FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Idiotic, Genocidal, and Immoral: Illinois’ Green New Deal Case Study

Feb. 25, 2019 (EIRNS)—The state of Illinois is taking the lead in providing a “Green New Deal” for Midwest farmers, as reported in the Washington Post Feb. 24. Its watchword could be: Grow less food, become wheelers and dealers.

The state has set a target for 25% of its electricity generation to come from solar and wind. Research based on current conditions shows that this requires 75-100,000 acres be covered with solar panels to generate (intermittently) 10,000 MWe; and another 375,000 acres with wind turbines—under the average parameters of Illinois, which already has plenty of wind turbine farms—for an (intermittent) 5,000 MWe. In total, 450,000 acres or 750 square miles.

Currently, six nuclear plants occupying about 1,000 acres in total produce twice that share of state electricity (50%). So solar and wind require nearly 1 million times as much land per megawatt as nuclear power generation.

For the solar part of this, Illinois farmers are being incentivized, and advised by agricultural extension “authorities” to turn over some of their cultivated land to solar fields, and sell the power to electric utility companies.

The 15,000 MWe of solar or wind power Illinois is trying to force, will require, besides 750 square miles, about 16,500 MWe of natural gas-fired electric plants to back it up when the Sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. It is likely from the current nationwide pattern that this buildup of natural gas capacity will lead the state to shut down some or all of the nuclear plants, requiring still more natural gas-fired plants, “saving money,” lowering electricity reliability, increasing pollution, and lowering air quality.

This is the purely idiotic side of the Green New Deal.

The genocidal side is shown by Illinois’ plan to convert some of the most productive agricultural land in the United States—for corn, wheat, soy, vegetables—into fields of solar panels radiating heat. These are solar fields of anywhere from a few acres to thousands.

The fact that a lot of farmers are desperate enough to do this, according to the Post article, shows the immoral side to a Green New Deal. These corn and soybean farmers, who are already induced to put a lot of their land into producing gasoline from corn, are now signing up to, in effect, grow natural gas plants as well, with solar panels as the politically correct “cover.” They know this means that fewer human beings are being fed by them; but state university extension experts are encouraging them to excuse themselves as “being smart,” since Wall Street has soybean prices “in the toilet.”