{"id":447042,"date":"2026-05-28T07:59:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=447042"},"modified":"2026-05-28T07:59:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:59:56","slug":"why-do-we-keep-wasting-money-on-renewable-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=447042","title":{"rendered":"Why do we keep wasting money on \u2018renewable\u2019 technologies?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Power plant using renewable solar energy with<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Gary Abernathy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week I wrote about the residents of Richland County, Ohio,<\/a> siding with their county commissioners on banning new large-scale solar and wind projects in much of the county. The wisdom of tapping the brakes on new solar projects is increasingly evident when we consider how rapidly the \u201crenewables\u201d technology is evolving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their zeal to force \u201crenewable energy\u201d into every nook and cranny of society, advocates have been consistently guilty of getting the solar-powered cart ahead of the wind-powered horse. In other words, time and again we realize, usually too late, that everybody is getting ahead of themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large-scale solar power is still an emerging technology. Nevertheless, the Obama and Biden administrations threw billions of tax dollars at states and local communities urging \u2013 in some cases, mandating \u2013 that they \u201ctransition\u201d away from reliable energy sources. As a result, anywhere from 650,000 to nearly one million acres of former farmland are now covered with solar panels, depending on estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Farmland Trust predicts<\/a> that as solar installations expand, \u201cthe top 12 states will also lose, fragment, or compromise between 306,000 and over 2 million acres of farmland.\u201d Such a waste. Why? Because even for those who fervently believe in the need to transition to \u201crenewables,\u201d patience would be rewarded by advances in technology that would allow solar arrays to generate the same amount of energy with a much smaller footprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, citing a study<\/a> by the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a Yale School of the Environment article noted that \u201cmost estimates of solar energy\u2019s land requirements are outdated, still relying on numbers from the early days of utility-scale operations, when the efficiency was significantly lower, says study coauthor Mark Bolinger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article points out that \u201carrays that track the sun throughout the day, the dominant technology currently in use, need approximately four acres of panels for every megawatt of power \u2014 less than half the land needed a decade ago. That trend, says Bolinger, \u2018should continue into the foreseeable future.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can be sure that \u201cthe dominant technology currently in use\u201d will itself soon be surpassed by more advanced technology. And yet, solar companies \u2013 backed by tax dollars in the form of government subsidies and following outdated estimates<\/a> of an eventual need for 10 million acres \u2013 have snatched up more and more land, even as technology will require fewer acres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price of throwing tons of money at a \u201csolution\u201d while the technology is still evolving was driven home by the case of the Ivanpah Solar Power Plant. I wrote last year<\/a> about the plant, which, I noted, was \u201cbuilt from 2010\u201314 at a cost of $2.2 billion\u2014including $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees from the Obama Energy Department\u2014(but) is now \u2018set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy,\u2019 according to a recent story in the New York Post.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plant was already considered outdated because as the technology rapidly evolved, the Ivanpah facility \u201ccouldn\u2019t compete with newer and less expensive forms of creating solar power,\u201d the Post reported. I pointed out that \u201cthe reckless hurry to \u2018go green\u2019 once again ended up with a project deep in the red.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s a troubling update: Rather than eating the loss and closing the plant as planned last year, the facility is caught in a costly nowhere land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth the Trump and Biden administrations \u2014 along with the utility company that buys its power \u2014 have sought to shut (Ivanpah) down, saying it underperforms, produces expensive electricity and has been overtaken by cheaper energy sources,\u201d Fox News<\/a> recently reported. \u201cBut California regulators have refused to allow it to close, warning that closing the plant could strain the power grid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s right. The Ivanpah plant presents taxpayers with a no-win situation: Closing it \u201ccould leave taxpayers responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars tied to a $1.6 billion federal loan, while keeping it open means higher electricity costs for consumers,\u201d as the report explained. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because California regulators warn that \u201cshutting down Ivanpah could strand more than $300 million in ratepayer-funded transmission and infrastructure tied to the project, while also creating potential risks for grid reliability \u2014 particularly as uncertainty grows around how quickly new energy projects can be built.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of which points again to the need for the U.S. to codify legislation that would prevent billions in tax dollars going down the drain because the government insisted on implementing technology that is years from reaching maturity. The Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security act (ARC-ES) would help ensure that future decisions on America\u2019s energy needs are based on U.S. security, consumer needs and real-world effectiveness \u2013 not on shifting political winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ARC-ES, introduced in Congress last year by U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) \u201cwould require relevant federal agencies \u2026 to review any actions relating to affordable, reliable, or clean energy within 90 days and submit a report to Congress, according to Balderson\u2019s office.<\/a> \u201cThe bill guarantees that our most affordable and reliable energy sources, including nuclear and natural gas, remain part of the energy mix \u2013 a crucial requirement to guarantee affordable and reliable energy for American households and businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Congress won\u2019t act on ARC-ES, President Trump should enact it through an executive order. Americans deserve to know that their tax dollars are not wasted on solar-capture technologies that are practically obsolete before the sun comes up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy<\/a> via Empower Alliance<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In their zeal to force \u201crenewable energy\u201d into every nook and cranny of society, advocates have been consistently guilty of getting the solar-powered cart ahead of the wind-powered horse. In other words, time and again we realize, usually too late, that everybody is getting ahead of themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":447044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691829019,691818618,691833025,691818854,691821550,691831953,691819094],"class_list":["post-447042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-affordable-and-reliable-energy","tag-energy-transition","tag-expensive-electricity","tag-government-subsidies","tag-ivanpah-solar-electric-generating-system","tag-obama-and-biden-administrations","tag-renewable-green-energy","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0Wind-solar-clouds-dusk-scaled-1.jpg?fit=2560%2C1594&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Sim","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":369875,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369875","url_meta":{"origin":447042,"position":0},"title":"Towns and States Don\u2019t Want Green Energy","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/14\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump Administration actions to scale back renewable energy capture headlines, but citizens are also pushing back. 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