BURGUM: When the sun goes down, solar produces zero electricity HUFFMAN: I want to enter into the record this amazing

[demmiblue]

BURGUM: When the sun goes down, solar produces zero electricity

HUFFMAN: I want to enter into the record this amazing new technology that apparently the secretary is unaware of -- it's a battery

BURGUM: When the sun goes down, solar produces zero electricity

HUFFMAN: I want to enter into the record this amazing new technology that apparently the secretary is unaware of -- it's a battery

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-13T15:05:00.011Z

[Chicagogrl1]

1. OMFG

🤦🏼‍♀️🤣🤦🏼‍♀️🤣🤦🏼‍♀️🤣🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

[regnaD kciN]

2. MTG got ridiculed for saying the same thing...

…several years ago. You’d think that would have put an end to that particular narrative, but no…

[dalton99a]

3. He's never seen the solar path lights they sell in the stores

[niyad]

11. I have four different sets of them in my garden and by my door.

Thank goodness for solar when there are no outside outlets.

[Amaryllis]

75. Thanks for that. I don't have outside outlets and would like to have lights outside. Just hadn't thought it through

and made the connection, pardon the pun.

[niyad]

76. You are most welcome. There are so many kinds available. Have fun choosing!

[AllyCat]

86. Costco has had some pretty ones in the past.

Not sure what they have now, but we love them!

[txwhitedove]

4. Burgum wanting a rational discussion on subject he doesn't understand.

[DBoon]

23. you can't understand something when your livelihood depends on ignorance

[eppur_se_muova]

58. ...

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

[LuvLoogie]

61. He understands it. He misinforms, gaslights, obfuscates, lies by design.

It's to reinforce the anti-wokeness of the MAGA. A general fueling of their bigoted grievancees.

Benefit for the greater good = socialism = white taxes for minorities and immigrants

[charliea]

66. Sinclair Lewis understood Burgum's ilk

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"

[mcar]

5. He cannot possibly be this stupid

Once again, performing for an audience of one.

[niyad]

7. Of course he can! Why do you think the puppeteers chose him?

[mcar]

9. He, like the rest of the minions, sold his soul to TSF

and now must abase themselves regularly by reiterating the orange idiot's batshit beliefs.

[niyad]

12. You are assuming that they had souls to sell?

[mcar]

54. Good point

[Ray Bruns]

95. Disagree!

[meow2u3]

6. One of two things is true of Burgum

Either he doesn't know his ass from his elbow about clean energy or he's playing dumb to justify polluting the entire globe to line the pockets of the fossil fuel industry.

[niyad]

8. He could be that dumb, and still helping to line the pockets of the

extraction industries monsters.

[Magoo48]

42. Extraction, vulture capitalism's engine burns fossil fuel

as it plows through.Earth’s resources creating massive wealth for the few while leaving destruction and suffering for the masses. The madness fostered by wealth hoarding and power wielding addiction, if left unchecked, will destroy our planet.

[Seinan Sensei]

49. He seriously just might be that dumb

Every time I look at him, I think to myself,
“That boy ain’t right”

[AZ8theist]

92. Both could be true...

[NNadir]

10. Actually, the belief that batteries are sustainable is...

...something of a crime against humanity.

Literally. The conditions associated with cobalt slaves in the Katanga province in Congo admits no moral excuse.

There is an excellent book on this topic, recently published called "The Elements of Power."

I have long held the opinion that one should not be able to graduate from high school without being able to state the second law of thermodynamics in a simple form, which would be something on this order: "Storing energy wastes energy."

The material and land requirements of so called "renewable energy" makes it tragic enough. But the dependence on redundant systems, most often fossil fuels, makes it even worse.

Neither solar energy nor batteries are sustainable. The common belief to the contrary held on our side of is our answer to their creationism.

[MadameButterfly]

15. What are suggesting instead?

[NNadir]

19. I willingly take some flak for my position that there is...

...one and only one, form of sustainable energy, nuclear energy.

[liberalgunwilltravel]

22. Nuclear has a role to play

However, what is your solution for the disposal and storage of the spent nuclear fuel.

[NNadir]

25. I am an expert on this topic, having studied it for decades.

I don't have time at this point to discuss it here, but I would note, that used nuclear fuel has remarkable record of storage without killing anyone.

I wish people were as concerned with fossil fuel waste, aka, "air pollution" which kills millions of people each year without a peep from people concerned with so called "nuclear waste."

Used nuclear fuel is a valuable resource for which I hope future generations will have the wisdom to use. That recognition is rising.

