Metaphorically, of course. “Burgum” is current Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum (R-ND), who was also Governor of North Dakota in a prior life.
Burgum: "When the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there's no solar energy produced, and yet we're subsidizing these things that are intermittent, unreliable, and expensive. We've gotta get back to base load."
Burgum: “When the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there’s no solar energy produced, and yet we’re subsidizing these things that are intermittent, unreliable, and expensive. We’ve gotta get back to base load.”
And Burgum apparently hasn’t heard of batteries. Elon Musk, who once made a bet on supplying batteries to Australia, and quietly supplied batteries to Puerto Rico after a hurricane hit, must be steamed[1].
So what’s going on? This is not just a bunch of old men – and women, heaven forbid – clinging to the old ways. The President may be, but not these folks. No, these folks have substantial investments in doing things the old way. They’ve built up financial structures in which fossil fuel companies play a critical role.
And their self-importance requires that to remain true, even if it pushes the climate from salubrious humanity to hostile. It’s easier to cry hoax! than to modify that financial structure.
And, in the end, we get bizarre statements like the above. Steve Benen has more. I’m using bizarre particularly, because the left side of our lovely political spectrum, in the minds of many independents, has a tendency to spew bizarre statements as well, from Modern Monetary Theory to transgenderism.
Our political system is tired, worn out even, from the grifters and the undisciplined who’ve invaded, all in a hurry to use the system for their own ends.
