RUSH: Have you ever heard of a solar road? I hadn’t until I ran across this story. Solar roads. It’s an actual road made of solar panels. A road! Something you would drive on. Something you would ride your bike on. “Solar roads were promised to be one of the biggest unprecedented revolutions of our time, not just in the field of renewable energy but in the energy sector generally. Covering 2,800 square meters, Normandy’s solar road was the first in the world, inaugurated in 2016…”
You know what? Brian, before I go far, I need to take a screenshot. Folks, just imagine a two-lane road made of solar panels — and it was supposed to revolutionize renewable energy. The point of the story is it has become — the first solar road has become — “a colossal failure.” It’s falling apart. It doesn’t generate anywhere near enough energy. It’s not even close to sustainable. Two years after. It’s the Normandy road in France. “Two years after the world’s first solar road … was set up, it’s turned out to be a colossal failure, according to a report by Le Monde,” the French newspaper.
“The road has deteriorated to a terrible state, it isn’t producing anywhere near the amount of energy it had previously pledged to, and the traffic it has brought with it is causing noise problems,” because driving on solar panels is not quiet. It’s another left-wing invention based on doing good things — social justice, sustainable economy and climate change, blah, blah, blah — and it’s an absolute debacle.
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RUSH: Looky here, folks. We have somebody actually call to weigh in on the solar road, the Normandy road in France. It’s near Normandy. So that would make sense. And it is an absolute colossal failure, as most all of the claims about solar are. As are most of the claims about wind, as are most of the claims about renewal, renewable. It’s all bogus. If there was anything better than fossil fuels, the market would be rewarding that.
Right now there isn’t anything that can come close to providing the energy humanity needs in 2019 like fossil fuels. There just isn’t anything. And when there someday is, that new propellant system, that new propulsion system, that new energy source will make gazillions of dollars. But solar and wind are left-wing activist creations that are all part of the climate change hoax that are designed to fool young people into thinking they’re actually doing something to make their lives meaningful.
There’s no such thing as renewable energy, other than manure. There’s no such thing as sustainable this, I mean, energy has to be continually replaced. You know, I have to laugh when I see a story about solar and wind or whatever and reading the leftist people touting it. And then I’ll see a semi-truck or an airplane take off, and I will ask myself, how in the world would that semi be propelled down the highway with wind and solar? How would it get there?
How would the airplane get even to the end of the runway to try to take off without jet fuel? What mechanism of transporting people and cargo through the air is there? Don’t tell me blimps. We couldn’t. There’s nothing. Markets are amazing. Markets are brilliant. Markets work. The fossil fuel industry reigns supreme, oil reigns supreme. I don’t care what they’ve poisoned young leftist minds to think about it. There simply isn’t anything that comes close to being able to accomplish the needs that are provided by oil and other derivatives of petroleum products.
But I got a guy that wants to weigh in on this. This is Dave in St. Paul, Minnesota. By the way, Dave, since you’re in Minnesota, I saw a news story just now that Fauxcahontas actually drew a crowd of 12,000 people in Minnesota for one of her political rallies. Not that it relates to what you’re gonna talk about. I just wanted to use the occasion of your call to get that bit of information out there. Not asking you to comment on it ’cause I know you want to talk about the solar road.
CALLER: Right. Right. Former environmentalist wacko dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’m very proud to say that you helped me get away from that. I thought I was a liberal when I was in high school and college in the late eighties and early nineties, but I guess I really just had a bad case of Stockholm syndrome.
RUSH: Why was it seductive to you? Tell the audience, what sucked you in about the environmental or climate change, global warming movement, whatever it was, what was it that made you vulnerable to the Stockholm syndrome in the first place?
CALLER: Well, because back when I was — like I said, when I was in high school and college, science still pretty much reigned supreme. They hadn’t quite been as badly corrupted as — well, they may have been, but they were basically corrupted. It’s a lot of money —
RUSH: But you believed they were gospel. You weren’t aware of the fact they’d been corrupted politically?
CALLER: Right. They hadn’t really given me any reason to believe that they had been defrauding us. But now —
RUSH: Do you believe that Bill Nye, The Science Guy, is a legitimate scientist?
CALLER: (laughing).
RUSH: No, seriously! There are people that do. I mean, it’s an act.