My journal on this website features discussions of many of the components of used nuclear fuels, most referenced to the primary scientific literature.

Without the recognition that nuclear energy, developed by some of the finest minds of the 20th century, and denigrated by some of the smallest minds, is the only form of sustainable energy, not merely one with a "role to play" there is, in my view, little hope for the future of our planet.

[liberalgunwilltravel]

28. Nuclear is fine as part of the solution

It certainly can help to add to the capacity of the grid. But what role will it play in transportation. I assume you're not suggestion nuclear powered automobiles.

[NNadir]

36. I am always asked this question, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

In general it comes in threads where so called "renewable energy," which I reject on environmental grounds, as if there are wind powered cars and solar powered cars on any scale that matters. (I don't see cars on the freeways with sails.)

I do not, in general, support the car CULTure on a planet where more than 1 billion people lack access to improved sanitation.

That said, as I had to answer this question already once today, here's my most recent response:

The solution for self propelled vechicles...

......which in general, I also oppose, since I do not believe the car CULTure is sustainable in any form, lies not with hydrogen - which is possibly the worst of all fuels for many reasons on which I've elaborated - nor with batteries. There is not enough cobalt, nickel, manganese, on the planet to replace a billion vehicles. There is not enough copper either, especially since so much of it squandered on connecting all this unreliable so called "renewable energy" junk together.

The key, to my mind, lies for those self propelled vehicles that are justifiable, ambulances, tractors, buses, etc., lies with the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to produce the wonder fuel DME, which has a critical temperature higher than boiling water, low toxicity, a short atmospheric half life, about five days, and is a drop in replacement for LPG, methane, propane, and with minor changes to seals, in engines, diesel fuel.

The use of DME was discussed at some length by Nobel Laureate George Olah in 2011 shortly before his death in 2017. I often link the paper but am writing from a phone as I am traveling.

The hydrogen for DME synthesis would, in my view, be prepared by thermochemical splitting of water using nuclear heat, recovering exergy and raising the thermodynamic efficiency of nuclear fuel use to numbers approaching 70%, possibly a little beyond.

Interestingly, the main use for DME today is as a replacement for CFCs in spray cans, with some use as a refrigerant as well.

The hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to DME is exothermic, meaning in theory, its preparation could drive its own compression.

As it's critical temperature is high it might well function in heat transfer applications.

I fully confess that it is nonsense to state what one is against if one cannot state what one is for.

I am emphatically against batteries and hydrogen. The embrace of these unsustainable affronts to the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a very dangerous bourgeois affectation.

I feel free to be against them since I am extremely aware that a far superior option is well known.

Thanks for asking.

[TheRickles]

52. For the uninitiated (like me), DME stands for dimethyl ether.

From Google AI: Dimethyl ether (DME) is a clean-burning, non-toxic, synthetic alternative to diesel and LPG that can be produced from natural gas, biomass, or waste.

[NNadir]

55. I do not support DME from dangerous natural gas. As is the case with hydrogen itself, exergy is destroyed under...

...these conditions.

As is the case with Olah, I support it as a way to close the industrial carbon cycle, at first using a technology developed by Heather Willauer at the US Naval Laboratory, to use ion selective electrodes to remove and collect carbon dioxide from seawater.

[SonOfNebanaube]

79. I heard that we can't produce the steel needed for SMRs anymore.

I can be and am supportive of SMR's not wasting the energy pumping it across the country on grid from a centralized power station being too big to safely decommission with too much energy loss due to resistance. I remember when they said it's too cheap to meter. But then I remember Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, I'm watching the supercritical flashes and Fukushima on video.

[NNadir]

93. Chornobyl converted me from being an uneducated antinuke to a well educated nuclear advocate.

It established, for all time, the worst case for a failure of a nuclear power plant.

Everyday, about 19,000 people die from fossil fuel waste, aka air pollution, around the world according to a paper I frequently post here from one of the world's most prominent medical journals, Lancet. That works out 7 million per year

Chornobyl took place almost exactly 40 years ago. This means that around 280 million people died from air pollution since the reactor, with its poor design and positive void coefficient failed. The population of the United States is 340 million. That means if you're in a room of 10 people, it is the equivalent of having 7 of them so die. This ignores deaths from extreme weather driven by the continuing destruction of the planetary atmosphere.

The city of Kiev is less than 100 km from Chornobyl. During and after it's dangerous and deadly nuclear phase out, Germany purchased huge amounts of coal, oil and especially gas from Putin. The revenue from these sales went into building fossil fuel powered weapons of mass destruction now raining down on Kiev. Before Putin's attack Kiev remained a thriving city.

