Page 11 - Winter2020

a little liberty to gain a little security from wind turbines for an average of demand from an all-electric vehicle
will deserve neither and lose both.” 6.5 acres for 1 megawatt-hour from fleet. The state’s own conclusion: “The
Let’s all be brave! Let’s work hard solar and wind, or .001 square miles Manhattan Institute, a policy research
to preserve our rights to farm, to have per megawatt-hour. think tank, took a deep-dive look at
access to clean healthful food, to make At 3 megawatt-hours per year, the the math behind the 100%-renewable-
decisions about health for our families, electricity needed for 15,000,000 light energy concept and found it unrealistic,
to have access to natural “alternative” vehicles is 45,000,000 megawatt-hours particularly when it comes to land use.”
healthcare, and our right to speak out per year, thus requiring 45,000 square On the upside, California wouldn’t
against what is wrong with the world. miles. The land area of California is have to worry about wildfires in this
Erin Matica 163,696 square miles so the conversion future state as a key ingredient for
Worthington, Massachusetts to all-electric vehicles would require wildfires, namely vegetation, would be
27.5 percent of California’s total land totally eradicated to support wind and
FALLACY AND REALITY area. solar farms.
California has announced a state- In addition to the transition to all- James Kirkpatrick
wide initiative to phase out or ban the electric vehicles, California has com- Chicago, Illinois
sale of internal combustion engines by peting initiatives to phase out natural
2035 and replace them with electric gas and nuclear power generation. APPRECIATION
vehicles powered by solar- and wind- Currently, California generates I wanted to drop you a note to say
generated electricity. In his Executive 102,000,000 megawatt-hours from nat- a hearty thank you for covering the
Order N-79-20, California Governor ural gas and nuclear. All told, California issue of the horrible, unsafe, unethical
Newsom is following the global envi- would need something on the order of practice of using aborted fetal tissue
ronmental playbook and throwing in a 150,000,000 megawatt-hours of new in vaccine development and research
little coronavirus justification to boot. solar and wind generation capacity to (Wise Traditions, Fall 2020). I have
The third paragraph of the order states, support these dual initiatives over the always appreciated the foundation’s
“Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic next fifteen or twenty years, requiring willingness to take a strong stance on
has disrupted the entire transportation 150,000 square miles of land area or important health issues, and this is one
sector, bringing a sharp decline in de- 91.5 percent of California’s total surface for which so few people understand the
mand for fuels and adversely impacting area! implications. Kendall Nelson’s article
public transportation. . .” Aside from Never mind the fact that Califor- was very well written and lays out an
its human health effects and societal nia’s forty million citizens need some- excellent case for the health hazards of
disruption capabilities, the Covid-19 where to live and that large swaths of this horrific practice, in addition to the
virus is most cunning. Unbeknownst the state are either desert or mountains reasons so many find it morally abhor-
to us, it also infects machines and as and impractical for large scale com- rent.
such provides political justification for mercial electric utility generation. Sara Sharps
remaking California’s transportation (Desert is good for solar, but it tends to Manteno, Illinois
sector. be remote from the grid and lacks trans-
Here’s the question: can California mission lines and substations needed to
support the transition to an all-electric support large scale commercial electric
fleet of light duty vehicles (LDVs) using development.) Maybe the yet unan-
only solar- and wind-generated electric- nounced secret plan on the part of Cali-
ity? Assuming that California would fornia is to annex Nevada and Alaska to
need 15,000,000 LDVs, requiring 300 support their all-renewable electricity
watt-hours per vehicle per mile for an generation cloud dream.
average of 10,000 miles per year, each Actually, California knows that
vehicle would need 3 megawatt-hours its grand plans are impractical. If you
per year. visit the website poweringcalifornia. Gifts and bequests to the
Using current technologies, you com, they ask the same question: how Weston A. Price Foundation
need 7.5 acres of land to produce 1 much land would it take for California’s will help ensure
megawatt-hour from solar and 5 acres utilities to go all renewable? This is the gift of good health
of land to produce 1 megawatt-hour even before the additional electricity to future generations.

WINTER 2020 Wise Traditions 9