Washington, D.C. Energy Colonialism – Growing With That?

DC’s climate signal will affect DC residents – and neighboring states even more

Paul Driessen

The District of Columbia is about to trigger a massive new set of rooster realities for its inhabitants – and even more so for its neighbors: Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Led by Councilmember Mary Cheh, DC City Council recently passed two laws bans the use of fossil fuels for heating, cooking, and city-owned vehicles. Together, they position their city as a leading signal of human-caused climate change, which Ms. Cheh calls “the most important environmental issue of our time”. Mayor Bowser enthusiastically endorsed these efforts.

The “DC Clean Energy Building Code Amendment Act” prohibits the use of fossil fuels for home heating and water in new commercial buildings (including residential area buildings four stories and higher), starting in 2027. It also requires restaurants and homes to cook with electricity instead of natural gas. Only buildings deemed “essential for the protection of public health and safety” may use gas for backup power generation.

The “Climate Pledge Act” bans the use of fossil fuel heat for new county-owned buildings, including schools, by 2025. It requires all DC vehicles to be “zero-emissions ” in 2026; all District operations must be “carbon-free” by 2040; and whole city become “carbon neutral” by 2045.

Each successive reduction in fossil fuels will require expanding electricity use – and generating electricity. With a DC-based kernel almost certainly not smart, electricity generation would probably come through “renewables”, mainly wind and solar. But these technologies are intermittent, unreliable, and weather-dependent. They have to be backed up by batteries that have to be recharged constantly, with more wind and solar power.

Let me say it again. Wind and sun are renewable and sustainable. However, the materials needed to belt This energy to power modern civilization does not at all. This new DC Green Deal alone requires millions of tons of metals, minerals, concrete and plastic; billions of tons of ore, and hundreds of new mines and factories – in the United States, China, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.

With China, India and other countries burning more fossil fuels to improve people’s living standards – and provide all those “green energy” needs – global greenhouse gas emissions demand will continue to increase. Even assuming that fossil fuel emissions do indeed cause climate change, DC’s “historic” laws could therefore reduce average global temperatures by 0.0002 degrees by 2100. .

Washington has 100% imported electricity from neighboring states. So can DC government officials answer just a few of the many basic questions?

Exactly how many wind turbines, solar panels and battery modules will DC need in 2025, 2026, 2040 and 2045, when your electricity needs skyrocket? (Please take into account the size and type of “renewable” energy equipment you plan to install each year – and how many hours per day, week and year the sun will shine and the wind will blow for decades after system is installed).

Exactly how many tons of lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, copper, iron, magnesium, aluminum, concrete, petroleum, fiberglass and other metals, minerals and materials will be needed to produce them all. turbines, panels, batteries, transmission lines, transformers, and vehicles and electrical equipment?

Exactly how much coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power does it take to run all those mines, processing facilities and factories abroad? How much carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, and harmful air and water pollutants will they emit?

Does DC require “responsible sourcing” for large amounts of metals and minerals needed to honor its “climate commitment” – regardless if this will increase your costs how? You will require more mines and quarries in the US – and open more US onshore and offshore areas for mineral exploration – so that the US is not more dependent on China, child labor and slavery, and the devastation of the environment abroad, because of “your green energy raw materials?

Where exactly are you going to put the hundreds of wind turbines and millions of solar panels that this “transition” will require? On the rooftops of DC city? In Rock Creek Park and the Potomac River?

Or do you plan to install them in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean – and connect them to DC with hundreds of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines through your neighbor’s backyard? Do not of them Scenic areas, habitats and wildlife of value?

Where do you plan to store your electric vehicle and half a million half-ton battery modules for a week’s worth of backup power? These batteries pose significant fire and explosion hazards, and must therefore be located away from homes, offices, garages and parking lots. Trams and buses must be parked away from buildings and other buildings, to avoid the hells of using chemical fuels.

Should the federal government have access to this zero-carbon energy? What happens when electricity production fails to meet DC demand, and the inevitable blackout occurs? Whose electricity is cut off first? Ms. Cheh, Mayor Bowser, Greenies, President Biden, Democrats and Deep State officials?

We’re assuming you think DC taxpayers shouldn’t “lift the card” for trying to “save the planet” from “climate cataclysms.” But why must? your neighbor forced to choose tab for your nonsense non-emission virtue signal? Why should the rest of the world do the same?

Residents of these states will have “what say” in these decisions – especially those who will have to live next to vast wind and solar “farms” and suffer from infrasound, Flickering lights and other unsettling and healthful effects among your “clean, renewable” energy facilities in their backyard?

How will you react when Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland vote or sue to deny DC’s energy imperial facilities – or when some really upset citizens join the protests” mostly peaceful” in downtown DC, the way Antifa types refuse to crack, pipeline, mining, inequality, and police brutality?

One has to wonder if DC’s real goal is sustainability, moral maintenance – or energy colonialism and totalitarian control over people’s lives, livelihoods, and standards of living. Why not just DC buy carbon credits and pretend it’s turned into a lush shade of greenery, the way Al Gore does?

In any case, not many of the DC neighbors are excited about becoming an energy colony for our nation’s capital, as it establishes itself as an arbiter of climate, energy, the environment. , society and government ethics.

For that matter, we are certainly not thrilled about the actions of the Democrats and the Biden Administration on these issues. Probably surname can begin to answer these same questions – on a statewide and national scale, where the number of “clean, green, renewable” energy installations, raw materials, mining, manufacturing, umbrella infection, slave labor and children is truly epic and amazing.

Paul Driessen is a senior policy adviser to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environmental and human rights issues. He lives in Virginia.