Which killed more people in Kiev, radiation from Chornobyl - the area now existing as something of a nature preserve, teeming with animals rare elsewhere in Europe - or German funded weapons of mass destruction launched by Putin, who by the way, has a former Chancellor Germany, Gerard Schroeder as a paid employee?

No one will ever again build a reactor with a design like the RBMK, one with a positive void coefficient, that failed at Chornobyl, but people do build coal plants that kill people whenever they operate normally.

Nuclear energy, the most reliable and cleanest form of energy on the planet, need not be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

Have a nice day.

[NNadir]

94. If you remember the remark made by the nonscientist, Louis Strauss, the "bad guy" in the movie Oppenheimer...

...that was made in 1954 that nuclear energy would be "too cheap to meter" you are very old. You must be well into your 80's.

If so, your generation, and mine, left humanity with a burning planet, because we held nuclear energy, and only nuclear energy to a standard you hold for nothing else, based on a remark by an idiot in the 1950's.

What form of energy is "too cheap to meter?" Name one that you will not use because it's too cheap to meter.

The reason the planet is burning is that people hold nuclear energy to standards they hold for nothing else.

As it happens, my son is in his last year of graduate school for obtaining his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering with specific focus on reactor and fuel materials.

The amount of steel required for building a nuclear reactor - not steel per se but advanced alloys - is trivial, much less that the steel consumed to destroy wilderness to make industrial parks for wind turbines. In fact, nuclear energy is the most parsimonious user of metals there is.

I can't say that I believe you have even a passing familiarity with nuclear energy.

[thought crime]

84. The finest minds of the 21st century understand that nuclear energy is not the only form of sustainable energy.

Solar and wind resources are continuously replenished and inexhaustible, unlike finite fossil fuels. They produce little to no greenhouse gases in operation, and they produce a durable energy supply. Every serious appraisal of solutions to reach climate goals includes a mix of energy sources, including solar, wind, hydro and nuclear. The renewable sources have a lower regulatory burden than nuclear energy because they are inherently safe, and this lowers the cost of installation and operation. Utility-scale Solar is now the cheapest energy source for new electricity generation in many regions. Renewables don't require fuel extraction or processing, and do not produce a fuel waste product.

The environmental impact of renewable energy on things like land use, wildlife, recycling requirements, etc. must be considered as with any other source of energy, including nuclear. The urgency of the climate crisis forces some trade-offs such as considering the direct impact of wind turbines on bird populations vs. the potentially much larger impact of climate change on those same populations. The relative simplicity of solar and wind systems lends itself to innovation to meet environmental challenges.

[Bengus81]

98. We have a Nuke plant in Kansas and we've been RAPED by it on rates since 1985

So those monstrosities are not "sustainable" either. That POS is entering the December of it's life in the next decade or so and rate payers with be BENT OVER paying to have it decommissioned.

[NNadir]

99. Nevertheless the planet has been raped by fossil fuels.

Since 1985 about 280 million human lives have been lost to air pollution. These deaths were not instaneous either. It costs vast sums of money to meducally treat the terminally ill.

I'm sure the massive droughts arising from climate collapse are inexpensive, and now that Kansas has strip mined the Ogallala aquifer will be inexpensive too.

I'm willing to pay for clean energy of which there is one, and only one, form, nuclear energy. I consider this my responsibility to future generations.

I do understand that there are people who have no interest in the future of humanity or the planet, cheapskates in my view, not the kind of people I admire or like, but otherwise I'm quite happy.

The Wolf Creek nuclear generating station is licensed through 2045, and will be saving human lives from air pollution for another 19 years if not shut by appeals to fear and ignorance. It provides 20% of Kansas electricity without contributing to the collapse of the planetary atmosphere.

If I lived in Kansas, I would regard the reactor as a valuable resource, a gift from an earlier generation to the current generation.

By the way, fossil fuel based electricity, besides killing people in normal operations is about to get very expensive internally as well as externally.

Have a nice day.

[Mossfern]

20. Maybe nuclear?

I'm pretty clueless about this myself.
Hydrogen?

[liberalgunwilltravel]

30. You need power

To crack water to produce hydrogen. And then you need the extensive infrastructure to store, distribute, and dispense the hydrogen.

[Mossfern]

59. Thanks

So what energy source is best then?

[NNadir]

41. Hydrogen, whether generated by clean nuclear power or by so called "renewable energy" is a terrible idea as a...

...consumer product.

It is an essential industrial intermediate on which the world food supply depends, but the hydrogen fantasy is a tool to greenwash fossil fuels.

