'Clean energy' isn't telling the whole story

Picture a family with three cars. Mom and Dad both drive to work. The kids need rides to school and practice. The cars cost money, gas, repairs, and insurance, but they start when you turn the key. That is the whole point.

Then a salesman shows up with an amazing deal. He has a solar-powered car and a wind-powered car. No gas needed. The fuel is free. Who wouldn’t want that? They buy both, figuring they will save money and finally dump a couple of the old cars.

Regular people do not need politicians picking their power plants for them.

Then reality shows up.

The solar car runs when the sun is out. The wind car runs when the wind is blowing. Dad still leaves at 7:30 on dark winter mornings. Mom still has to pick up a kid at five o'clock when the air is dead calm. Families go where they need to go, not when the weather cooperates.

So they keep all three reliable cars. Now they own five.

Five cars do not fit in the driveway. So they pour more concrete and build a bigger garage. Someone suggests big batteries to store power for the days when the sun and wind quit. That costs a fortune too.

The salesman talked a lot about free fuel. He never mentioned the two extra cars, the bigger garage, the batteries, or the fact that you still need the old cars anyway.

Welcome to America's electricity policy.

Wind turbines and solar panels really do make electricity without buying fuel. That is the selling point. But electricity has to be there the instant you flip the switch.

Factories cannot sit idle until the wind picks up. Hospitals cannot ask patients to wait for better weather. Families expect the furnace, the refrigerator, and the lights to work every single time.

Because wind and solar depend on the weather, adding them does not allow us to retire the dependable plants.

Natural gas, nuclear, coal, and hydro still have to be on standby when renewables produce little or nothing. We pay for two systems and get one grid's worth of reliable power.

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Then come the wires. Wind and solar sit far from where people live, so they need new transmission lines, substations, and grid upgrades. The Energy Department's own draft transmission study points to one of the largest build-outs in our history.

Batteries help, but only for a few hours. Most grid batteries can only run for about four hours.

None of this means wind and solar are worthless, but it does mean we should count the whole bill honestly.

The real question is not how cheap the electricity is when the generator is running. It is what it costs to keep reliable power available whenever people need it.

That price includes generation, transmission, grid upgrades, storage, backup capacity, and enough always-on power for calm, cloudy days. It also includes where the hardware comes from. Most of the world's solar panels are made in China, which is building coal plants to run those factories.

If wind and solar still look cheapest after every cost is counted, let them win on the merits. If nuclear, natural gas, coal, hydro, or something better delivers more value, that should win instead.

Regular people do not need politicians picking their power plants for them. They need honest prices, real competition, and electricity that shows up when the switch is flipped.

Free fuel sounds great. But before we buy the fourth and fifth cars, somebody ought to ask whether we are actually saving money or just paying for more cars, more concrete, and a bigger garage to get to the same places.

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