California Solartopia

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1. 90.7 KPFK, Los Angeles
2. Was there an Adam? Was there an Eve?
3. Or did we evolve from what we conceived?
4. Either way, we got what was needed
5. When the sun shone down on the Garden of Eden
6. Don't you know we're going to have a Solotopia, Solotopia, Solotopia.
7. Don't you know we're going to have a Solotopia all over gasoline.
8. Hey everybody, this is Harvey Sonny Wasserman back with the California Solotopia Show and the Solotopia Show for the Pacifica Radio Network.
9. We are glad to be with you.
10. We are taping in the virtual studios of KPFK, Los Angeles, 90.7 FM.
11. We are engineered by the great Gary Scott, produced by Milo Reese.
12. And my co-host is Kevin Camps, the executive director of Don't Waste Michigan.
13. And we're joined today by the fabulous Paul Gipe in Bakersfield, who's a friend of the
14. show, been with us many times.
15. I actually knew Paul way back when he had hair, and now he's on the brink of publishing his eighth book on wind power.
16. Nobody knows more, literally nobody knows more about wind power in this country than Paul Geip.
17. We are broadcast at several other radio stations around the Pacifica network, one in Columbus, Ohio, WGRN, actually.
18. And we're hurting a number of Pacifica affiliate stations around the country, including WGRN 91.9 in Columbus, Ohio, KCEI 90.1 FM in Taos, New Mexico, KPPQ 104.1 in Ventura, California, and others around California and around the United States, indeed around the world.
19. And today we're going to talk about one of the most important things in the world, something the guy who's currently in the White House, let's call him that, really likes to fight, which is wind power.
20. And Paul Geip is our guy, man on the scene here in Bakersfield, who knows, as I say, more about wind than just about anybody else in the world.
21. And, Paul, am I wrong to say that the real reason Donald Trump hates wind power is because it competes with his investments in nuclear?
22. Is that a stretch?
23. Harvey, no, the reality is much, much simpler than that.
24. Oh, simpler, simpler.
25. Much simpler. They put four wind turbines off one of his golf courses in Scotland and he just went ballistic.
26. He went to the Scottish Parliament, addressed them on how they were destroying Scotland, and they laughed him out of the Parliament.
27. Well, you know, got to hand it to those Scots. I mean, isn't Shrek from Scotland?
28. But, you know, at this point in time, Paul Geip, we know that Donald Trump has personally invested in nuclear power.
29. He is essentially the sole regulator of nuclear power in the United States, having fired the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which no one has ever done before.
30. He got the NRC rewriting regulations on so safety if you can call it that on radioactive emissions coming from nuclear power plants Nobody knows more about all this than Kevin Camps but we get back to Kevin
31. in a minute. Paul, what is the state of wind power now in the United States of America? Is it cheap,
32. is it clean, and is it moving ahead? Cheap, clean, and moving ahead to the consternation of
33. Donald Trump and his regime, they're continuing to be built around the country. And I suspect a
34. number of these offshore projects that he's trying to stop with all his power, they're going to be
35. built as well. The question I have is, will we prosecute those oil companies that take these
36. bribes from him to not build offshore wind? That's the question I have for you. And Kevin,
37. is, do you think we will prosecute these oil companies for accepting these bribes
38. after the regime is thrown out.
39. Well, is the Pope Protestant?
40. That's the real question.
41. But let's talk about this situation.
42. It is unprecedented, I believe in U.S. history,
43. that a guy in the White House would take public money
44. and give it or try to give it to wind companies
45. to cancel their leases.
46. You know, state governments, including California,
47. I'm not sure about Michigan, Kevin, but New Jersey, I know,
48. they are now suing the regime to stop the transfer of public money
49. to privately owned wind companies to not build wind powers.
50. I guess they got the model from all the farmers that get paid not to grow crops.
51. Paul, in your expertise here, you asked, are they going to get prosecuted?
52. The real question is, are these leases actually going to be canceled?
53. Or do you believe these wind projects will go ahead?
54. Ultimately, the wind projects will go ahead.
55. It may not be the oil companies that do it.
56. But the wind is still there and the sea, the ocean is still there.
57. Of course, lots of land in the United States to build wind farms.
58. And what's good to see is that every time the court has been approached by the state of California, New Jersey, they rule in our favor.
