We got the message

I heard it on the airwaves

The politicians are now DJs

The broadcast was spreading

Station to station

Like an infection across the nation

— Re-Flex, “The Politics of Dancing” (1983)

America is at an impasse. This election we have one presidential candidate who is progressive and responsible, another who has one mindset: Make the rich richer including himself with no regard to the environment or our allies.

Here’s a look at what each candidate promises to do or has done:

Climate change and emissions reduction

Harris: Stay with the Paris Climate Accord; ensure Net Zero by 2050; have an infrastructure plan in place.

Trump: *Withdrew from the Paris Climate accord; no plan — not necessary; drill baby drill; rolled back emissions standards, allowed coal plants to increase emissions.

Clean energy transition

Harris: Create investment opportunities in clean energy; tax incentives, credits for clean energy; federal investment in clean energy.

Trump: Increase proliferation of bitcoin otherwise disincentivize any clean energy program; repeal any credits for clean energy; stop any federal investment.

Infrastructure plan

Harris: America Jobs Plan to modernize our energy infrastructure, i.e. grid systems, renewable power, charging stations; climate resilience; expanding our public transportation systems and more efficient roadways and highway safety

Trump: Nothing now or during his administration; gave mining rights at our national parks.

Environmental justice

Harris: Ensuring things like cancer alleys are corrected and don’t happen for safe drinking water. These areas tend to be located in economically disadvantaged places. It also supports clean energy for the same areas; support for green jobs allowing for transitioning from fossil jobs to clean energy jobs.

Trump: Rolled back the Waters of the United States act (WOTUS), reducing federal oversight. This gave freedom to companies to acquire water for public use for mining and agriculture with minimal government oversight; ** In his 2016 election platform he said that all coal miners would be put back to work yet by 2021 over 23% of coal miners remained out of work.

Opposition to fossil fuels

Harris: No new fracking on federal lands; restricting leases on public lands; end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.

Trump: Gave federal parks land leases to mine uranium and coal; repealed Obama’s Clean Power Plan and replaced it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, a euphemism that allowed individual states to essentially determine what “clean” energy is.

General observations

As an expert in energy production and with America still a leader in technology I am mystified that one of the candidates is completely out of touch with energy reality. The move to clean energy is a must, and all other nations — except for Iran, Iraq, Russia and America under President Trump — are moving toward clean energy.

The Trump campaign

The main technique is to accuse his opposition of the very things he is doing.

The most flagrant of his energy accusations is the one about windmills. He has frequently accused windmills of being mass killers of birds. The reality is, of man-made objects, tall glass buildings are by far the most prolific bird killers.

Wind turbines do, in fact, kill birds. However, as you may recall in an earlier column of mine, the Chokecherry Project in Wyoming uses radar detection of bird migration that halts the rotation of the blades until they pass. Also colored blades allow birds to see them while they are in motion.

Meanwhile, there has been no effort at Trump Towers to alter the reflectivity of the glass on the 58-story building. People don’t see all the dead birds because they fall on the platform that is above the lowest level.

My angst with this is, I have yet to see a reporter confront him about any of this. The Chokecherry wind project will deliver electricity 23 hours a day. That is better than nuclear, which is down 15% of the time on average for maintenance and refueling. Yet Trump has declared wind power inefficient.

He also mocks solar, claiming that the TV will go off when it’s dark. And batteries come to mind. Battery research was suppressed 40 years ago by President Reagan’s defunding of the Energy Department’s battery research while increasing nuclear research funding. Surprisingly, some funding by the DOE allows loans to Tesla for battery development. That is curious because Tesla buys its batteries from Panasonic, and they’re made in China. This all from a president who wants to keep jobs here. The only funding for battery-related issues in the U.S. is for mining operations. And as you know, today Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is backing Trump. Curious indeed!

Trump is in favor of nuclear power but here are the issues with that:

It’s extremely expensive with high maintenance costs; nuclear power plants that produce 1GW of electricity require a water supply of 500,000 gallons or more per minute for cooling; nuclear power plants’ fuel storage is at critical level; nuclear fuel new or spent will always be a terrorist threat.

Nuclear power plants are the highest subsidized energy in our country. Currently NPPs have received $500 billion in subsidies, grants and loans without producing one extra watt of energy. By contrast wind and solar have ROI times of 4-7 years and they are profitable.

Harris’ direction is the right one for energy. The key to her policy is the word “transition” — transition to clean energy and jobs. She realizes that this can’t happen overnight but none the less the wheels must be set in motion.

Conclusion

Politics influence the progress of future energy sources. Funding for research will determine the path of energy progress. We depend on energy in every aspect of our lives, and we must learn to be grateful for what we have and that we can move forward. We must also realize that in some parts of the world energy is a luxury. We must realize that we can’t keep using up our fresh water for oil and gas drilling; such drilling leaches toxic carcinogenic waste into our groundwater. We must also consider our personal responsibility to the environment via recycling, conserving all energy use, and not wasting what we have.

We cannot and must not go backwards. “Drill baby Drill” is a simplistic response to a very complicated issue with resulting dire consequences. We have a moral responsibility to those who come after us as well.

* Trump claimed this would affect American jobs. However, he never explained how 7,900 coal mining jobs were lost during his tenure. We all remember him with his hard hat and shovel mime when he said this lie. (PS — Miners don’t use shovels today.)

** Although West Virginia voted nearly 70% in favor of Trump in 2016, the state lost over 1,500 miner jobs along with losing some federally funded medical coverage for black lung and similar mining afflictions, which went into effect in 2017. They were restored by Biden in January 2021 even though West Virginia had still voted again for Trump in the 2020 election.