This Blizzard Exposes The Perils Of Attempting To ‘Electrify Everything’ – by Robert Bryce (Forbes Magazine – February 15, 2021)

https://www.forbes.com/

The massive blast of Siberia-like cold that is wreaking havoc across North America is proving that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas — and lots of it — for decades to come.

That cold reality contradicts the “electrify everything” scenario that’s being promoted by climate change activists, politicians, and academics.

They claim that to avert the possibility of catastrophic climate change, we must stop burning hydrocarbons and convert all of our transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial systems so that they are powered solely on electricity, with most of that juice coming, of course, from forests of wind turbines and oceans of solar panels.

But attempting to electrify everything would concentrate our energy risks on an electricity grid that is already breaking under the surge in demand caused by the crazy cold weather. Across America, countless people don’t have electricity.

I’m one of them. Our power here in central Austin went out at about 3 am. I am writing this under a blanket, have multiple layers of clothes on, and am nervously watching my laptop’s battery indicator.

For the rest of this column: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2021/02/15/this-blizzard-exposes-the-perils-of-attempting-to-electrify-everything/?sh=5f4f0757e15b