59. This is obviously illegal. It's never been done before.
60. And the best way to explain it is imagine if a Democrat had done this, the outrage you would hear.
61. Well, you know, Kevin Camps, you're in a state, Michigan, where they're trying to restart a dead nuclear plant.
62. And meanwhile, Lake Michigan, to the left of you, has almost unlimited wind resources.
63. Is anybody putting windmills in the Great Lakes at this point in time?
64. Well, before we move on from bribery and energy corporations, you mentioned New Jersey.
65. Holtec is based there.
66. Holtec owns Palisades.
67. Holtec is one of Trump administration's favorite companies in the nuclear industry to throw
68. huge amounts of money at, taxpayer dollars, into the hundreds of millions or even billions of
69. dollars if Holtec gets its way at Palisades. And Holtec itself has a little bribery problem.
70. They were implicated in a bribe in Alabama at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant.
71. It was a $55,000 bribe. The only person who got in trouble was the official at the TVA,
72. Tennessee Valley Authority, who accepted the bribe. Yes, Holtec paid a $2 million fine,
73. and they were banned and barred from doing business with the TVA for something like 60 days but they saw it as a cost of doing business And then what Holtec did was they lied on a tax break application in New Jersey and said they
74. never been banned and barred from doing business with any government agency. TVA is a government
75. agency. So the AG of New Jersey is still trying to claw back $260 million in ill-gotten state
76. of New Jersey taxpayer funds, which Holtec has already used to build its headquarters.
77. in New Jersey. But to answer your question, there is tremendous wind power resources in Michigan,
78. both on land and offshore. Don't take it from me, take it from the former governor of the state of
79. Michigan and the former energy secretary of the Biden administration, Jennifer Granholm,
80. who had a offshore wind power site study, which I praise every chance I get. It looked at Southern
81. Lake Michigan, it looked at Northern Lake Michigan, and it looked at Saginaw Bay where it empties into
82. Lake, Huron, tremendous wind resources, a small fraction of what's available. And they applied 25
83. criteria, avoid fisheries, avoid historic shipwrecks. The list goes on, avoid shipping lanes.
84. And they found these places and nothing ever happened with it, unfortunately. And then when
85. Granholm became energy secretary, all of a sudden she's very pro-nuclear at Diablo Canyon, at
86. Palisades, and the list goes on. So a huge missed opportunity for the past 15 plus years in Michigan
87. at this point. Well, I think that Holtec, a New Jersey-based corporation, should change its name
88. from Holtec Inc. to Baxish Incorporated. I think that would be really good. But Paul,
89. Guy, what is the status in California of wind power? We have a ton of windmills
90. onshore in places like Tehachapi, Palm Desert, and so on.
91. I don't think, are there any offshore wind operating machines in the California region?
92. And what's the prospect for offshore wind?
93. No, there's none today.
94. And it'd probably be another 10 or 15 years before we would see anything.
95. The issue in California, of course, is it's very deep.
96. So they're going to have to be floating offshore.
97. And that's the technology.
98. It's only now being developed in Europe, of course, and in China, but not here.
99. I want to go back to the Great Lakes for a minute.
100. Canada, the province of Ontario, was way ahead of all the American states that border the lakes in developing an offshore project.
101. Unfortunately, Toronto Hydro backed off of that project.
102. They didn't follow my suggestion, which was to start a demonstration project so that people could get comfortable with it because they were proposing something that was within the viewshed of the city of Toronto.
103. And anybody who owns property on the shore, of course, is a wealthy person and they are influential politically.
104. And then subsequently, a conservative government came to power.
105. Not only said no offshore wind, but they don't want wind anywhere.
106. And they canceled contracts.
107. So just like Trump's buying out, trying to buy out these oil companies from building projects, the premier in Ontario actually canceled contracts and was forced, not willingly, was forced to pay for those contracts because those companies weren't allowed to build.
108. And one of those projects was already finished.
109. Literally had to take the turbines out of the ground.
110. No, it was finished.
111. Well, first of all, Paul, I know you worked for many years up in Canada, and I always
112. admired your ability to learn how to speak Canadian But we are really in the situation now This is what beyond staggering Were they actually taking down wind turbines that were put up already
113. This was a particular project that wasn't finished.
114. And he was Rob Ford or Doug Ford, the brothers.
115. Currently, it's Doug Ford who runs the province now.
116. he campaigned on a policy to cancel all the wind contracts.
