Committing to a reliable energy future

Committing to a reliable energy future

As my final session in the legislature is about to begin, I am busy making sure I leave the legislature better than I found it. There is one thing I know for certain: Nebraska’s future energy policy should not be based on “renewable” energy. In every case, it makes our electric grid more fragile and makes electricity in Nebraska cost more, to say nothing of what it does to the good people of Nebraska.

Nebraska’s public power laws created the only state in the union with 100% publicly-owned electrical utilities. Our ancestors made this law very simple. Electricity shall be generated, and its transmission and distribution to Nebraskans will be based on two principles: cost and reliability.

“Renewable” energy (wind and solar) fails to meet both of those standards set forth in Nebraska law. It is an intermittent and unreliable generator that always requires backup. The people of rural Nebraska do not want it. It makes bitter enemies out of neighbors that have shared a fence for generations. It rips apart the very fabric of small rural counties. If the people of Douglas, Sarpy and Lancaster counties had to live next-door to them, I doubt their reaction would be any different than my constituents in the Sandhills. Renewable energy has cost more than one county commissioner their seat. More and more counties in Nebraska have and are pushing back with more restrictive zoning regulations.

I sincerely hope Nebraska’s congressional delegation realizes we can no longer afford to pour hundreds of billions of borrowed / printed dollars our grandchildren and great grandchildren will have to pay back into wind and solar subsidies. Mr. Buffett himself, who owns more wind turbines than almost anybody said, without the production tax credit to prop-up these two industries, you will not see another one built. You cannot profitably operate a wind or solar facility without the federal subsidy. The production tax credit is plain, old-fashioned, federal graft.

For those in elected office that think renewable energy is an economic development opportunity, consider the three or four permanent jobs created by a typical industrial wind or solar facility. Stop and think about the political philosophy which holds “let’s grab all the federal dollars we can for Nebraska.” More often than not these days it is something to be careful what we wish for. The last cornhusker kickback that came to Nebraska gave the country Obamacare. We shouldn’t base Nebraska’s energy future on something the federal government can end with the stroke of a pen.

Consider the two guys that drive four wheelers early in the morning to fill garbage bags with the carcasses of dead eagles, hawks, and thousands of bats before the sun comes up, and the environmentalist groups can photograph the carnage. This apparently does not include the Sierra Club of Nebraska because its chief spokesman, Mr. Al Davis, is one of the legislature’s most vocal supporters of renewable energy. I find it odd that two local Nebraska men were recently arrested for hunting and killing eagles “to eat.” They now face years in prison, yet a wind farm can kill them by the garbage-bag full with impunity because nothing is more important than saving the planet with “green” energy.

Our electrical load is growing in Nebraska. We need to build a new base-load generator in the next fifteen years or sooner. The future is uncertain enough as it is. We need to steer a course back to the reliable, affordable, common sense electricity our ancestors insisted on. Nebraska shouldn’t cover our state in these pretend generators so a small group of people can turn a quick buck. We do not need to be left holding the bag with thousands of rusting monuments to the short sighted greed of man. Time is running out. When the federal funding stops, these technologies will collapse because of the tyranny of eighth-grade physics, and the immutable laws of economics.

Nebraska couldn’t build another coal-fired power plant if we wanted to. The Federal regulators would prohibit it. That’s sad news for Nebraskans because we are blessed to have a four hundred year supply of cheap and abundant coal right next door in Wyoming. We also have 600 miles of state-of-the-art duel track railroads and thousands of Nebraskans with good railroad jobs in the three large communities that depend on them. We need to keep our coal plants running for as long as we can. Just ask the good people of Alliance, North Platte and Nebraska City.

The right solution for Nebraska takes courage. I challenge our public power board members to have some vision. Instead of being carbon neutral by 2050, chart a course to having a small modular or micro nuclear reactor built in Nebraska. Create a goal that doesn’t ignore the two principal requirements public power has in Nebraska law. Being ‘carbon neutral’ does nothing to lower the cost of electricity, and it actually makes our power grid more fragile and less reliable. Instead, let’s be successfully operating a brand new baseload nuclear generator by 2040. Let’s run it so well, Nebraska is setting records for the most reliable power grid in the United States with load growth to spare.

Real electricity will attract real economic development and give Nebraska a bright future. We’ve given renewable energy an honest try since the late 1990s. The verdict is in. The renewable energy scam is not good for Nebraska. Pretending we have generation in wind and solar will cause another black-out. Just ask Texas. Contact your NPPD, OPPD or LES board member and let them know you want reliable, affordable, always-on “real” electricity like our law says.

— Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.