Daily Digest

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• The Uselessness of Solar Energy
• The Guardian “cancels” J.K. Rowling as person of the year
• The National Conservatives, a debate
• Live Podcast Taping Today, @ 5pm Pacific Time
• VIP Live postponed

The Uselessness of Solar Energy Posted: 30 Dec 2021 05:19 PM PST (John Hinderaker) You sometimes see newspaper headlines to the effect that, say, a “50 megawatt solar power plant” is being constructed. But you shouldn’t count on getting anything remotely approaching 50 megawatts of power from such an installation. Energy expert Isaac Orr explains: Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that production from solar panels plummets in the winter. The graph below shows the percentage of electricity generated by solar panels in Minnesota compared to their potential output. This percentage is called a capacity factor in electricity-industry lingo. Isaac’s analysis applies specifically to Minnesota, but bear in mind that while northern states get fewer hours of sunlight than southern states in the winter, they get more hours of sunlight in the summer. And note that in the best of times, solar panels don’t produce electricity anywhere near half the time. Minnesota solar panels are most productive in June and July, when they produce almost 30 percent of their potential output. Unsurprisingly, solar panels produce far less energy in November, December, and January, where production capacity factors are seldom above 10 percent. That is pathetic. We spend billions of dollars on solar panels and transmission lines, and in winter, when we need energy the most, they work only around ten percent of the time. Another reason for falling productivity in winter is snow cover. Even a thin layer of snow on panels can lead to significant reductions in electricity generation from solar panels, and as Ralph Jacobson, the founder of IPS Solar, has said in the past, it is too expensive to pay someone to clear snow off the panels. Process that fact: solar panels are such a lame energy source that when it snows, it isn’t worth it to pay someone–high school kids, probably–to shovel them off. A vast wind farm in Minnesota, not producing electricity We can see the impact of snowfall on electricity generation in the graph below. In February of 2018, solar panels produced 14.6 percent of their potential output, and in 2020, they generated 17 percent. However, in 2019, solar facilities produced just 6 percent of their potential output, because that year had one of the snowiest Februarys on record. Why in the world would we rely on an energy source to power our grid that may work only six percent of the time? The answer, of course, is that we don’t. The same utilities that charge ratepayers billions to construct solar and wind facilities also charge them billions to build natural gas power plants–plants that actually work. And the overwhelming majority of the time, it is natural gas, not solar or wind, that is providing electricity. The unreliable (i.e., usually useless) “green” sources are just for show, and for fleecing ratepayers. So far, most voters have been snowed by “green” energy propaganda. Or that is what they tell pollsters, anyway. But the day is coming when voters understand that they have been had by one of the biggest cons in world history.

The Guardian “cancels” J.K. Rowling as person of the year Posted: 30 Dec 2021 04:07 PM PST (Paul Mirengoff) On December 15, the Guardian, a lefty British newspaper, ran a “person of the year” contest. The paper asked: “Time Magazine chose billionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk – but who would be your choice?” The Daily Wire reports that J.K. Rowling quickly emerged as the runaway leader in the poll. Whereupon the voting form disappeared, as did the results. A message in small print stated: "This form has been deactivated and is closed to any further submissions." Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, steadfastly refuses to deny the reality of biological sex. This makes her an arch-villain in the eyes of certain precincts of the woke left, some of whose adherents have published her home address on social media and threatened her with serious bodily harm. The Guardian apparently has so far provided no explanation for why it took its poll down. The most likely reason is that it didn’t like the result, but maybe there’s a more innocent explanation. What I find most interesting about this story is that, on the face of it at least, Guardian readers, a left-leaning lot, were in the process of voting Rowling their person of the year. Perhaps, though, non-readers got wind of the poll and were responsible for the overwhelming degree of Rowling’s support. Even if they were, that wouldn’t justify taking the poll down. And if they weren’t, it shows a well-deserved backlash, even on the left, to the excesses of the transgender rights movement.