117. Well, he couldn't cancel all of them that were operating, but there was one project that was finished
118. but it hadn't started operating and they actually had to take the turbines down.
119. So that happens. And what you're going to love, and I know Kevin's going to love this,
120. is right now the province of Ontario is
121. planning to put more money into nuclear power.
122. Well, I think what happened with Premier Ford
123. is that there was a wind turbine nearby his home, and it blew away his cocaine.
124. Isn't that what happened?
125. That was Rob Ford, and that was the mayor of Toronto,
126. but his brother now is the premier of the province of Ontario.
127. So they were probably both in the business.
128. Well, you know, it's astounding.
129. This is the Solar Tropics Show, California Solar Tropics and KPFK in L.A.
130. co-host is Kevin Camps. We're with the great wind energy expert, Paul Geip. We're going to take a
131. short musical break right now, and we're going to come back and talk about the wind power that
132. really is incredibly productive and cheap in California and in the Midwest, not in Michigan,
133. where Kevin Camps is, but next door or nearby in Minnesota. So we'll come back
134. in a minute and talk more about wind power.
135. Give me the power of the sun Give me the steady flow of the waterfall
136. Give me the spirit of living things as they return to clay
137. Just give me the restless power of the wind Give me the comforting glow of the wood fire
138. But please take all your atomic poison power away.
139. Okay, this is Harvey Sonny Wasserman back with the Solar Topia Show at the Pacifica Radio Network.
140. We are produced at the virtual studios of KPFK in Los Angeles.
141. We're talking with Paul Guipe in Bakersfield, California.
142. Paul, let's get right down to it.
143. How cheap and how successful has wind power been?
144. I was at a conference in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1975.
145. There was a professor there named William Hieronymus.
146. He said that there would be windmills, wind turbines, five megawatts.
147. Everybody laughed at him.
148. And, well, Paul, what happened?
149. I thought five megawatts was beyond belief.
150. And now they're 10, 15, 16, and 20 megawatt offshore machines in European waters and off the coast of China.
151. And, of course, probably some of those will be proposed for the United States as well.
152. Well, I don't like to get into how cheap wind is because wind, like any technology, you have to pay enough for the electricity so that they can maintain these things.
153. And actually, you want people like Siemens and General Electric to make a profit so they'll build these things.
154. Right now, both companies are really hurting.
155. So whatever they've been selling these projects for,
156. three or four cents a kilowatt hour,
157. was too low. Maybe they need to bump it up to like four or five cents a kilowatt hour.
158. And of course, they're competing with solar. And solar is even cheaper than wind. And we got solar
159. being built all over the country. And one of the things I think you need to do, you and Kevin,
160. in the future is talk about this balcony solar or plug-in solar, whatever you want to call it.
161. There's a proposal here in California. It was passed out of committee. I don't think it's
162. passed the legislature. Probably won't this year, but probably will next year. Plug-in solar in
163. California. Anyway, solar is cheaper than wind. Now, I'm a wind guy. That's okay. That's fine.
164. We need all of it. We need wind. We need solar. We need geothermal. We need biomass, biogas.
165. How do wind, and then we'll talk about batteries in a minute, but how do wind and solar compare
166. to King Kong, coal, oil, nukes, and gas? Where is the competition between wind and solar versus
167. fossil and nuclear? Well, first of all, Harvey, long past the days where you say it's all about
168. price or the cost of electricity, we now see that it's a political decision what kind of resources
169. you want to use. It's not about economics anymore. If you've got a government that says,
170. I don't want windmills because I don't like them. I don't like them around my golf courses.
171. That's a political decision. It has nothing to do with the economics. Wind and solar
172. in the United States today are a fraction of the cost of coal or natural gas even.
173. And, of course, there's no comparison to nuclear.
174. You mentioned earlier in a program Trump was invested in nuclear power.
175. I'm thinking, that's great.
176. That's good.
177. I couldn't be happier.
178. Put some of that Bitcoin money that he's made this past year, put that in nuclear.
179. I'd love it.
180. Well, okay.
181. Kevin Camps, where do we stand with renewables in the state of Michigan?
182. Paul has mentioned balcony solar, which we'll talk about in a minute.
183. We had on our show not long ago Scott Wiener, who just won his primary for Nancy Pelosi's seat in the Bay Area.
184. And he successfully put into the state legislature in California a balcony solar bill,
185. which will allow us to plug in a small amount of solar into our houses without governmental oversight.
