OPINION: This summer many cannot afford gas and electricity. This is why.
You love your electricity and gas. You expect it to be there when you need it, turn on the light switch and turn down the AC or go down and fill up your truck tank.
Life has a funny way of changing, and here recently, it has happened almost overnight.
This summer many cannot afford gas and electricity.
Others have seen this coming and warned about it; and for those of you who watch what is going on in Europe you have seen it firsthand. What happens over there comes here in a year or so. Now it is here.
We are told it is the war doing all this. No, it is policies put in place that allowed that war to now dictate what happens in many countries. It is lack of energy security.
Only a few years ago we were energy independent.
They are asking us to turn down our thermostats and even giving out thermostats that they can control. One more way to take away our control. At the same time the prices are going up and reliability is going down. All of this because of government policies.
Wind and solar are all part of that policy direction and it is getting in your pocket and has been in many ways you have not seen until now. Especially with tax dollars you never see our politicians spending.
Now that it is getting in your pocket from all directions, will you start to pay attention?
The subsidies for solar and wind have cost this state billions of tax dollars and has tied up billions for another decade or more.
That tax money could have been better used to improve all our schools, rather than giving it to private solar companies. It has cost even more in land misuse and continued land destruction.
Agriculture employs 27% of global workers and over 10% of US workers. We live in a rural area, so this is us. Look at the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Sri Lanka and what has happened there as their lifestyles are fallen apart and in the case of Sri Lanka they are starving.
Netherlands is the biggest food exporter behind US, they are trying to erode that now too.
The reliability and affordability have been our experience for our lifetime at least, for our electric and most of the time for gas. That has changed and our energy security is at risk.
Energy is our economy, and it is at risk, and it is dissolving fast.
Energy is the ability to do work, as it decreases, so does our ability to work and so goes our economy. If industries can’t afford their electric they can’t operate, stuff doesn’t get made, and so it grinds to a slow halt.
What does all this have to do with solar you ask? We must have a rational energy policy and learn about the consequences of ignoring what is happening. We must consider those consequences moving forward on a local level with these enormous land devouring solar facilities.
They bring more disruption on the grid and more expense and more insecurity for the economy; for industry; businesses and individuals.
Solar is performing quite well right now, it is the summer and hot, and this is Texas. But as the sun shines then the water usage goes up, must clean those panels.
Another thing at risk is our water usage. Solar performance is only at about 10% of our power right now, midday, the highest output. So, a long way from being energy independent and then tonight it will be 0% when the sun is gone.
A tax limitation for a solar company may have seemed like a simple thing it is money for local government entities, a nice freebie.
You were told it was a win-win situation, but now you know much more and how much the consequences affects not just the surrounding community you live in, but the whole state of Texas and beyond.
All actions have consequences.
Joanna Friebele,
Landowner and taxpayer
