Fareed Zakaria: Bernie Sanders’ Green Energy Plan Is ‘Magical Thinking’

RUSH EXCERPT:

ZAKARIA: "Almost 15% from 2005 to 2016. According to carbon brief, the single largest cause for that was the switch from coal-fired power plants to natural gas ones, 33% of the reduction. The adoption of solar power, by contrast, accounted for just 3%. Nevertheless, Bernie Sanders is opposed to natural gas. He opposes all new fracking and he seeks to ban it nationwide within five years. He also intends to shut down rapidly all gas plants. Now, wind and solar account for less than 5% of U.S. Energy consumption. So his plan would require an exponential jump in renewables in just a few years. And even if that happened, it would be extremely difficult to replace gas as a source for electricity. You see, solar and wind are intermittent sources so they require a backup source in order to provide electricity to homes, offices, and factories 24/7. Sanders has a solution: Storage. If we had the means to store electricity on a massive scale, such as in batteries, there would be no longer need for backup power. But we are not even close to having the kind of storage capacity we would need to make this work.”