CALLER: Pseudoscience guy.
RUSH: There are people that do believe that Bill, he’s quoted, he appears as a regular guest, as an expert on all this.
CALLER: He’s a puppet. He’s a marionette for what I call the climate industrial complex.
RUSH: Well, there you go.
CALLER: There’s about $200 billion invested in wind and solar. This is all around the world, wind, solar, all these are alternative projects. There may be a few that might actually work, but solar is not one of them, especially the farther north you get from the equator.
This is gonna come as a complete shock to some liberals, but the earth actually is round and the further away you get from the equator the fewer photons actually hit the surface of the earth. That’s why it gets colder the farther north you get from the pole. And basically, anything north of about the 35th parallel, think Oklahoma City, anything further north of that your solar panels will work, but they will never generate as much energy for you as was invested in their manufacture and transportation and installation.
And this roadway in France — I did some research on this. This place in Normandy is at about the 49th parallel and that’s on a par with International Falls, Minnesota, better known as frostbite falls. There was just no way — even if it had been made of stronger stuff that it would have been able to withstand people driving on it — I can’t imagine driving on a solar panel. It never would have — it would have been a complete energy loser. You’ve lost energy by installing a solar panel.
RUSH: Just stop and think of the concept. Here you have a road that’s all solar panels, and the panels from the photo I have are about the size of three bricks laid. And solar road I guess was gonna be attractive ’cause all of those solar panels combined in a road was going to generate all kinds of electricity and power while utilizing another purpose, getting people from point A to point B on the road.
But when its heavily trafficked, no sun is reaching the panels because cars are on top of it and then you got bicycle riders. The whole concept is ludicrous, the solar road, but, boy, was it embraced, and it was embraced for the usual reason: “Because we care, because it’s worth trying, Mr. Limbaugh. Europe is worth saving, Mr. Limbaugh. Worth trying. At least we’re trying. You just oppose everything.”
No, I don’t oppose everything. I just oppose stupidity. I oppose the absence of common sense. And now it’s all falling apart. There isn’t a solar project out there that’s actually — unless it’s the size of a freaking Iowa cornfield, and then if you have any cloud cover, you’re sunk, and like a wind farm, if there’s no wind…
I understand people wanting no pollution and sustainable this and sustainable that, but all of this only works, the only reason this cockamamie crap ever is given a chance is because it has been sold as the only way to save the planet from destruction. You take kids from the moment they’re young skulls full of mush and you keep telling them that there isn’t gonna be a habitable climate in 30 years or 40, you’re gonna scare the devil out of them.
And then you’re gonna get ’em to support any cockamamie thing that you come up with. That’s exactly how they’ve done it. Plus tapping into the psychological need that all human beings have to matter, to think that your life has meaning. So it’s been artfully done, but it’s all a crock. All of it is. Anyway, I appreciate the call, Dave. Thanks much.
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RUSH: Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge. That means if listen here regularly you’ll be way ahead of the mainstream in knowing what’s hip and what’s not, what’s popular and what isn’t and where we’re headed. And in that vein, we go to Detroit. This is Tom, and thank you for calling, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Rush. It’s an honor. I do want to disagree with you on a point, though, today on the solar road. I’m an engineer, licensed in Michigan, and when we’re looking at new technologies, whether it’s for roads, it’s kind of like asphalt, when asphalt came on line, you know, not everybody liked it. Everybody wanted concrete.
But in order to really identify whether or not it was gonna work or not, engineers used test strips. They put paved in areas to make sure that it would work. And what they got back from that is engineering information on what part of it would work, what part of it didn’t work, and then they were able to improve on it to make it work. Now, granted, it’s an absolute wrong location for it. You need to do something like in Arizona, or like the previous caller had said about it, you have to do it in an area where you get more sun on it.
RUSH: Stop right there. That’s an excellent point. Any engineer designing this project worth their salt would have known that first thing. This thing was destined to fail based on it’s geographic location and yet they did it anyway.
CALLER: I don’t think all of it failed, okay? Because they’re learning about the pavement itself as well. Can a vehicle drive on it or can it —
RUSH: Would you explain —
CALLER: — will it cause more problems and more maintenance —
RUSH: Could you explain to the curious in this audience the stated purpose objectives and things to be accomplished with a road made of solar panels, what is the purpose?