The National Conservatives, a debate Posted: 30 Dec 2021 02:48 PM PST (Paul Mirengoff) In this post, I discussed “national conservatives” and their movement (if one can call it that), “common good conservatism.” The New Criterion devotes a large part of its current issue to a debate on the subject. Not all of the contributions are accessible to non-subscribers. However, a good many are. In this post, I will present two critiques of national conservatives and common good conservatism. I’ll present some entries on the other side of the debate in a follow-up post. First, here is the useful introduction by our friend Roger Kimball, the editor and publisher of the New Criterion. As he points out, the starting point in the New Criterion debate is an article by Kim Holmes called “The fallacies of the common good.” Holmes is the former Executive Vice President of The Heritage Foundation and former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations in the G. W. Bush Administration. His article is here. Some national conservatives argue that their vision is embedded in the Constitution. They espouse what they call a “common good originalism,” arguing that the American founders were not really Lockean believers in intrinsic rights, but Burkeans who saw rights as instrumental — a means to an end. Thus, the argument goes, conservatism "rightly understood" is "more open to wielding state power" and, when need be, is willing to "enforce our order" or even to "reward friends and punish enemies (within the confines of the rule of law)." Whatever the merit of this enterprise, I think Holmes does a good job of arguing that it isn’t what the American founders had in mind. He writes: Put simply, the founders were not Burkeans. Yes, they welcomed Burke's support for the American Revolution from his British Whig perspective, but it was John Locke who moved them philosophically more than Edmund Burke. Secondly, the founders shared Locke's notion of natural rights being grounded in the universal claims of natural law. That is why Jefferson and the other founders believed rights were "unalienable." That is why they were "equal." Such rights were universal, and not particular to a certain people or custom—as they would have to be if they were Burkean or nationalistic. . . . The founders did have a strong notion of the common good, but they did not seek to reify it in government or to enforce it top-down on the social order. Holmes also takes on a different strand of common good conservatism, the view that rejects natural-rights philosophy as at odds with the tenets of natural law. Those of this persuasion look not to Burke, but to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Again, whatever the merit of this position as a philosophical matter, I think Holmes effectively shows that it has little to do with our Constitution. As to the merits of common good conservatism, Holmes issues this warning: [T]he more successful the current common-good movement is, the more it will erode one of the key pillars of American conservative thought: the idea of liberty. The biggest danger is not that America will evolve into national or imperial socialism, but that statist arguments from conservatives will end up reinforcing similar arguments made by progressives. Politics would devolve into a bidding war on which side, the Right or the Left, can buy the most votes with government handouts, win the most battles in the courts over defending "their" version of free speech, control the courts and administrative elites, or get to define what industrial and administrative policies mean. In that battle, I would put my money on the political masters of collectivism, the progressives, because that is their raison d'être. (Emphasis added) Charles Kesler contributes to the New Criterion’s debate with this piece. Kesler finds fault with some of Holmes’ points, but rejects the arguments of the two strands of common good conservatism Holmes attacks. He concludes: Holmes's essay performs an important service by emphasizing and clarifying the degree to which these two emerging schools of the new conservatism are out to "undermine and ultimately overturn traditional American conservatism." Though not every adherent has that in mind, most of them do, I think. And they enjoy patting themselves on the back for it. They underestimate, in my opinion, the extent to which Buckley and Reagan's conservative movement was itself a counterrevolution against the liberal revolutions that had swept over America in the preceding decades. . . . The Buckley and Reagan of, say, 1965 would. . . probably feel the need to freshen and reformulate the conservative cause to meet our changed political circumstances. . . . I have no objection to today's new conservatives seeking to divide today's conservative movement—so long as they remember the point is ultimately to reunite and enlarge it along stronger and wiser lines. To do that, however, they will need better arguments.

Live Podcast Taping Today, @ 5pm Pacific Time Posted: 30 Dec 2021 01:18 PM PST (Steven Hayward) Since our VIP session for today has been postponed, “Lucretia” and I decided to reschedule and change up our Daily Whisky Shot taping for tomorrow’s episode, and change to a live taping on Zoom this evening at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm eastern, open to all Power Line readers since it is for the general audience podcast. The link is below. We had planned to end the week with a short homily about “democracy” and its abuse by the left, but historian Richard Samuelson is joining us (because he is quarantined with Omicron but with only mild symptoms), so we’ll extend the discussion and take your questions. Whisky or other adult beverages recommended, but strictly optional. We know this is rather last-minute, but for those of you who had the VIP show inked in on your calendar for this evening, you can still party with the podcast crew. You can find the Zoom link here, or, if you prefer to have the full text to paste in, it is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84863277298

VIP Live postponed Posted: 30 Dec 2021 10:30 AM PST (Paul Mirengoff) Unfortunately, we have had to postpone the VIP Live show scheduled for tonight. Due to events beyond our control, we are not at full strength right now. We will reschedule the program for next month as soon as we come up with a date we know will work. It won’t quite be the year-end show we contemplated, but we’ll still be able to make our predictions for 2022 and have whatever fun can be had discussing 2021. As always, we appreciate the support of our subscribers, and regret not being able to make our small contribution to their end-of-the-year enjoyment by doing our show tonight.

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