I covered this point here:

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.

[Mossfern]

60. Thank you

As mentioned before, I know very little about this issue.

[NNadir]

63. Well the good thing about admitting one knows little - the excellent thing in fact - is that one's mind is open.

Congratulations on that.

[liberalgunwilltravel]

21. I'm Sorry but what you say is not the whole story.

What you're saying in true to a certain extent. But much of the environmental and human cost is due to the typical negligence of all extraction industries, much of which can be ameliorated with proper regulation. Of course that will increase cost, but the end result will likely be worth it. However, battery and solar technology are improving rapidly and the use of fewer rare earth minerals is also being reduced. Fe2+/Fe3+ batteries that are larger and heavier than lithium ion batteries and aren't suitable for transportation, but they can be used for large scale industrial level storage. Additionally, there are other ways of storing solar energy than just batteries. And the land use argument is a red herring. Rooftop solar doesn't take up any additional land and can be used in industrial settings as well as for residential applications. However, what is important is that progress continues to make more efficient and more environmentally and labor friendly processes.

[jmowreader]

48. At Field Station Berlin we used lead-acid batteries in our powerhouse

We had a whole building full of these ginormous battery cells. You didn't want to go in there unless it was totally necessary because the smell of as much sulfuric acid as we had in that place will curl your nose hairs just before it causes them to fall out. But seriously, lead-acid batteries have the distinct advantage of not needing rare earths at all to work, just tons and tons of lead.

[electric_blue68]

56. Hmm... the smell: would exposure be detrimental w all that lead or a short time there would prevent that

[jmowreader]

87. Once the lead is cast into plates and fixed into a cell it's no problem, so long as it stays there

It's the casting part that's the problem. Proper process control will keep lead dust and lead fume at bay.

But...lead-acid batteries aren't "sexy" like lithium or other new-tech batteries are.

[lapfog_1]

32. chemical batteries are only one type of battery

there are many others, many of the less expensive ones depend on gravity or doing some other form of work ( pressurizing a gas for example ) that stores potential energy that can be released later. Still others store energy as centrifugal force ( flywheels ), all of which can be made without the use of exotic materials. Of course there is loss involved with any stored energy solution, but then there is also a great deal of loss in the transmission of energy over long distances ( like from nuclear reactors ) to places where work is needed.

[Disaffected]

38. LFP batteries don't have cobalt (or even nickel) however.

Storing energy has always "wasted" energy - not sure what the point is here.

Sodium ion batteries (which will soon likely be the battery of choice for stationary apps) don't even require lithium (and some variations don't even use nickel)- not sure why the blanket statement that neither solar or batteries are sustainable.

[hunter]

53. It's always something tomorrow.

Fusion energy, magic batteries, the hydrogen economy...

So many of these ideas, which I first started exploring in the 'seventies, keep coming back like zombies only to disappoint again and again.

Meanwhile humanity's dependence on fossil fuels increases.

Unlike nuclear power, "renewable" energy is not an existential threat to the fossil fuel industry. I think that explains a lot.

[Disaffected]

73. Fusion energy and the hydrogen economy are very iffy alright but,

LFP and sodium batteries aren't magic batteries. They are in production now, especially LFP.

[hunter]

89. Magic in the sense that they would allow us to quit both fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Qualitatively the batteries you name are not any different than batteries we already have. This universe puts absolute limits on what batteries are capable of. Renewable energy utopia lies beyond that limit.

Even if these new batteries cost half as much as today's batteries and they are made entirely from materials that are abundant, they still won't get us through winters of little wind and sunlight.

We now have real world operating experience with gigawatt scale solar/wind/battery power generating systems. It's clear to me that this energy resource cannot support a human population of 8 billion people. Nor can it significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions -- significant in the sense of "saving the world."

Our current civilization is not sustainable and it will crash, but nuclear power could make that crash more survivable.

Something I think many solar enthusiasts are aware of, either consciously or not, is that nuclear power makes all these solar, wind, and battery systems redundant. This makes nuclear power an existential threat to both the fossil fuel industry and the "renewable energy" industry.

[Disaffected]

91. I don't think anyone is seriously claiming batteries will reach utopia,

rather than they can replace a substantial portion of energy now generated by fossil fuels. It doesn't have to replace all fossil fuel consumption, just enough to result in a significant reduction i.e. fossil fuel powered and nuke generators can still be utilized as backup as required.

Sure, nuclear power has potential to generate all required power but at what cost (SMRs for example although having some intrinsic safety features ain't going to be cheap so it seems and we are still left with what to do with the nuclear waste).

