State Sen. Jeb Bradley didn’t lose last Tuesday but you will. He’s got a lot more company in the State Senate than the last session with Democrats in the Majority. Together they can advance legislation like SB466.
(Union Leader) State Sen. Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, is among those hoping the state mounts a vigorous defense of the biomass subsidy law, while promising to resurrect another renewable energy bill that Sununu vetoed, SB 446.
SB466, New Hampshire’s net metering bill, will force you to pay more for electricity and reward people for “investing” in solar projects. Not just your neighbors (who probably got a huge subsidy at your expense to pay for the installation) but cities and towns who want to spend piles of money on solar farms but won’t do it unless they can charge you above market rates for the inefficient electricity these land-sucking, toxic eyesores “produce.”
Related: Could Your Solar Powered Neighbors Increase the Odds of a Power Outage?
Bradley was all-in on the biomass bailout bill which Gov. Sununu vetoed but the “Republican lead legislature” overturned.
They missed the boat on SB466, but with Democrat majorities beginning in 2019, Democrat-Republicans like Bradley should have no problem screwing ratepayers again and again. Sununu can veto these bills all he wants and the progressive geniuses who can find no end of ways to waste your hard-earned dollars will push them into law anyway. And that expense never ends.
Solar panel production is toxic but since most of this happens in places like China nobody seems to care.
Solar farms have land use issues, water use issues, and habitat issues, so they are not the Snow-White, singing with harmony with the wildlife energy solution proponents claim.
But all of that pales in comparison to the real problem. Disposal.
“We talk a lot about the dangers of nuclear waste, but that waste is carefully monitored, regulated, and disposed of,” says Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress, a nonprofit that advocates for the use of nuclear energy. “But we had no idea there would be so many panels — an enormous amount — that could cause this much ecological damage.” (The Berkeley-based group found that solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear power plants)
Solar panels don’t last that long, not really. And when you remove or replace them, you have to do something with them. “That something” is labor intensive, and the by-product is highly toxic to the environment these things were forced upon ratepayers to…what’s the word again, save?
While consumers might view solar panels as harmless little windows made from glass and plastic, the reality is that they are intricately constructed from a variety of materials, making it difficult to disassemble and recycle them. Japan is already scrambling for ways to reuse its mounting inventory of solar-panel waste, which is expected to exceed 10,000 tons by 2020 and grow by 700,000 to 800,000 tons per year by 2040. Solutions are hard to find, due both to the labor-intensive process of breaking down the panels and to the low price of scrap
So what to do about that?
Federal and state governments have been slow to enact disposal and recycling policies, undoubtedly fearful of raising any red flags about the environmental threat posed by a purported climate-change panacea.
Before Mr. Braldley and his Democrat allies, as an ally of the Democrat majority advances laws that force consumers to pay more for electricity by force of government perhaps the reboot of SB466 should include a serious look at the long-term maintenance and environmentally sound disposal of solar panels and “farms” and how much that’s going to cost taxpayers before anyone votes for anything?
If no one is saving money and we’re not really “saving the environment”, then this is just more environmental virtue signaling, lead by a so-called Republican “leader.” A guy who was happy to advance Democrat priorities with a Republican majority (irony alert) that probably cost them the majority.
And now that we’ve got a Democrat majority, “Republicans” like Jeb Bradley can finally see his progressive energy-market meddling plan realized.
Or, is there more to be realized? Perhaps Uber could start a ride-sharing service for horse and carriage concerns and “Republican” Jeb Bradly could suggest raising the gas tax to save (or create) thousands of environmentally conscious transportation jobs?
Don’t laugh. Just look at the crap he has already pulled.
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