CEO Column

It’s early Sunday morning, the first weekend in August, and I’m thinking about current events. My screened-in porch is hot, even early in the morning. My daughter, Kalli, and her two youngest daughters are relocating back from Atlanta and spending the weekend with us. I was exiled to the back porch last night to watch anything other than the Paw Patrol pack of pups saving bunnies and the farmland. It was hot on the back porch last night, too.  

“The China Syndrome” was a 1979 hit movie starring Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, Jack Lemmon and Wilford Brimley. The storyline follows two reporters who discover safety discrepancies in a fictitious California nuclear electric generation plant. A greedy and corrupt utility ignores and covers up safety issues. The operator who attempts to publicize the cover up is murdered, and the end of the movie leaves an audience wondering what happened to the reactor.

You may remember Willie Nelson’s 1967 hit song, The Party’s Over. Like most country songs, it is about a broken relationship – this one with his wife. He sings about a party where everyone is dancing and having fun, and he is crying, but that doesn’t keep her love for him from dying.

Life is about transitions. The world and history have experienced many transitions. World empires have transitioned from the Persians, to the Greeks, to the Egyptians, to the Romans, to Medieval Europe, to the Spanish, to the French, to the British, and now to the United States.

It’s early Saturday morning. The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Not turkey hunter early. Those guys would be stalking gobblers, but it is a cold, rainy, miserable morning.

Cambridge University Dictionary defines “Reality Check” as an occasion that causes you to consider the facts about a situation instead of your opinion, ideas, or beliefs.

Last month I wrote about the rolling blackouts across the southern U.S. and how renewable generation would not solve the problem of shrinking reliable electric reserves. With continuing pushes from environmentalists and liberal politicians to shut down reliable fossil fuel generation and replace it with intermittent renewable generation, we can expect increasing power shortages and power grid blackouts in the future.

My article last August discussed the need for a definitive plan if there is any hope of reducing carbon emissions from electric power plants.  A forced, unplanned, uncoordinated movement to meet net-zero carbon emissions by any date will certainly result in unreliable electric service and higher costs for electric consumers.

The older readers here will remember Paul Harvey. Most probably remember him well. For many years he hosted a daily radio program that addressed the issues of the day, and he also had a daily segment called, “The Rest of the Story.”

Visions, plans and dreams are easy. We all have them. You have heard, “Follow your dreams,” “What is your vision?” and “Do you have a plan?” Visions, plans and dreams have given civilization so many advances and conveniences. However, few visions, plans or dreams become reality.