I would again refer to the China and Australia results:

...................

As of 2025, both China and Australia have reached record-high levels of wind and solar penetration, significantly outpacing the global average of 17%.

China

China is currently the world leader in sheer volume of renewable energy deployment. In 2025, for the first time in modern history, China saw an absolute decline in coal-fired generation.

Wind & Solar Combined: 22% of total electricity generation.

Total Clean Energy: 42% (This includes wind, solar, hydropower, and nuclear).

Milestone: In early 2026, China's cumulative wind and solar capacity reached 1.84 billion kilowatts, accounting for 47.3% of its total installed capacity—surpassing coal/thermal capacity for the first time.

Trend: Solar alone grew by 40% in 2025 compared to the previous year.

Australia

Australia has one of the highest penetrations of solar energy in the world, largely driven by "rooftop" solar on residential homes.

Wind & Solar Combined: 33% of total electricity generation.

Total Clean Energy: 39% (Includes wind, solar, and hydro).

Milestone: In the first quarter of 2025, renewables briefly powered 43% of the National Energy Market (NEM) grid.

Solar Specifics: Australia has the world's highest solar generation per capita. About 43% of Australian households now have solar panels installed.

Trend: Fossil fuel generation in Australia fell by roughly 4% in 2025 as large-scale wind and household solar continued to push coal out of the mix.

.....................

And, all this is now accelerating due to the v high price of crude oil (China is selling solar cells at a record pace).

[thought crime]

88. The Trump administration is trying to boost nuclear energy

The foremost defender of fossil fuels on the planet seems to feel no threat from nuclear power. Make no mistake, Trump and his beloved fossil fuel industry are scared shitless of renewable energy.

[NNadir]

62. I have spent decades in the primary scientific literature and as a result, I have very little patience for handwaving.

First of all, wind and solar are trivial, essentially useless, forms of energy. On a planet with a rising energy demand of over 650 Exajoules of energy eac year, solar and wind garbage produces, combined, 18 of them. This has taken place with the expenditure, in the last 10 years alone of well over 5 trillion dollars, for no result other than the acceleration of the destruction of the planetary atmosphere.

The land and material intensity is atrocious and unsustainable already.

There is always some grand "fix" proposed in public handwaving; sodium batteries, being just one. Whence the copper to connect all these batteries, which would only be accessible a short period of time? If the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine for months at a time, a condition for which a German word has been coined, Dunkelflaute, how big must a mountain of sodium batteries must be?

Decades into this wishful thinking exercise, the conditions are growing more and more dire.

Reliance on the weather for energy was abandoned in the 19th century for a reason, that being most human beings, even more so than today, lived short miserable lives of dire poverty. The effort to return to these conditions is reactionary, not at all "progressive," whatever "progressive" might mean.

Playing "whack a mole" with the periodic table is neither wise nor viable. Solar and wind are already mass and land intensive; the destruction of virgin wilderness to make industrial parks for this crap is a crime against the future.

There are a whole lot of issues that handwaving doesn't cover for any battery, the chemistry of electrolytes, the transport of materials to make them, the temperatures required, etc.

It's not solely about cobalt or nickel, although I think the handwaving that they're unnecessary is bullshit. I note that the automobile, one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time, was invented and promoted to solve the problem of horse manure in city streets. It's true that horse manure is now rare in major city streets, but I'm not sure that the collapse of the planetary atmosphere is an easier problem to solve. The automobile, much as tearing the shit out of virgin wilderness for solar and wind garbage that will be landfill before todays toddlers can finish college, only made things worse, not better.

The planet is burning. If we don't face reality, the size and scale of the fires will be worse.

[Disaffected]

68. Good grief, I'll not waste time trying to respond to all your "points".

Maybe you should especially go preach your Luddite gospel in China and Australia. I'm sure you would get a fine reception.

[PatrickforB]

46. I think we have talked about this before. I am hearing that there are companies that

anticipate having small 'pocket' fusion nuclear reactors power-grid-ready by 2030. Is that what you are referring to?

Otherwise, particularly in areas in drought, hydroelectric power may not be an option. And coal isn't 'clean' by any means.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this because big oil has so polluted the dialog here with pseudo-scientific 'studies' and big-dollar lobying that it is difficult to get to the bottom of much of anything concerning energy.

