I see by the news headlines that there were sudden, massive but mercifully brief power outages in Southern France this last week. Accident or deliberate sabotage; of course there is a radical group claiming responsibility. Doing the work that the Green-worshiping governing bodies won’t do, or at least can’t be caught openly doing, yet. All to protect the Erf, although I suspect that the Erf can very readily protect itself in the long run, as long as careless bureaucrats, cost-cutting industries and so-called “green” technologies aren’t pouring poisonous substances out onto it in wholesale lots. I recall reading some years ago an energy-consumption proposal by an especially Erf-maddened theoretician, apparently a man of a particularly savagely Spartan bent who outlined a plan of his own devising: that only one in a hundred households could enjoy a then-current early 21st century lifestyle, with electric-powered appliances, lights, computers, HVAC and all. The other 99 households would be permitted a single low-watt light bulb and nothing else. The way that I read it at the time, this particular theorist was utterly serious about replicating a two-tier society of privilege; a few nobles living in comfort, and everyone else in conditions of medieval squalor, by woodfire and candlelight. I seriously wonder if this Erf theoretician was any relation to Al Gore and the other save-the-Erf-by-grinding-down-everyone-else World Economic Forum coterie; a life in the lap of luxury and convenience, while everyone else is grubs for a miserable, serf-like existence.

It’s all about “renewables” when it comes to energy, as the Green Erf-worshippers insist. Wind and solar, even if such currently-available technologies have demonstrated being a sometime thing of late, especially in the northern hemispheres. The recent country-wide power outage in Spain and Portugal – just as the massive power outages in Texas during Snowmagedden 2021 are a harbinger, a hint of disasters to come if governments, like Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain and the rest of the renewable-deluded protect-the-Erf insist on following through with renewables on a national scale. Because the one element that a modern industrial nation depends on is readily available power. Early on, our nation’s embryo manufacturing base (as well as others) depended on hydro power, followed by coal and oil-powered steam, then nuclear as soon as technological advances made it possible. The manufacturing capacity of the western world made it possible for those nations to rule the world, or at least, those parts of it which mattered to them. More importantly to those who had the good fortune to live in that world, it enabled them to enjoy relatively healthy lives in considerable comfort, rather than a considerably shorter one ridden by drudgery, disease and odds against survival.

Usable windmills and solar panels are also a sometime and small-scale thing, and I honestly don’t believe they will ever improve beyond small, limited domestic use. I am convinced that as governments become insanely devoted to inflicting the chimera of renewables on us all, many of us will turn to small-scale individual systems: solar panels with associated batteries, and private household generators. A YouTube channels that I follow is for a young English-Portuguese couple, renewing a ruinous stone farmstead in back-country Portugal; farming in a small way, making a small-scale and fashionably sustainable off-the-grid rural life for themselves. They noted for their viewers on a recent installment that the Iberian-wide power outage did not discommode them much at all. They have set up solar panels and batteries to power those elements of a 21st century living which they favor – like a television set, internet access, cellphones and batteries for power tools.

Some of the other YouTube off-the-grid homesteaders on my fan-list have similar set-ups. Not all are European, by the way – a good lot are American, and sometimes living way out on the fringes. They aren’t alone in setting up their own private methods of powering their houses, either. To judge by the sound of small generators in my neighborhood during a half-day long power outage last year – many of us are looking at an uncertain future as far as the main electrical grids are concerned.

What do you think? Comment as you wish, and while the lights remain on…