CALLER: The purpose is to utilize that flat black spot as a place of power management and also travel, do two things at once. Now, granted, wrong location —
RUSH: Okay. Help me out —
CALLER: But I give ’em credit —
RUSH: If we could make roads out of solar panels, we wouldn’t have to turn cornfields into solar panels? Is that what the thinking is?
CALLER: You’re not gonna know it unless you try it first.
RUSH: Now, wait a minute. We know that we can’t get to the Moon in a Mercedes. There are certain things we know before we try it. We have enough history of solar panels to know that something like this in that geographic location is not gonna work.
CALLER: Oh, they definitely could have made it a lot smarter. I agree with you on some of the points of it, but you have to at least try it to see if it’s going to work. Because, you know, look at solar panels? What are they made out of? You know, they’re made out of silicon. They’re made out of other types of materials. And how are those materials gonna hold up under traffic?
RUSH: Right. And then how’s the sun gonna get through all of the traffic that’s on the road —
CALLER: When starting a new technology, you’re designing it very specific, and sometimes those specifics aren’t gonna work. You’re only utilizing some of the knowledge because you have to have some forensic evidence of how that’s gonna hold up.
RUSH: Why isn’t this tested in a lab, in a controlled environment, rather than with public money over a 2400 stretch kilometer road? This sounds like more than a test. This sounds like a bunch of people thinking that they had struck nirvana.
CALLER: You’re making an assumption on that, that they didn’t.
RUSH: Well, no. I think the evidence is in. It’s a total failure! That’s the point of the story. The only reason the story’s up is because it’s a total bomb.
CALLER: I agree with you it’s a failure. Location and probably a lot of it. But at least it was tried. That’s the point that I’m trying to make ’cause at least they’re getting —
RUSH: So we’re playing a game that nobody wins and nobody loses, we get the gold star and the prize from the archaeological team for trying?
CALLER: Well, how much did that have to do when we went to the Moon? How many testings of those things that we failed when we went to the Moon, Rush? Really. I mean, you look at NASA, they failed many times trying to launch a rocket before they got it right.
RUSH: Yeah, but they failed trying things that had not been done before that had value to them in the failure. This involved nothing new! The only thing new here was making a road out of solar panels rather than a cornfield out of solar panels!
CALLER: But that’s just as important as other aspects of it. Traveling on it. That’s just as important, sir. It really is. Now, that’s engineering from an engineering’s perspective.
RUSH: Well, I understand that. But like we have wind tunnels where we can test the aerodynamics of new wings or airplane technology or missile technology or what have you. We don’t launch them toward North Korea not knowing what’s gonna happen. There are controlled environments like the NASA tests that you’re talking about were all toward an objective.
What we’re missing here is that this is an effort corrupted by the political objective of all of this. And that has taken all the science out of it. This was just a boondoggle, and the next one will be too.
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RUSH: Brian, switch it over there real quick on the Dittocam. This is the failed, colossal failure solar road in France. You’ll note that it’s basically two bicycle lanes on the shoulder of an actual road. That is the architect there walking this colossal failure that you see. It’s embarrassing.
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RUSH: I’m gonna wrap this up on the colossal failure that is the solar road and for the people out there watching on the Dittocam today we’re gonna put the picture back up of a designer and a French politician actually walking the solar road. We’ll send this photo up to the RushLimbaugh.com website so you all will be able to see it.
That’s brick sized solar panels or solar panels made to look like bricks. And that woman is walking on the solar road to demonstrate the beauty and the functionality and all that. Now, the story here is from Business Insider. “The world’s first solar road has turned out to be a colossal failure that’s falling apart and doesn’t generate enough energy,” for anything.
Now, we had a guy call, “But, Rush, you have to test these things.” Really? How many stupid ideas that cost billions and billions of dollars are we gonna fall for in this whole renewable energy scam. Solar and wind are two of the biggest scams that are underway out there, all predicated on saving the planet, all predicated on somehow being able to replace fossil fuels in order to save the planet, and they’ve got their hooks into so many young people on this that this has almost become the equivalent of a religious crusade, believing in this kind of stuff.
