I woke up this morning to an X post by Oklahoma’s Governor Kevin Stitt, happily seated at a table in the Governor’s mansion with Ambassador of Denmark to the United States Jesper Møller Sørensen, telling Oklahomans how he has “just signed a [sic] historic memorandum of understanding between Denmark and Oklahoma” for ‘reliable’ energy for both “communities”.
Denmark is a ‘community’ now? Did I miss a downgrade or something?
The preamble of the MOU says Oklahoma is being ‘leveraged’ – that Oklahoma will be transformed using cutting edge European green energy technologies, but what will this transformation look like for Oklahoma taxpayers and private land owners? What land will be ‘leveraged’ for these projects?
The official press release from the Governor’s office is even more fawning and grotesque, painting a picture of Oklahoma and Denmark as next door neighbors sharing a cup of sugar, only the real story isn’t sweet. It will end with thousands more acres of Oklahoma farmland lost to wind turbines and solar panels, the energy from which Oklahomans don’t even use.
See, Oklahoma produces almost 3 times more energy from oil and gas than we use every year. Though electricity from wind turbines generated 42% of our total energy profile in 2023, most of this ‘green’ energy is ‘shipped’ out to other states primarily through either the Southwest Power Pool or the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).
Oklahoma simply doesn’t need solar or wind power, yet our Governor’s “‘more of everything’ approach to energy” is driving an ill-advised, unneeded, boom in green energy installations supported either by Oklahoma tax incentives or the 1.2 trillion dollars worth of green subsidies in the hilariously ill-named, Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
But Oklahoma isn’t investing only in wind and solar – the largest carbon capture plant in the United States opened in Shidler in August. Interestingly, County officials including the outgoing Sheriff, nor any of the citizens I spoke with knew anything about it. Why the secrecy? Does Governor Stitt know what happened in Satartia, Mississippi where a whole town exposed to CO2 from a ruptured pipe (something that can readily happen with CO2 pipelines because of the physics of the gas) hospitalized 45 people? Is he alright with that kind of thing happening to Oklahoma residents?
Probably the most insidious, if not insane, idea born of the World Economic Forum, is that atmospheric carbon can be removed and traded as a commodity. In fact, this must be so if the planet is to survive.
Once CO2 – the molecule completing the oxygen cycle and providing the ‘food’ for all photosynthetic plant life that, in turn, supplies oxygen breathers their necessary O2 – was demonized as a ‘greenhouse’ gas and the planet designated as a death trap as a result, the green light has shown brightly for the WEF carbon credit monopoly scheme.
Bantam, the name of Oklahoma’s plant, which opened to more fawning speechifying by Governor Stitt and other Oklahoma elected luminaries, uses a carbon capture technique created by a company called Heimdal.
The Co-Founder and CEO of Heimdal is Marcus Lima, a Norway native – recognized by Forbes 30 under 30 – whose young-man-short resume indicates that he earned a Master’s in Science from Oxford (2020) and created Heimdal through Y Combinator in 2021 specifically to take advantage of the IRA’s $180 per ton credit of CO2 that is captured and stored through at least 2032.
Bantam is Lima’s first business venture, yet Heimdal is currently valued at 63 million, financed in part by the likes of Sam Altman (Open AI) and Marc Beniof (cloud computing pioneer) and, of course, welcomed into Oklahoma by Governor Stitt’s open arms energy policy.
Why? Why would a Republican governor – especially the Republican governor of an energy self-sufficient state – want to facilitate the green agenda? What does it buy the people of our state when energy is created here only to be shipped to other states who need ‘green’ energy to meet their ‘climate’ policies while ranch and farm land disappears under wind turbines and solar panels?
Why for that matter, would Denmark be interested in Oklahoma? According to numerous sources, Scandanavia is leading the Green Revolution, producing 90% of its electrical power from renewables. For what do they need Oklahoma then? They seem to be doing quite fine on their own despite the issues with sea creatures, eagles and reindeer being bothered by the endless churning turbines.
Wind turbines explode, and when they do, they seed the land with fiberglass and concrete making it unusable for farming or ranching. Solar panels catch fire and when they heat up and explode, they litter the ground with glass, making it unusable for farming and ranching. Their batteries burn so long and so hot that it takes days and days to put them out, often depleting local water sources and rural, volunteer, fire fighters. So what are the advantages for Oklahomans again? Starving plants of CO2? Picking up millions in taxpayer subsidies? Handouts for political campaigns from green energy companies like NextEra?
The National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor – pushed by the Biden Administration through the Federal Power Act – is being developed as a way to transport Oklahoma wind and solar-generated electricity out of the state. Approximately 4–18 miles wide and 645 miles long, the Delta Plains leg of the NIETC would run right through farmlands in northern Oklahoma. It isn’t clear if the land for this corridor would be usurped by eminent domain, but it is clear that a drastic drop in real estate value for Oklahomans would accompany such an enormous project that doesn’t benefit them in any way.
In fact, the whole of Europe is exploding with unrest over green agenda goals as European governments attack farming – believed to contribute 1/3 of the world’s CO2 output – burdening farmers with excessive regulations and taxation, making it impossible for them to do their jobs. Or is that the point?
In Ireland, the Green Party lost every seat but one in last Friday’s elections, in part because voters blamed the Party for increasing fuel taxes resulting from the country’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
The ‘green’ agenda is simple madness – all of it – because ‘free’ government money always leads to bigger government and problem policies that trickle down on the little guy. But it doesn’t matter how stupid anything is if investors find a way to make money from it. Once the investor class sees an avenue to returns, madness becomes monetized. The only thing the rest of us can do is to band together and throw the bums supporting the madness out. It’s the only way to – in the words of a people-elected Representative who took over a bum’s seat during our summer primary – save our land, livelihoods and legacies.