[USAF Brat]

57. In applications that are not sensitive to energy density,

cobalt is rapidly being phased out. Stationary energy storage systems, which have lower requirements for volume and weight, have largely shifted to lower-cost and safer LFP chemistries. Feb 11, 2026 https://www.tycorun.com/blogs/news/cobalt-in-batteries#:~:text=In%20applications%20that%20are%20not,cost%20and%20safer%20LFP%20chemistries.

Smaller amounts of cobalt will still be in the lithium-ion batteries in portable devices and EVs for the foreseeable future. What we are likely to see is more recycled cobalt coming into the mix, as governments accelerate recycling of lithium-ion batteries and promote recycled minerals to be used in new batteries.Feb 18, 2026 ]https://theconversation.com/blood-cobalt-is-disappearing-from-batteries-and-cheaper-cleaner-batteries-are-arriving-263808#:~:text=Smaller%20amounts%20of%20cobalt%20will,be%20used%20in%20new%20batteries.

[KS Toronado]

13. Rs also like to say when there's no wind blowing

the wind generators will let their homes go dark. So we educate them about batteries and challenge
them to use their smart phone to look it up.

[ultralite001]

14. 🤣🤣🤣

TIA

[wnylib]

70. I had an experience several months ago with a MAGA about wind energy storage.

We were on a bus and she showed me a photo of the wind turbines on the Lake Erie shore at Buffalo. It was a winter scene, with ice and snow. The "windmills" were totally still. She laughed. I said did not get the joke. She said that wind energy is useless when everything freezes.

I said that rhe energy gets stored when the turbines are active and winds off the lake at Buffalo are known to be strong and usually continuous, especially in winter. Plenty of stored energy for windless days. She looked puzzled and hurt that I mentioned storage. Did not say anything more about it.

The driver overheard us and winked at me.

[BradBo]

17. He know that.. he's Trumps jester.

He knows that…he’s Trumps fool is all.
They all want to either push their racist agenda or keep the grift going or both.
They have no personal integrity.

[BurnDoubt]

18. Literally...

Back to the Dark ages.
That may be the way out.
Go Dark for some generations and start again.
Before we kill ourselves and most of the life on our Little Rock.
The Planet will go on until the Sun eats the Earth.
Nya nya nya nya nya nya.

[Joinfortmill]

24. This old girl would just say, it seems it can get complicated.

[hunter]

26. Batteries are a regressive tax on low income people...

... the sole purpose of which is to assuage the guilt that affluent people feel for their environmentally destructive lifestyles.

Seriously, sometimes fascist Republicans owned by the fossil fuel industry can be right about a single issue for entirely the wrong reasons.

Here in the solar utopia of California we have some of the most expensive electricity in the developed world. Outside the municipal power districts (which historically have first dibs on hydroelectric power and storage) electricity costs 40 to 45 cents a kilowatt hour.

Electricity is similarly expensive in "green" Germany and Denmark.

Adding more batteries to California's electric grid will only increases the cost of our electricity further. Solar and wind power are EXPENSIVE. It's not the cost of solar panels and wind turbines alone, it's the cost of integrating them into a reliable electric grid. And no economically feasible amount of battery storage will eliminate the need for fossil fuel backup power.

Like it or not, solar and wind power cannot displace fossil fuels entirely, which is something we need to do.

Believing that solar and wind power will magically eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels is just an alternative form of climate change denial.

You can watch the behavior of California's electric grid here:

https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply

As I write this only 4% of my electricity is being generated by natural gas. Batteries are being charged at a rate of around 9 gigawatts.

The twin nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon are generating a little over 2 gigawatts and they are running 24 hours a day.

The energy mix will change a lot when the sun goes down. You can check it out yourself.

[popsdenver]

44. LOL

or when the rivers run dry.!!!!.......
Hoover Dam has just had to shut down their massive hydroelectric generators for the first time EVER.
They produced a Humongous amount of electricity for Vegas, Phoenix?, SoCal?
With the entire south west burning up in the heat, they are gonna need electricity from somewhere to power all the Air conditioners,, Data Centers, etc
By the end of summer, I predict that all these huge desert cities, supplied by the Colorado River are gonna be lucky to barely have water enough to drink and cook.....And all their fountains, backyard pools, lawns, gardens, data centers, and golf courses will be going Bye-Bye.
Due to the record high temperatures all winter in Colorado, and the drought producing precious little snow, and NO snow pack to slowly melt off all summer long.....we have ZERO melting snow to send downstream..........

[hunter]

67. Hoover dam has never produced as much electricity in a single year...

... as the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Recently it's not even close. It's not a "humongous" amount of power and it won't really be missed.

The same is true of Glen Canyon.