But here are some details. “Two years after the world’s first solar road — the Normandy road in France — was set up, it’s turned out to be a colossal failure,” according to the French newspaper Le Monde. “The road has deteriorated to a terrible state, it isn’t producing anywhere near the amount of energy it had previously pledged to.”
Speaking of testing, is it not already known what kind of output we get from solar panels, and isn’t it known it’s practically nothing? Does anybody remember the firm Solyndra? Does anybody remember what that was? What was that, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) It was a scam to reward Obama donors. Exactly right. A bunch of people donated to Obama, and in the process, Obama didn’t pay ’em back, the government did.
The government gave them money to invest in solar projects, solar panels, solar this. We couldn’t compete in the solar panel market because guess where they come from much cheaper? Can you say ChiComs? Can you say the Japanese? But the people getting into this knew in advance it wasn’t gonna work. The whole point was it wasn’t gonna work. It was a payback scheme.
Solyndra eventually shut its doors, went bankrupt, but everybody involved in Solyndra was rewarded for having donated to Obama. I remember the first home I bought — I don’t count the one in Kansas City. It was a shack. It was barely standing. The first home that I bought in Sacramento had two solar panels on it, on the roof. It was in a new development out there, and the real estate agents selling me the shouse, “See those solar panels up there?”
“Yeah.”
“These are gonna save you so much money.”
I said, “How much?”
“Well, you’ll notice on your bill.”
“How will I notice it on my bill? Is there gonna be a portion of the bill what the bill would be without the panels versus what it is with?”
“Well, no, no. You’ll just know.”
“How will I know how much I’m saving?” It turned out that the builder had to put those things on the roof in order to get the permit for his development. There was no benefit to those two solar panels on my roof, and nobody could ever show me what the benefit was.
I remember one Christmas a very thoughtful friend got me one of these external charge cases for my iPhone. Guess what it supposedly was going to charge the phone with? It was all solar panels on the back. And they said, “Yeah, this is great, Rush. You’ll never have to plug this thing in. Just always keep it outside in the sunlight with it on your phone, and your phone will stay at 100 percent.”
I said, “Really? This is cool. Why, this is cutting edge.” So I put the solar panel charger on my phone. I was in Hawaii at the time. It was Christmastime so I was able to test it. I put my phone on this external battery case charger, I turned the phone upside down leaving the panels pointed toward the sun, I’m near the equator, I’m in Hawaii. It lost charge. My phone lost charge.
It was a total scam. There wasn’t enough solar panel power to charge anything. Even if it’s all solar panels on the back of a charging case the size of — iPhones were smaller then. And wind is the same thing. There is no way either of these two technologies can come close to replacing fossil fuels. They can’t even come close to replacing 10% of fossil fuels.
Oh, and there’s a companion story to this. I’ve now, like always happens at this time of the program, I’ve got so many stacks, and I don’t remember where I put what, but there are new guidelines from the EPA on what to do with your thermostat now in order to save money and save the environment. From myfox.com. So this is some local Fox News site.
“Set Your Air Conditioning to 78 Degrees During the Day, 82 Degrees at Night, Federal Agencies Recommend.” Now, this right here is why socialism has to be defeated. This would wipe out the economy. This alone would kill half the country.
“Looking to beat the heat without breaking the bank? Energy Star, the federal program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy, has some tips — but you might not like them. Energy Star recommends that, in order to reduce costs and energy usage, you should set your thermostat as high as comfortably possible through the summer.
“Specifically, they say you should set your thermostat to 78 degrees while you’re home. Spending the day out? Turn that thermostat up 7 degrees to 85. Then, when you finally hit the hay, the federal program recommends setting your thermostat to 82 degrees.”
You want to talk about a setback, a technological and progress setback. And all of this is coming as the United States has finally become a net exporter of energy. It’s not a cost problem because of fracking. This is not Jimmy Carter’s malaise economy. We don’t have gas lines. There isn’t an energy shortage. There’s no reason to do this. The planet is not in peril. The planet is not fragile like they want us to believe.
“If you’re using a ceiling fan, you can even turn up the temperature another 4 degrees without losing any comfort,” at night. That’s right. So turn your thermostat to 86 at night while you have your ceiling fan glaring down on you in your bedroom. Classic socialist solutions. Let’s roll back the technological and progress clock. These people are dangerous, and they’re silly, and they’re ignorant at the same time.