I Love the Smell of Fossil Fuels in the Morning!

(Chuck Muth) – When it comes to energy, windmills are useless when there’s no wind, solar is useless when there’s no sun, and hydro is useless when there’s no water – a condition Nevadans were warned about just this week thanks to the ongoing drought.

Indeed, the ONLY dependable sources of cheap energy remain oil, natural gas and cleaner coal.  Yet all we hear are Chicken Little environmentalists screaming about global warming – oh, excuse me, “climate change” – and tax-addicted politicians in Washington floating energy tax hike trial balloons.

Frankly, I’m a little sick-and-tired of enviro-kooks constantly bad-mouthing affordable, dependable energy – especially as we approach the 100-degree+ dog days of Las Vegas summer.

Can you imagine sleeping at night if there was no affordable electricity to power our air conditioners and swamp coolers?  Or tourists taking a horse-drawn carriage in to and out of Vegas instead of a gas-fueled car

Indeed, as the publisher of Alex Epstein’s book, “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” points out on the jacket cover, fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal “don’t take a naturally safe climate and make it dangerous; they take a naturally dangerous climate and make it ever safer.”

Including the scorching desert heat of southern Nevada.

Those of us in Las Vegas know how sky-high the ol’ electric bill can go in the summer.  But can you imagine how high those bills would be if we were forced to pay the higher costs for solar power?  Not to mention the fact that solar can’t provide any of us enough electricity to recharge an iPhone let alone an air conditioner at night when the sun don’t shine.

The cost of abundant, on-demand energy that makes the southern Nevada desert not only habitable for human beings, but desirable is high enough already.  The last thing Nevadans need are higher taxes on the fossil fuels that make life in the desert so livable.

Or driving to Vegas in the summer to gamble so bearable

The cost of energy in Nevada will surely rise if Congress makes tax reforms on the back of the energy industry.  None of us need that.

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and the publisher of www.NevadaNewsandViews.com.  He personally blogs at www.MuthsTruths.com.