Water flows uphill to money, possibly to an elevation of 2,000 feet or so, which means Phoenix and Los Vegas are probably all right, even if they have to scrimp for a few years.

The people of the Upper Colorado River Basin may be in for some tough times.

Eventually Southern California cities are going to increase their use of desalinization. Arizona is going to pay for that in exchange for California's share of the Colorado River. The first of these exchanges are beginning to happen now.

Cities can afford expensive water -- recycled, transported long distances, desalinated, etc. Agriculture cannot. That'll be the first thing to go away. That too is already happening.

[popsdenver]

69. I guess

we will just have to wait 3-9 months to see how this plays out with Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tucson, etc...........................

[thought crime]

47. The argument against renewable energy is an alternative form of climate change denial.

Believing that only nuclear will magically eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels is just an alternative form of climate change denial.

We should push for all forms of safe clean energy.

[DBoon]

85. "the sole purpose of which is to assuage the guilt that affluent people feel for their environmentally destructive lifes

You mean batteries don't really store electricity?

[Dave Bowman]

27. Doh!

[Manatee]

29. Well, batteries

store electricity. They do not produce it.

[Chasstev365]

31. Ouch!

[twodogsbarking]

33. My outdoor solar lights stay on all night. Are they possessed?

[relogic]

34. The lengths these...

sycophantic oil guzzlers will go to prop up their defense of pollution over clean energy is predictable, but depressing nonetheless.

One wise President- JEC led the way with solar panels on the WH and we’re still fighting these Neanderthals.
Trump would burn every antique in the WH and cuddle up to it’s warmth just to spite every Democratic President from Kennedy on.

[dedl67]

35. Yes, and when the sun goes down there is no photosynthesis and the plants all die.

[dalton99a]

40. +1

[littlemissmartypants]

37. BURGUM...

He needs to worry less about the sun going down and more about the sun going out permanently on him.

He is clearly having cognitive problems. That word salad he spews in the video makes me question his ability to form cogent thoughts and simple basic meaningful sentences at the very least.

Cognitive test time!!

He's been huffing too much natural gas.

[Crawford]

39. An overly simple idea

The only true constant is wave power. 24 hours a day. 3 coast lines. The further out you go the more intense waves often are. We have oil rigs out in those areas because of the profit and need motive. At some point in time, we will not have the oil/gas capacity we have now. It's not an unlimited supply forever. Wars will be fought and lives and treasure lost over it. A certain segment of the population has done everything in their power to curtail the use of wind capture anywhere near the coastline. It just seems to me if all the incessant arguments and investments over oil, gas, solar, wind, hydrogen, batteries and nuclear were to keep going on as they have been why should we expect a solution anytime soon? They all have their faults. The fault of utilizing wave power is strictly a dollars and cents issue that can be solved via a concerted effort of scientists and engineers with a sprinkle of AI. Beyond that, it would cause the least harm to both the on land and underwater environments if done correctly.

[swong19104]

43. Enough with these "The gentleman..."

Politicking comments. We need a politician who can just come out with, “Are you a fucking idiot? You’re a goddamned fucking idiot to not know that there are many storage options to capture the energy and discharge it at night. Why the fuck are you still fucking alive? I’m surprised you can use a fork to eat and not stab yourself in the fucking face. Gods, what a bunch of fucking idiots we have to deal with from this administration. And enter this into the goddamn records.”

[Buddyzbuddy]

50. "Are you a fucking idiot?I love that.

I want that read into the Congressional record.
Our plan for 2027 is to install panels, batteries, charging station and then purchase an electric car.

At sundown, we'll light candles and aim flashlights to energize the panels.

[jmowreader]

45. The same basic argument is made for wind

"Wind turbines don't make electricity when the wind isn't blowing."

Besides that the wind turbines can be wired to batteries - which is actually beneficial even if there's wind because the batteries absorb transients from the turbines to smooth out the power delivery - they put the hub 300 feet in the air above the top of a mountain, where the wind is always blowing, and mount really long blades on them that catch even the smallest winds. Or they put them offshore where not only do they piss off Donald Trump, which is a perpetual joy, they are in an environment of constant wind.

[NNadir]

51. I covered the absurdity of this argument previously, discussing the amount of cobalt required to cover a month of...

...dunkelfluate in that coal dependent hellhole Germany.

The Number of Tesla Powerwalls Required That Would Address the Current German Dunkleflaute Event.

