🔥 I only assume these people are being indirectly paid by the fossil-fuel industry. In general, for these bad-faith, low-quality arguments against any form of renewable energy, it is a safe bet. Regardless of whether they are paid, directly or indirectly, it is very blatantly propaganda.
⚙️ "Center of the American Experiment’s mission is to build a culture of prosperity for Minnesota and the nation. Our daily pursuit is a free and thriving Minnesota whose cultural and intellectual center of gravity is grounded in free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, and other time-tested American virtues."
https://jasonhayes.substack.com/p/net-zero-just-isnt-happening
LINKS TO
https://files.americanexperiment.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Shattered-Green-Dreams.pdf
There are so many flaws in this report, it is enough that one should throw the report (and its advocates) out entirely. ✨ If a person gives you 10 arguments, and 8 of them are objectively wrong, and you aren't sure about two, you must not give that person the benefit of the doubt.
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ONE. Bad Math.
There are a remarkable number of situations where they give highlight, where they highlight figures such as: "This resource will consume 10x production" or "2000%". They never emphasize the baseline. For example, when they talk about nickel production, they say it is "1600%" of American production but "11%" of global production. Similarly, for aluminum, they say "45 times the U.S.’ 670,000 metric tons of primary aluminum production in 2024 and 42 percent of the world’s 72 million metric tons".
Yes, if America doesn't produce much nickel or aluminum you will get a very large multiple of that. The solution is either recognizing that it's a global economy and that an America-first-at-all-costs approach is simply a smoke screen to shut down something you don't like, or building more nickel mines in the US; a large percentage increase that might not be a large absolute increase.
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TWO. Environmentalists whenever it helps their cause.
The piece is very aggressive on highlighting any actual or perceived environmental ills that can be traced to solar or wind energy. 200 turtles don't have an habitat? Crime. Use a dirty mine in Indonesia? Crime. However, for systems they support, these types of environmental ills are simply ignored or dismissed.
Furthermore, many of the scenes they highlight are purely speculative or are described as topics that may need additional research. "Do wind turbine noise cause whale problems? There is no evidence of it, but they aren't sure. We can't take the risk." This once again is caution at all costs because they have an underlying motivation to kill the project.
And when there is some merit to their claims, they are still exaggerated, hyper-aggressive and concerned with relative impact only when it benefits them. They claim a study says 350,000 birds died in wind turbines in one year. They then say this is definitely an underestimate. With no argument other than that it helps their cause. Meanwhile, with a U.S. population of 15 billion birds, most of which have a lifespan of 5 to 10 years, this seems like a relatively low number. They note in passing that "building collisions" caused 600 million deaths, but shrug it off, saying that this high number means "any cause of mortality needs to be tackled".
🔥 If your philosophy is that one dead bird is too many, nothing will satisfy you. I really don't care to rebut those arguments further.
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THREE. Focusing on the failures.
The report talks at length about the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California. This is not a traditional solar panel plant, but a plant that uses large arrays of mirrors to superheat a reservoir to over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. This design has several flaws and does cause more serious safety issues. The plant is also being decommissioned early because it is ineffective. However the authors extrapolate from this to say that all solar plants have these same problems. This is a sleight of hand deception.
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FOUR. Focusing on meaningless metrics.
Like several other influencers in this space, they focus heavily on one metric that suits their goals, the energy generated per land area used. A solar plant that uses 70 square miles and a nuclear plant that uses one square mile may generate the same amount of energy.
This is problematic for several reasons. First, the land used is not equivalent. 70 square miles of the Nevada desert may not be used for anything else. Thus, the cost is low. Second, if a solar plant replaces a field growing ethanol corn in Iowa, it is done because the economic and the energy returns are far greater. Simply claiming that some other technology 💡 which has its own drawbacks might be even better doesn't mean you can't do the first improvement.
A very different meaningless metric comes from long-time anti-solar shill Robert Bryce, who is quoted as saying that in Minnesota, “nearly all of the wind projects” are “located in counties that are poorer than the statewide average”. Except of course they are. Once the 9 counties of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area (the 9 richest counties in the state) are excluded, only 3 of the remaining 78 counties are not "poorer than the statewide average". This is not a legitimate socio-economic argument, it is deception.
And a third one comes from another piece linked in the blog post ⚙️ https://lifepowered.org/data-banning-fossil-fuels-wouldnt-stop-climate-change/ where they claim that "if the United States banned fossil fuels by 2050", it would only cause "a tenth of a degree" of change by 2100. The (hidden) assumption is that no other countries make any changes. The argument is effectively saying "if we divide the world into 20 parts, none of them can make a big enough change on their own, so we should do nothing". 🔥 Which is a frightfully stupid reason to do nothing.
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FIVE. Misunderstanding system lifecycle.
They have one quote which massively misrepresents the lifecycle of these products. They say that most solar panels only have warranties of 25 years, whereas a coal plant can be in operation for 60 years. 💡 The concerns about the lifespan of wind turbines seem to be at least somewhat based in fact rather than misrepresentation. The difference is that the word warranty is used.
Nobody can offer a 60-year warranty on solar. I looked into it. It simply doesn't make sense. The problems related to the fact that neither the purchaser, the manufacturer, nor the insurer are likely to be around in 60 years, either as corporate entities or natural persons, make such a long warranty become meaningless.
This doesn't mean that technology can't last that long. It simply means that the financial product of a warranty becomes meaningless. For the coal plant, there is no warranty. The owner of the plant is incentivized to keep it running as long as it is economical.
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SIX. Obstacles of our own design.
The authors consistently point to tax credits and other government incentives that encourage fast depreciation and replacement of solar or wind, claiming that this proves they are not sustainable in the long run. Similarly, they point to the permitting process, at one point making the ludicrous claim that it would take 1,400 years to prove all the permits necessary for a net-zero energy transition.
The flaw here is obvious: These are stupid rules the government made up. They can just get rid of the rules. You don't want them to get rid of the rules because you don't want the solar plants. This isn't a real obstacle; it's a fake one.
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SEVEN. Failure to consider alternate technology.
They routinely math based on an assumption that batteries need to support 100% of energy storage needs. This is a fallacious assumption. In particular, for cold weather climates, a battery-based system will never be feasible. The only possible option is a solar and/or wind-powered system that generates some amount of (presumably) methane that can be stored and then burned during the winter season. This would have a substantially lower metal, et cetera cost. However, it doesn't fit their conclusion. So they need not consider it.