By Laurence F. Sanford, Senior Analyst, American Security Council Foundation

Where is Don Quixote when we need him? His fantasy was to slay giants (in reality, windmills) in his quest to fight injustice through chivalry. Green energy proponents have a carbon dioxide “net zero emissions” fantasy of powering civilization through green energy windmills and solar panels. Green energy advocates are for building windmills with trillions of taxpayer dollars and displacing existing energy and transportation industries. The result is weakening America and aiding the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) quest for world domination.

Don Quixote’s quest was a fantasy. Green energy advocates’ quest for “net zero” power emissions is also a fantasy — a dangerous fantasy for America.

America needs a Don Quixote to take on the giant windmill energy scam that is blighting our landscape, killing birds by the thousands, killing whales along the East Coast, disrupting wildlife, and making life miserable for humans living nearby. Windmills are cost ineffective and unreliable. They contaminate the environment, strengthen China, weaken America, and threaten national security.

Windmills go back as far as the 9th century B.C. when, in Persia, they were used to grind grain and uplift water. There is good reason why they are not more widely utilized today as a power source. Wind does NOT always blow! Sometimes it blows too hard — for example, hurricanes and tornadoes. Sailing ships gave way to engine-powered ships. Dutch windmills for canal water pumping gave way to power pumps. Germany has invested billions of Deutch marks in wind farms. Yet German coal-powered plants have increased their output due to the lack of wind and the retirement of many windmills. In Minnesota, thousands of windmills are being refurbished at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars after just 12 years of operating.

Disposing of the multi-ton windmill behemoths is an environmental challenge. While most of the windmill can be recycled, the blades are made of composite plastics and have limited recycling value. Ranging from 100 to 300 feet (the length of a football field), the blades are difficult to transport and are often cut up into segments before being transported to a landfill. Because of their size and long-term durability, the blades can quickly fill up a landfill. There are ways to recycle the blades, but the technologies have not yet been implemented on a wide scale due to cost and lack of infrastructure.

One million Americans work in the seafood industry. Offshore windmill farms on the East Coast from Maine to the Carolinas will soon box them out of fishing areas and imperil their livelihoods. Whales are dying, lobsters are disappearing, and fish migration and breeding grounds are being destroyed. The windmill turbines, the height of 70-story skyscrapers, will tower over the ocean. Offshore windmill farm development is being fast-tracked, with a planned 3,411 turbines and 9,874 miles of cable to be built on 2.4 million acres of federally managed ocean.

Offshore wind developers are doing great. Tommy Beaudreau, earning $2.4 million as a lawyer representing offshore developers, was recently appointed Deputy Secretary of the Interior to regulate his previous clients. At least 90 people have shuttled between federal, state, or local government and the wind industry. Needless to say, approvals for more windmill development have been approved at an unprecedented rate. The old expressions “A fish rots from the head down” and “Follow the money” apply here.

Onshore wind farms are killing thousands of birds and bats. When one bird dies in an oil slick, it makes front-page headlines. When hundreds of eagles are killed by windmills, there is no public outcry. NextEra Energy pleaded guilty to criminal charges of killing 150 bald eagles and was ordered to pay $8 million in fines. Where are the environmental groups protesting this slaughter?

Windmill construction is ruining the environment and spoiling scenic vistas. Humans are adversely affected by the whirring noise generated when the 300- to 700-foot-high blades spin. The land required to build windmills and their supporting infrastructure, such as transmission lines to access the existing power grid, can be up to 300 times the land needed to build a nuclear power plant that operates 24/7 and is carbon-free.

The windmill energy fantasy of net-zero carbon emissions is a dangerous ideology jeopardizing national and economic security. No electricity is produced when the wind doesn’t blow or when it blows too hard. Rolling blackouts or, even worse, no electricity result and cause chaos and economic hardships. The costs in materials and land, civil, and industrial disruptions will be enormous and result in a breakdown in American civilization. The national debt will increase by the trillions. Battery backups do not have the capacity to supply electricity to the grid. Batteries also have their own environmental and national security issues.

China is not worried about “net zero” emissions. China is the world’s number one emitter of carbon dioxide yet is building coal-powered electrical plants at six times the rate of the rest of the world — two coal-powered plants per week! The United States is not building any new coal-powered plants and is in the process of closing all existing plants. Green energy cannot and will not compensate for the closings.

China built its wind turbine technology by stealing American technology. American Semiconductor (AMSC) lost $1 billion and was nearly destroyed by the theft of its intellectual property. Now China leads the world in wind turbine manufacturing.

Nuclear energy is the cleanest, most cost-efficient, and most reliable source of electricity. If the climate change and green energy crowd were honest and not ideologues, then they too would advocate for nuclear energy.