186. which is great. Is there anything like that happening in Michigan?
187. You know, just in my travels, I see, you know, large-scale solar photovoltaic farms going in.
188. Unfortunately, it's happening on farmland, so that's controversial. You see the occasional
189. wind farm in places like the border between Indiana and Ohio that's been there for decades.
190. Also up in Wisconsin on the Lake Michigan shoreline, you mentioned Minnesota before.
191. The potential from that Governor Granholm study back in the 2010 era was that there's 300,000 megawatts electric of wind power offshore available to the state of Michigan.
192. And like I said, if you tap a small, a very small single digit percentage of that, it would displace all of the nuclear power in Michigan easily, readily.
193. We have on our expert witness team opposing the Palisades reactor restart, Dr. Mark Jacobson, professor at Stanford University, and he did a detailed study of how wind and solar storage and efficiency blow new nuclear out of the water economically in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
194. but also the restart of Palisades has gone remarkably badly They already gotten billion in bailouts And what is there to show for it They are two years behind schedule on the restart They talking very confidently
195. about the small modular reactor new build scheme there. As Dr. Jacobson pointed out to the Nuclear
196. Regulatory Commission, this is the wrong way to go if we're talking about greenhouse gas reductions.
197. Well, let's talk about what's really changed most radically in the last few months, Paul Geip, is batteries.
198. Now, I just read a piece in the last week claiming that either the Chinese or Toyota or both are on the brink of introducing for commercial sale a car that can get 900 miles on a single battery charge.
199. Is that credible?
200. Well, Harvey, I'm not going to fall for the bait to say whether that's credible or not.
201. What I'm going to say is we don't need it.
202. I don't care if the Chinese or the Americans or the Japanese or the Germans can build a battery, a car can go a thousand miles.
203. It doesn't matter.
204. We have cars that work today.
205. We need to use what we have.
206. I've been saying this about renewable energy, solar, wind, and geothermal for almost 50 years.
207. We've had the technology.
208. It's a willingness to use it.
209. It's a public policy question to use it.
210. And in the case of electric vehicles, each consumer out there can make a choice themselves, just like balcony solar.
211. You can put a few panels on the front of your lawn, or you can buy an EV.
212. An EV is even better because we get so much of our emissions.
213. I live in Bakersfield, California.
214. We have worse air quality than Los Angeles, and we're proud of it.
215. They brag about how bad our air quality is here.
216. They don't want to drive EVs here.
217. They want to drive big pickup trucks blowing black smoke out.
218. You need to buy EVs.
219. Don't wait for the Chinese, and certainly never wait for Toyota.
220. Well, but, you know, every other country in the world is going to have within a year or two accessible, reasonably priced automobiles that can get, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles on a single charge.
221. It's just not going to happen in the U.S.
222. You don't need it.
223. We've got cars now.
224. I have a Chevy Bolt.
225. That's the cheapest EV other than a used car.
226. Brand new car.
227. cheapest EV on the U.S. market. It gets 280 miles per charge. Who cares? That's plenty enough. We
228. have so many charging stations in California. Now, Michigan might be a little behind the curve,
229. but I follow this closely, and you've got a lot of chargers in DC fast chargers in Michigan as
230. well. In fact, you have a company in Red E in Michigan that's putting chargers all over the
231. country. So we have cars can do what people need to do now. They don't need to wait.
232. I think that's probably true. And I think that, you know, the era of the ice,
233. we have a double ice problem, internal combustion engines and the border patrol,
234. and they're about equally evil, actually. Kevin, you're in the state that used to have an automobile
235. industry. Do they still make cars in Michigan? You know, we mentioned Canada earlier. There was
236. a big write-up in either the Washington Post or the New York Times some months ago now about,
237. well you know Trump has messed with Canada enough times that Canada has now teamed up in the auto industry with China on EVs not the U And so the U companies just like with renewables are getting left in the dust
238. on EVs because of our stupidity or that of our president. So unfortunately, there have been some
239. rollbacks and some very promising visions for EVs and battery storage in Michigan,
240. And not just installation or use, but export, like Paul mentioned earlier.
241. Export to the country of these technologies.
242. We're just missing the boat.
243. That's how foolish we are.
244. Well, and also the country to the south of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, the president of Mexico.
245. Did anybody ever believe that Mexico would have a president named Claudia Scheinbaum?
246. Oh, my God.
247. But she came out.
248. It's within the past week or so.
249. and introduced a Mexican-made electric car.
