The Patriot Post® · Turning the Lights Off in America

The future’s so bright, Joe Biden’s gotta wear shades. At least that’s the message of his new goal of producing nearly half of the nation’s electricity from the sun by 2050. Maybe he just better eat his ice cream before it melts.

To what extent is this sunshine policy goal merely pie in the sky? Solar energy accounted for just 4% of America’s electricity last year, and Biden aims for 45%. “To achieve that growth,” report the Democrat propagandists at The New York Times, “the country would have to double the amount of solar energy installed every year over the next four years and then double it again by 2030.”

Oh.

That “will mean trillions of dollars in investments by homeowners, businesses and the government,” says the Times. “The electric grid — built for hulking coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants — would have to be almost completely remade with the addition of batteries, transmission lines and other technologies that can soak up electricity when the sun is shining and to send it from one corner of the country to another.”

Oh.

We might joke that Biden’s plan will reduce the amount of electricity produced, which will make his goal a lot easier, but that’s not what he wants. In fact, if achieving half solar electricity by 2050 wasn’t already going to be hard enough, Biden wants to compound the problem by goosing demand in a major way. 2030 is the same year he demands that half of all cars sold in the U.S. be electric.

Nevertheless, the Times reports, “The Energy Department said its calculations showed that solar panels had fallen so much in cost that they could produce 40 percent of the country’s electricity by 2035 — enough to power all American homes — and 45 percent by 2050.”

Why have panels become so much cheaper? The Times waits 12 more paragraphs to tell us the answer: “China dominates the supply chain for solar panels.”

Oh.

Complicating that supply chain, however, is China’s use of Uygher slave labor in the Xinjiang region. The Biden administration is blocking imports from there, but given that the “big guy” is in Beijing’s pocket, we don’t put too much stock in that ban.

We’re not saying that solar power, or other forms of renewable energy for that matter, are bad. We are saying that government mandates and favoritism distort the market in favor of energy sources that are inherently less reliable — and, again, all while increasing demand on that supply with things like electric vehicle mandates.

California’s rolling brownouts and blackouts have been a story for years, because the state has been struggling mightily to achieve exactly what Biden is now pushing. The state wants to be an example for the country, and it is that — of what not to do. California’s energy woes are a great case against the Green New Deal. Yet here Biden is, pushing it through anyway, apparently in an effort to go national with those blackouts.

That’s because “climate change poses an existential threat,” he says, and the only way to “fix” it is cramming through the ecofascist agenda. Or maybe not. “It’s here. It’s not going to get any better,” Biden said of climate change. Or maybe so. “We can stop it from getting worse,” he said. Who knows? Joe’s only been in Washington for 50 years.

“By 2020,” Biden declared this week, we’re going to “make sure all of our electricity is zero emissions.” Are we the only ones wondering if the lights are on but nobody’s home?