Fact Check: Trump Claims Biden’s Energy Policies ‘Can’t Keep the Lights On’

CLAIM: “How can Joe Biden claim to be an ‘ally of the Light’ when his own party can’t even keep the lights on?”

VERDICT: MOSTLY TRUE. Solar and wind power are inadequate — but Biden has not dropped nuclear power.

President Donald Trump slammed rival Joe Biden’s support for eliminating fossil fuels, a core pledge in the former vice president’s platform for the 2020 election. With Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) advising his campaign on the “Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force,” Biden embraced a version of the “Green New Deal.” The major difference was that whereas Ocasio-Cortez wants to eliminate fossil fuels in the U.S. economy by 2030, Biden set the deadline at 2035.

Democrat-run California passed a law in 2018 requiring the state to achieve the goal of 100% “renewables” — chiefly solar and wind energy — by 2045.

But amidst rolling electricity blackouts in Northern California during a heat wave earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the state needed to “sober up” about the inadequacies of solar and wind energy, at least during the state’s “transition.” They could not meet high demand when the wind wasn’t blowing and the sun wasn’t shining.

Earlier this week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti renewed his support for the city’s own “Green New Deal,” which means moving from natural gas to solar and wind power, even though officials have warned L.A. will struggle to keep the lights on.

The one saving grace of Biden’s platform is that he leaves room for “advanced nuclear [power] that eliminates risks associated with conventional nuclear technology,” also known as “fourth generation” nuclear power. (The Trump administration has also supported research into new nuclear technology.)

Without fossil fuels, nuclear power is the only way to meet an industrial economy’s energy needs. Unfortunately for Biden, it faces steep opposition within his own party.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.