One of the organizations I support is the Citizen’s Advisory Board (CUB). CUB’s Executive Director David Kolata, and some well-meaning legislators are pushing the Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2019. It was designed to get more people into electric cars and more importantly put Illinois into a dream of 100% renewable energy. Now that the state has figured a way to have electric cars pay a road tax. Electric cars now must pay for the roads they use.

The other pillar is a frankly stupid idea that CUB has and with no business being involved since it isn’t in their purview. A goal of 100% renewable is a dream that will not be possible for decades. The dream is power would be produced during the day and the excess stored in batteries for use at night. We do not remotely have the technology to store enough power for use at today’s nighttime use or even compensate for cloudy, windless days.

Electric cars are supposed to be recharged at night from the renewable source which means battery storage. A million or more cars trying to recharge at night plus all the other uses would probably mean enough batteries to go to the moon and back. Again it is a stupid idea.

What we need is to keep and even build more of is nuclear power plants. Nukes should be used as a base load supplier. Their output can be reduced during sunny, windy days and increased for night charging and bad producing days. We need to work out a way to keep the nukes. We have to have a real clean energy policy in Illinois. Lockout the lobbyists and listen to scientists and engineers that have actual knowledge and aren’t putting money in campaign pockets!