iowa heat extreme weather event?

All of this brings me to the point of the other attendees at the hearings on the possible restart of Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant:

Beyond Nuclear: BEFORE THE IOWA UTILITIES COMMISSION

How does "Beyond Nuclear" describe itself in the document:

1. Beyond Nuclear is a not-for-profit public policy, research, education organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland that advocates for the immediate expansion of renewable energy sources to replace commercial nuclear power generation. Beyond Nuclear has over 12,000 members of whom a number reside in Iowa, and a few within the 10-mile emergency planning zone around the Duane Arnold Energy Center.

2. Beyond Nuclear intends to resist NextEra’s application for a generating certificate in this case, because if the certificate is granted, Beyond Nuclear’s interest in opposing nuclear power and supporting renewable energy would be adversely affected...

I wouldn't call an organization like this as having any competence either in research or education. Clearly, they haven't even noticed the planet is in flames. Their fucking "interest" which they choose to try to assert, is toxic. Fossil fuel plants kill people, not only when they fail, but rather when they operate normally.

Advocates of so called "renewable energy" like to come around here to whine about what they (generally) call "climate change" to which I refer, denying too much hyperbole as I do so, as "the collapse of the planetary atmosphere."

The case is made above that it is dangerous to have unreliable energy in a region where growing numbers of people are experiencing death by heat, numbers I strongly suspect are under reported.

If you want to challenge my other suspicion - let's not call it a "suspicion" so much as an "assertion" - that advocates of so called "renewable energy" don't give a flying fuck about fossil fuels, please let me know about the existence of, membership of, and the Susan Collinsy expressions of "concern" of an organization called "Beyond Coal" that shows up to protest filthy coal plants in the same way they come around to attack clean nuclear plants.

Almost every fucking wind turbine in Iowa will be landfill within 25 years, by the way. Don't expect the members of "Beyond Nuclear" to show up to clean up the messes.

I'm willing to bet not a single member of that benighted ignorance factory, beyond nuclear, showed up to clean up these events:

BREAKING: Tornado Destroys Prescott, Iowa Wind Turbines, Fire Ensues

They. Couldn't. Care. Less.

(...anymore than they give a rat's ass about the combustion of coal in Iowa.)

Have a nice day.

[thought crime]

1. Another attack on renewable energy.

Same old arguments. Doesn't like "windmills" or solar. Ignores the fact that it is working all over the world.

[NNadir]

2. The question isn't whether people are building and operating this unsustainable junk, but rather why they are...

...engaged in this appalling effort to squander vast amounts land and vast material resources to do so.

It "works" when the weather allows it to do so; otherwise it is wholly and dependent on the use of fossil fuels, not just when the weather isn't allowing it to do a damned thing, but also in the manufacture and construction.

The point is - and I have never seen a defender of this crime against the future, the very name of which is dishonest, since mining the shit out of the planet is hardly a "renewable" enterprise who dissuades from this view - is that the defenders of this disaster couldn't care less about fossil fuels.

Their interest is solely and wholly on attacking the only sustainable form of energy there is, nuclear energy.

I'm an environmentalist, not a mining engineer or mining executive, nor am I a land developer, since I am a naturalist and a lover of wilderness.

All the pissing and moaning by the defenders of this ruinous industrial enterprise, as is the case with the "Beyond Nuclear" assholes described in the OP, couldn't care less that the planet is burning.

By the way, in the video provided in the OP one of the trashed turbines is burning with thick black smoke. It isn't the wind that's burning, it's petroleum products.

Of course, again, defenders of this crap, couldn't care less about fossil fuels, anymore than they give a rat's ass about mining or land use. They are driven, wholly and totally by the insipid and frankly deadly hatred of the last best hope of the human race, nuclear energy.

That is the point of the post. Environmental issues, real environmental issues, play no role in hyping solar and wind.

There is a wonderful film by the way, that people who give a crap about the future of the planet should watch, this one:

Unearth

The film is about two salmon fishermen who go underground to mining conventions to find out how to save their salmon fishery, a beautiful Alaskan wilderness area, from mining interests.

In the pristine Bristol Bay area of Alaska, two sets of siblings are alarmed when they learn of plans for the proposed Pebble Mine in the vicinity of their homes. The Salmon sisters, Native Alaskans, work on the regulatory front – pushing the federal EPA to block the project, and remaining hyper-vigilant to political pressures that could shift at any moment. The Strickland brothers, independent fishermen who know they could be just one mine accident away from losing their livelihood, probe closed-door meetings to expose the truth behind what the developer tells the public. Together, the Salmons and the Stricklands remind us never to quit until Goliath has fallen. – Jaie Laplante

The miners exposed who are advocating tearing the salmon habit to pieces cloak themselves in the popular enthusiasm for so called "renewable energy" pointing out that when they tear the shit forever out of the salmon habitat, they'll be lots of copper for building wind turbines.

That disgusts me.

The reality of this short lived disposal useless garbage is unacceptable..

I consider attacks on so called "renewable energy," a moral imperative. So called "renewable energy" isn't even remotely sustainable, but the big, big, big, big point is that it's useless. The planetary atmosphere is degrading rapidly and the wind and solar cults couldn't care less, nor is the object of their affections involved in any way in addressing this degradation.

Whining and chanting will do nothing to change these facts.

Facts matter.

Do I make my position clear?

Have a pleasant Easter weekend.