Paul W. Smith: All-electric, green future will be hot, fraught with challenges

“Outta’ My Mind on a Monday Moanin’” 

It’s amazing what you can learn reading this fine newspaper, even about people you’ve known a long time. Last week I learned Nolan Finley and I are exact opposites. Under the headline, “Fighting global warming will be sweaty work,” we learned Finley does not like air conditioning. I embrace it.

He said, “If it gets colder than 80, I’m grabbing for a quilt.”

If it’s 80 degrees, I might be ripping my clothes off and searching for AC or a walk-in cooler. Be that as it may, when I saw the story of the government of Spain sending out an edict countrywide that AC should not be set lower than 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Fahrenheit), and that this winter the thermostat should not be set above 19 C (66 F), I further realized what incredible changes we have before us on the green path we find ourselves. 

Which brings me to the current state of affairs we are seeing around the world (like Spain) and around our country, like California, the greenest of green states, presumably way ahead of the rest of us in charging ahead in a world dependent on, well, chargers.  

And as we have all seen, they aren’t handling the challenges of keeping their power on now, far from the future they seek with all electric vehicles. Imagine the consequences of a power grid that is far from able to handle things as they are, let alone with the future strain of their hoped-for future. 

Imagine their embarrassment of having to rely on gas generators to help the state’s struggling power grid supply residents with power. Two words come to mind with the EV push: unintended consequences. 

Paul W. Smith is host of “The Paul W. Smith Show” on WJR-AM (760) from 6-9 a.m. Monday-Friday.