...It is claimed they have a useable capacity of 13.5 kWh after being charged with 14 kWh of electricity, presumably at 25°C, with a putative thermodynamic efficiency - should you choose to believe it - of 96%. The maximum continuous power output is said to be 5 kW. The power requirements to match the combined coal and gas average continuous power of combined German coal and gas over the last 30 days, 44.4 GW would require 8,880,000 million Powerwalls®, to cover each day of Dunkelflaute; for 30 days, given that the wind wasn't blowing that much over that period, 266,400,000 Powerwalls®.

The specifications say that each Powerwall® weighs 114 kg, meaning that 30,369,600,000 kg of Powerwalls® would be required just for Germany.

According to Forbes, 15% of the weight of a Tesla Powerwall is cobalt, mined by Elon's happy Congolese slaves, meaning that the happy Congolese cobalt slaves would be required to mine and isolate 4,555,400 metric tons of cobalt to make Powerwalls® to cover this instance of Dunkleflaute with batteries.

This is 31.63 times as large as the world production of cobalt in 2021 according to the US Geological Survey

I'm sorry!!! I forgot to use "percent talk!" The demand for cobalt to cover month long Dunkleflaute in Germany observed in Nov-Dec 2022 would be 3163% the demand for all the world cobalt supply in 2021....

[Disaffected]

83. The Tesla 3 battery, the one "currently" manufactured

has no cobalt (it is LFP) so the argument is moot. And its continuous power output BTW is 11.5 KW

[NNadir]

97. We're saved then!!!!! A lot has been written about these batteries it turns out, and a full commentary...

...on their external costs and sustainability would require a full post, which I cannot produce quickly, as I'm at a scientific meeting in an unrelated field.

Now that electricity from wind, solar, coal, gas, and petroleum, is "too cheap to meter" this represents an interesting case.

Remind me to get back to you. This should be fun.

[efhmc]

64. Good one. Please explain this very novel and new concept to me. Thanks.

(I still do not know how to make the sarcasm thingy work.)

[D_Master81]

65. He is his boss's servant

That sounds like the nonsensical rumblings of Trump himself. Surprised he didn’t break out a “on a cloudy day they don’t produce electricity either”.

[WarGamer]

71. Although Solar Syastems produce NO POWER at night...

I still think he's clueless.

If you're watching TV at midnight, it's not the midnight moon producing power... it's your batteries delivering power produced during daytime hours.

Financially one must analyze the cost of production, storage and delivery and calculate how long, if ever... the cost will outweigh traditional power delivery.

[oasis]

72. That moment of "sunlight" exposed Burgum to be

Full of Shit.

[Renew Deal]

74. According to Bergum, solar is "intermittent" and not secure

Glad someone brought up batteries. If he has a problem with the technology, fund US manufacturing

[RockRaven]

77. They are going to complain that some other power source is interruptable during

a fossil fuel shortage caused by a war of the Dotard's choosing?

I wish I could call that bold and audacious, but it is absolutely on par for their usual purposeful obliviousness.

[BillJoeBobBeauregard]

78. Genius that one is

Whadda Genuis

[orleans]

80. just have to put in this reply and a response to the reply:

I got the solution!
Lunar Cells
1: work at night
2: never get hot
3: don’t sap the sun’s energy

— Fortunate Son (@mossadwarrior.bsky.social) 2026-05-13T18:18:07.551Z

the posted reply (due to privacy setting?) can't be copied here (by https://bsky.app/profile/theharshtruth.bsky.social )



fortunate son (mossadwarrior) wrote:

I got the solution!
Lunar Cells
1: work at night
2: never get hot
3: don’t sap the sun’s energy

the harsh truth replied:

3 is funny,.. I actually heard a typical backwards inbred MAGA Karen say "Well if we use too much solar we'll run the sun down and crops won't grow."

I was NOT surprised by her stupidity,. I WAS surprised that she knew there was a correlation between sunlight and crop growth.

[Permanut]

81. Is there a Nobel Prize for stupidity?

[Ray Bruns]

96. Yes. It's called the FIFA Peace Prize.

[Aussie105]

82. For the next news flash - wind turbines stop generating when there is no wind!

Damn inconvenient!

Get rid of them!

Oh yeah, batteries!
Highly technical, so Burgum wouldn't understand.

Got a shiny new battery farm here in South Australia.
Currently soaking up grid power, for blackout protection and demand smoothing, but wind farms and solar farms are coming online to feed the batteries via the grid.

Wonder if Burgum has heard of home solar panels and battery type setups?

"Secretary Doug Burgum:
Doug Burgum is the 55th Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. "

Seriously?

[applegrove]

90. You could put solar panels near hydro dams and

use excess electricity to pump water up behind the dam from below - in other words make the dam a battery of stored energy.