And will the public want to buy EVs when more and more of them find out how and where the battery components come from and how they are sourced? Will Americans eventually protest EVs and stand up for the rights of the children forced to work in the mines to get the materials needed for the vehicles?

Will Americans finally stand up to protest the environmental destruction from the mining of the lithium and other materials needed for the batteries? Or will Americans ignore the fact that EVs are NOT environmentally friendly nor are they anywhere near carbon-neutral when the production of how they are made is taken into consideration.

Maybe someone should write a story called “I-Electric Vehicle” like the story of the pencil so people know what’s going on.

I guess, perhaps, if all of the destruction of the environment is done in another country, it’s okay???

But back to the Center Square article and the fact that Michigan’s electric grid can’t deliver on Whitmer’s clean energy plans. The media outlet says, “The current grid is designed for fossil fuels that give baseline energy, not intermittent energy produced when the sun shines and the wind blows.”

They report that the U.S. Energy Information Administration says renewables provided only 12% of Michigan’s electricity net generation in 2022 and wind energy accounted for about two-thirds of that power.

Sounds like a great plan for the future, right? Depending on something that’s not dependable. Depending on sources that currently don’t produce anywhere close to the amount of energy that is needed for the residents and businesses in the state.

So what DOES produce the energy we need? Well that same U.S. Energy report lists things like fossil fuel, natural gas, motor gas/ethanol and nuclear power in the state’s profile of energy that was consumed in Michigan in 2021. But that’s not what the Democrats in Michigan want residents to use, even if their plans don’t appear to be sustainable.

“So to make sure our lights stay on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, we will be importing power,” Christine Williams said in a video interview with Center Square. Yes, it looks like Michigan will have to import energy from wind plains from far-away places like Kansas and Iowa.

Williams is the manager of marketing and communications for ITC Holdings Corp. The company is the largest independent electricity transmission company in the country and operates more than 8,700 circuit miles of power transmission lines and 367 substations that serves 10 million Michiganders.

With a Whitmer 100% clean energy goal for 2040 for our utilities, switching the state’s current energy sources over to undependable energy sources will need to be done at a record pace while the politicians keep retiring our coal plants.

The Center Square reports, “The current grid is designed to create a baseline load generation, meaning it provides instant energy, which nuclear, natural gas, coal and other energy sources provide. The most recent energy breakdown: Michigan aims to reach 100% renewable energy by 2040 but the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. So, Michigan must import energy from other states.”

Williams points out the obvious problem with the plan of the Democrats to rely on wind and solar. She says, “It’s cloudy right now. So if I were to just be reliant on solar right now, I might be in a heap of trouble if I didn’t know that the grid could move it from other states to make sure it was still available.”

So, in a well thought-out move (not), the Whitmer administration doesn’t appear to have looked into or planned very adequately for any infrastructure issues before they came up with their clean energy mandates.

In a 2023 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineer’s, Michigan received a C- for their infrastructure which they say is on the low end of being “mediocre” and requiring attention. Their recommendations include enhancing and expanding dedicated funding for infrastructure at state and local levels; proactively address workforce development challenges; and to focus planning and design on resilience and reliability.

In the report, they maintain: “Adding clean energy sources while maintaining high service reliability is difficult with aging transmission lines and last-mile connections. Infrastructure improvements should focus on resilience and rates should account for life-cycle costs while keeping energy affordable to stakeholders.”

But it appears to be up to private companies to keep the lights on in Michigan and to fix some of those infrastructure problems that the state has. Williams says that her company, ITC, plans to lay almost 100 miles of new transmission lines “solely meant to make sure the lights stay on.” The project should be completed by 2030.

Although building the lines will only take about a year, holding all of the public meetings and getting regulatory permitting and approval will take up most of the time. The lines being built will connect into Indiana and the Midwest to improve Michigan’s grid reliability. Of course, our grid reliability and availability of resources which wouldn’t be a problem if the Democrats didn’t have a war on the state and the country’s current reliable energy sources to begin with.

Williams says that the lines being built will also help enhance grid resilience to “better withstand extreme weather, expand access to generation resources for electric consumers by reducing transmission system congestion, and improve the distribution of lower-cost energy resources, including renewables.”

So if the lights DO stay on after 2040, it looks like we will have ITC Holdings Corp. to thank.

The problem with the Democrat party’s laser-focus on climate change, clean energy and EVs is that they often don’t deal in reality. They deal in dreams and future goals even if they don’t have feasible plans – and even if their dreams aren’t the same dreams of the majority of Michiganders or Americans.

Democrats often decide what they want to happen and then push things as hard as they can until they are stopped by litigation or getting voted out of office. Instead of letting the market decide the course of the future and instead of having the American consumer in charge, the Democrats make decisions for us like we are petulant and ignorant children.

And regarding their clean energy agenda, their plans are most likely going to end up being a real detriment to Michiganders and the rest of America. The freedoms we were once allowed will be taken away from us. The ability we once had to have reliable and affordable cars and electricity will be gone, replaced by mandated purchases and rules about how we can live and what we can do.