250. I mean, there we go.
251. I think we're going to be the only country in the world left
252. that's not making electric vehicles.
253. But to go back to wind, Paul, I once was in the business.
254. Well, I was trying to be in the business.
255. Are you in a business where you don't make any sales but trying?
256. Is that still in the business?
257. I was selling windmills in northern Ohio, and it was very clear to everybody in the rural areas of northern Ohio that the entire state could produce all its electricity with windmills.
258. No doubt about it, wind turbines.
259. This is in the early 2000s.
260. And the same legislature waltzed in and basically banned wind power in the state of Ohio.
261. Now, the technology has advanced so far, Paul, correct me, but I think that the windmills, the state of the technology is that they've basically gotten around the ban that the Ohio put in on a de facto basis.
262. But nonetheless, it's clear to me that all these states in the Midwest, even Ohio, not known for its wind, could get at the very least a substantial portion of its electricity, clean, cheap, safe, fast to build from wind.
263. Is that a fantasy in your well-informed world?
264. one of the one of the ways that we do that harvey is getting the damn republicans out of the state
265. legislature in ohio because they're the ones who uh were caught bribing getting bribed by
266. the nuclear utility in the state well come on it was it was only 63 million dollars
267. smart change these days of course
268. that wouldn't even pay for a party at mar-a-lago you know i mean exactly but back in those days
269. when Ohio did it, that was real money.
270. Yes.
271. And those were the exact same people
272. that said we don't want windmills in Ohio
273. because, well, we have cheap nuclear.
274. Oh, yes.
275. And listen, before we lose track,
276. our great producer has informed me
277. that July is a plastic-free month.
278. And there's a great organ,
279. look it up online, plastic-free July.
280. and from your lips to God's plastic-free ears.
281. But let's see if we can do that.
282. The guy, Larry Householder, 20 years in prison for taking a mere $61 million.
283. I mean, is there no justice in this country?
284. This is the Solartopia show on the Pacific Affiliate Network I produced at the virtual studios of KPFK in Los Angeles This time just flies by with you guys We produced by Mario Reis engineered by Gary Scott My co is
285. Kevin Camps, our frequent guest. And Paul, you're always welcome on Wind Power, Paul Geip in
286. Bakersfield. Paul, for all the listeners who want to invest in wind, what is your advice here? Do we
287. move forward with wind power? Does it have a world in the era of Donald Trump and beyond?
288. Yes, because Donald Trump ain't going to last forever. He may not even last his full term.
289. And depending on how the midterms turn out, we have to win back both the House and we hope the
290. Senate and the presidency as well. And what I like to see is that we need to run these Republicans
291. who have acquiesced, who've given power, unlimited power to Donald Trump to do these things that are
292. absurd on the face, we need to run all them out of the country as well. We are a nonpartisan
293. operation. There have been plenty of Democrats, too, unfortunately, who have stabbed us in the
294. back on wind, including Gavin Newsom, who stabbed us at Diablo Canyon. That we've got to deal with.
295. Kevin Camps, our last word from Michigan.
296. Just wanted to point out that that $61 million bribe that got Larry Householder 20 years in prison, the former Ohio State House Speaker, the U.S. attorney who pressed those charges said it was the largest racketeering scandal in Ohio history, which is really saying something.
297. It was a $1.5 billion bailout, mostly of nuclear, but also of coal.
298. And some of those coal burners were uranium enrichment electricity suppliers.
299. So it was a massive nuclear and fossil fuel giveaway.
300. Well, listen, speaking of giveaways, I actually have been at the top of a windmill in Denmark.
301. I've never been colder in my life, but I can report that they do work.
302. the electricity is ridiculously cheap and getting cheaper. And I'm going to predict that the only
303. outcome that's of importance on the Trump regime fighting these wind sites, trying to bribe the
304. oil companies to not build wind, is that eventually more efficient and more cost-effective
305. windmills will be put in those same spots. So Paul Geib, thank you, Kevin Camps, Gary Scott,
306. Maya Larissa and everybody out there. Remember, no nukes and we will see you in Solartopia. I'm
307. Harvey Sonny Wasserman. We'll be back again next week in the land of green energy.
308. Don't you know we're gonna have a Solartopia, Solartopia, Solartopia.
309. Don't you know we're gonna have a Solartopia all over gasoline.
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