(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
A Note to Readers
The Feature this week is a report by my associate Brian Lantz, “Why Baseload Electrical Power? A Necessity Not An Option.”
Nothing is more important in revitalizing the U.S. as an industrial super-power than that the current collapsing energy grid be doubled, then tripled, over the next two decades.
Brian writes in the first two paragraphs of the report:
“To power-up the U.S. economy we must leap-frog to technologies utilizing ever higher energy flux densities, as both applied to the cross-section of work area, as in the factory and elsewhere, and as utilized across the area of the entire nation — our farms, mines, waterworks, factories, cities and towns — as a whole.
“Here, the topic is one which has otherwise been virtually canceled; the necessity of baseload electrical power. The capital-intensive sources of energy to power our industries and advanced manufacturing, and power Americans to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The electric power industry is arguably the most capital-intensive industry in the United States. At the same time the availability of reasonably priced and reliable energy drives our industrial and manufacturing production. Today, our nation must both drive down the cost of energy and power-up, as Donald J. Trump has singularly committed to do.”
The U.S. Drought Monitor and map this week show that California has begun to enter an acceleration of the the deepening drought. While not yet technically in a drought, the state is drying out.
“Persistent drought in the West over the last two decades has limited the amount of electricity that hydropower dams can generate, costing the industry and the region billions of dollars in revenue.”
In this week’s coverage of the U.S. Presidential campaign I highlight the real issue that shall most likely determine who will be the next President– the economy. Three articles highlight that: One on the exposure of the lies of the Biden administration on real job creation over the past year being almost one million fewer than the administration had reported. The second headline is the report on the continued collapse of U.S. birth rates. The third is a J.D. Vance column, “Harris Wages War on U.S. Energy.”
Kamala Harris has proposed to fight inflation by outlawing “price gouging,” by grocery stores, and the reactions from grocery store associations has been, as should be expected, extremely negative. Yet the real issue is discussed in a later article in this report,”Food Inflation? Farm American and Bust Up the Ag Cartels!”
The Colorado River, because of a decent snow pack the last two winters is, for now, out of serious danger of the nation’s two largest reservoirs– Lake Mead and Lake Powell– falling to levels potentially reaching “dead pool.” All the states receiving water from the river will remain in “Tier One” restrictions, limiting allocations to Nevada, Arizona and Mexico.
The last item this week is the Feature, as discussed above.
