Ya, I dunno

Scam

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Slager) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:58:26 +0000

On It's Just Politics, Michigan's Republican Party Chairman Jim Runestad referred to renewable energy as a "scam," calling solar power "hugely expensive" and blaming the "horrendous" promotion of renewable energy for Michigan's high energy costs and poor reliability. Maybe he's just ignorant.

Since 2023 renewable energy has been faster to deploy and less expensive than power generation from natural gas, the least expensive of conventional energy sources. And, while gas and oil costs continue to increase, solar energy continues to drop in price.

Record use of solar power, especially with the recent profusion of battery storage, has also improved reliability, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) CEO Pablo Vegas:

Last year, the risk of grid emergencies during the summer peak risk hour ending around 9 p.m. was 16 percent. This year [2025], ERCOT reports, it’s fallen to less than 1 percent.

The new resources added to the grid since last summer’s end, namely utility-scale solar and battery storage, have bolstered reliability as summer power demand ramps up, Vegas said.

Mr Runestad's reason for referring to renewable energy policy was to point a finger at a Democratic candidate, Sean McCann, for accepting money from organizations promoting renewable energy. He did not say how much McCann's opponent had received from oil and gas interests or from the utility companies, but I am willing to bet it is more than what the clean energy interests can afford. Any takers?

Of course, Mr Runestad made no mention of the primary reason for promoting renewable energy: caring for our shared home. You can deny climate change all you want, but that doesn't change reality. It only demonstrates that freedom of speech can be abused.

I've had conversations in which people denied climate change based on 3 percent of publications by peer-reviewed experts on the matter. Only 97 percent of research agreed that climate change is real and that it is being caused by human activity. But that was ten years ago. Now 99.9 percent of research confirms the reality of climate change. People like Mr Runestad are betting on those 1 in 1000 odds. But they aren't necessarily interested in knowing what is true when profits for their backers are at stake.

Mr Runestad and the Republican Party might truly believe that a simple insurance plan for our planet is "horrendous." They may believe spending billions of tax-payer dollars to bribe companies into stopping their wind projects is good for us. They may believe that for-profit energy companies failed to calculate their returns before investing in projects that are also good for our environment. They might be that ignorant.

Or they're just pretending. It's part of their scam.

Samaritan

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Slager) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 19:27:26 +0000

Ya, I dunno

Scam

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