Written Testimony of Robert Bryce Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senate “To examine the causes, outlook, and implications of domestic and international energy price trends.” November 16, 2021

Written Testimony of Robert Bryce, author, journalist, film producer, and host of the Power Hungry Podcast, Before the Government Operations & Border Management Subcommittee, United States Senate – “Strategies for Improving Critical Energy Infrastructure”

If Washington policymakers want to see what happens when you push renewable-energy mandates too far, too fast, they only need to read the news stories coming out of Europe.

Nearly five years ago while in Kolkata, I interviewed Sanjay Kar Chowdury, a manager at the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation. When I asked him about the importance of coal to the Indian electric grid, he did not hesitate. Coal, he told me, “is a lifeline. It is a lifeline of all the thermal power stations. Without coal, you cannot survive…It’s not possible to keep the lights on without coal.”

A few weeks ago, I ran into a prominent employee of the Sierra Club who declared something to the effect of “we have to quit using coal, oil, and natural gas.” That, of course, is the official dogma of America’s “largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization.” The group says it is “committed to eliminating the use of fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas, and oil, as soon as possible.

Hyping solar energy is one of Washington, D.C.’s most renewable resources. Back in 1979, President Jimmy Carter declared the U.S. needed to capture more energy from the sun because of “inevitable shortages of fossil fuels.”

Generac Power Systems, a company that produces home generators and other equipment, announced in July record sales of $920 million during the second quarter, a 68% jump over last year. But what’s good for Generac is bad for America.

As night follows day, public health crises follow closely on the heels of extended blackouts. Although only about four people have died due to the direct effects of Hurricane Ida, the electricity crisis in New Orleans and much of southeastern Louisiana will soon result in a surge in the death rate and a big jump in the number of fatalities and poisonings caused by inhalation of carbon monoxide emitted by small electricity generators.

As the Covid lockdowns are easing, the global economy is recovering and that recovery is fueling blistering growth in electricity use. The latest data from Ember, the London-based “climate and energy think tank focused on accelerating the global electricity transition,” show that global electricity use soared by about 5% in the first half of 2021.

The puns about the recall of the Chevrolet Bolt EV almost write themselves. Last week’s announcement by General Motors that it was recalling some 73,000 Bolts at a cost of some $1 billion due to the possibility that the vehicles could catch on fire, is both embarrassing for the iconic automaker, and a warning that its plans to electrify all of the cars it sells by 2035 could, ahem, be going up in flames.

The puns about the recall of the Chevrolet Bolt EV almost write themselves. Last week’s announcement by General Motors that it was recalling some 73,000 Bolts at a cost of some $1 billion due to the possibility that the vehicles could catch on fire, is both embarrassing for the iconic automaker, and a warning that its plans to electrify all of the cars it sells by 2035 could, ahem, be going up in flames.

Failed states have failed electric grids. Nowhere is that truer right now than in Lebanon, where the entire county is teetering on the edge of collapse and hospitals are so short of electricity that dozens of patients who are receiving care in Beirut’s intensive-care wards could be dead by the time you finish reading this article.

As the postmortem of the blackouts that slammed the state back in February continues, it’s apparent that Texans narrowly averted a catastrophe that could have resulted in what biologists call a mass mortality event.

For more than a century, the promise of electric vehicles (EVs) has been parked just beyond the nearest traffic light. In 1901, the Los Angeles Times declared “The electric automobile will quickly and easily take precedence over all other” types of motor vehicles.