They dug for their coal till the land was forsaken,

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

— John Prine

“Paradise” (1971)

President-elect Trump has made known his energy policies and/or directives. They call for increased drilling on public lands, building more nuclear plants, rehabbing coal plants ergo increasing the use of coal. After natural gas, solar and wind are the primary producers of electricity today. In spite of this success Trump intends to reduce the implementation of these energy sources.

Trump has repeatedly expressed concerns for whales beaching themselves because of offshore wind turbines, bird graveyards caused by wind turbines, solar that doesn’t work at night and is inefficient and ineffective. All of these are false (see note at bottom) and irresponsible statements made by someone who once again will be in control of an already great nation. I say irresponsible because a leader of the free world should ensure the validity of his/her statements.

The future of energy policy

By the consensuses of numerous public statements made by the president-elect:

• He promises to withdraw from the Paris Accord on Climate Change. I wish to note that Elon Musk resigned as Trump’s energy advisor in 2017 specifically because he disagreed with Trump’s motion to remove America from the Paris Accord on Climate Change.

• He contends that climate change is a hoax. This was first noted in a tweet on Nov. 6, 2012: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non competitive.”

The hypothesis of global warming was hinted at way back in 1824 when Joseph Fourier described the greenhouse effect and in 1896 when a Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius, described how the continued trapping of carbon dioxide would warm the earth.

A more contemporary statement was made by renowned scientist Carl Sagan. He was quite specific when he testified March 15, 1985 to the House Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research, and Environment, and the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, focusing on the climatic, biological, and strategic effects of nuclear war, which included discussion. It is a video that in my humble opinion should be shown in every science class.

If the president-elect wishes to argue that climate change is a hoax, one would assume he would have an expert onboard to support his claims. However, that has not been the case.

To demonstrate the level of absurdity: Although ExxonMobil has confirmed that climate change is real, the president-elect disagrees. ExxonMobil as a procedural matter has to do global surveys all the time. Without them they could not map out the next oil or gas rig. In other words it’s not a political stance, it’s a business stance. No wonder Trump’s one-time Secretary of State and former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson reportedly called him a “moron” and was subsequently fired.

Trump’s flippant statements can have severe consequences. If the reader is still in doubt about global warming, then revelation is very simple. Just go to the NASA website and look at the 48 years of polar satellite maps. They should be self explanatory.

Wind turbines

The president-elect has claimed that wind turbines cause cancer and create huge bird graveyards. Lies have consequences, and I call them lies because a president-elect must be held to a higher standard. As I have pointed out ad nauseam, wind turbines do not cause cancer. This is pure nonsense. However, wind turbines do, in fact, kill birds. But so do tall, glass buildings, which are the No. 1 man-made killer of birds. I’ll leave to the reader to discern who owns tall glass building and chooses not to remediate.

Wind turbine bird deaths decline with each new generation of turbines. This is accomplished by migratory detection and coordinated wind turbine shutdown and by coloration of the propellers. All that needs to be done with tall glass buildings is to use a transparent, non-reflecting surface. The ratio of bird kills by tall glass buildings to wind turbines increases every year. Today it stands at 2,000 to 1.

A properly placed wind turbine on a year to year basis can be operational 96% of the time while nuclear is only 85% operational. This contradicts his statements that wind power is ineffective.

Solar energy

The president-elect’s résumé includes acting as a wealthy executive while peering over attractive young people. He then leveraged his image and used that media exposure to project onto a political career. While campaigning and while in office he often has expressed skepticism about solar reliability, cost-effectiveness, and overall practicality. Some notable president-elect statements are simply absurd but appeal to his audience like this one: Solar planes can’t fly in cloudy weather.

He said that while campaigning in Virginia as per a July 2024 article in Atlantic Magazine. This statement assumes that the engineers who have been making solar flight a reality for over 45 years were unaware of this. The first solar flight was made in 1979; in 2016 Solar Impulse 2 completed the circumnavigation of the earth entirely on solar power.

The only conclusion that I can draw is that he is someone who does no research or maybe even knows better but knows his supporters don’t care whether he willfully misleads. After all, he didn’t lie did he? He didn’t admit that he was wrong, either. A president is supposed to be in the know.

A conclusion

In the limited space I have I hope I made a point about where our energy future will be headed if it’s not beheaded. Our president-elect is a superb salesman, but that is where it ends. Our energy issues are related to science, and only unbiased experts in the field know what is what.

He refuses to listen to them and instead consults those who support his views. He seems to completely dismisses the ever-dangerous, ever-increasing affects on the infrastructure, resources, and irreversible environmental damage. As if this butchering of our land can go on forever.

Elon Musk: A note of caution

Musk could be our nation’s great hope on this subject. However, in my humble opinion, he is not about Tesla at all. He is self-dealing. Today, Musk doesn’t care about the Paris Accord. That was different eight years ago when, as I mention, he resigned from his Trump appointment for that very reason. This represents a very significant 180 degree turn about for Musk.

I think that his motivation is AI, which requires data. The platform X — formerly Twitter — supplies the data. Data centers need energy and water. Lots of both. This combo will also come under scrutiny, ergo regulation. And who does the regulating?

Please contact your representative and let them know that energy is a very serious issue.

Note: As per last month’s column, solar thermal plants store heat that can be used at night.