Ready. Fire. Aim. That’s our impression of how the West Coast states are proceeding as they try to force an all-electric future on the populace.

During the past decade, the region’s governors have tried to outdo one another in their race to save the planet, but they neglected to do their homework.

When questioned about whether the electricity grid can support a massive increase in demand while switching to intermittent solar and wind power sources, they shrug that technology will one day catch up.

One is reminded of the Enron fiasco 25 years ago, when California’s power market went into convulsions. All the while, Gov. Gray Davis told consumers that technology would soon catch up.

Then prices spiked and blackouts rolled through the state, and the governor was recalled.

Such is the political price of not doing your homework. The public will hang in there with even half-baked ideas, but when electricity rates skyrocket and the lights go out, the politicians will pay.

More recently, politicians in Oregon, Washington and California have been pushing for more solar and wind farms and fewer dams. The idea is that when drivers are forced to switch to electric cars and trucks, there would be plenty of power for them.

As it turns out, that is highly unlikely. Demand for electricity is projected to go up 40% while solar and wind power will be able to provide only a small fraction of that.

The situation is so tenuous in California that Gov. Gavin Newsom has decided to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant online just so the lights won’t go out.

If all of this sounds chaotic, it is. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is even entertaining a plan to grease the skids for building more solar and wind farms, and Oregon and California are approving similar developments as fast as they can.

In the meantime, some reports have surfaced that reveal two key facts.

First, the shift from diesel to electric long-haul trucks wouldn’t reduce carbon dioxide emissions as much as simply using renewable diesel, according to the American Transportation Research Institute.

It turns out that mining exotic minerals and building new trucks produces a lot of carbon dioxide, the key greenhouse gas that scientists believe changes the climate.

Burning renewable diesel fuel in trucks produces far less carbon dioxide than switching to electric trucks. The renewable fuel is made from soybeans, canola, used cooking oil and other agricultural materials.

Second, the cost of replacing all of the nation’s diesel trucks with electric trucks is incredibly expensive. Figure $1 trillion, give or take a few hundred billion dollars. The switch would also require more generators, electric transmission lines, charging stations….

You get the idea.

There are other factors that weigh heavily against a wholesale shift to electric trucks. Mainly, they weigh more, carry less and have a much shorter range.

It’s clear the folks who believe in electric trucks have a problem. They have set goals, chosen winners and losers and clearly don’t have a clue to how the system would work. Their best idea is to subsidize everything with taxpayers’ money.

In the meantime, there just won’t be enough power to go around.

Just ask former California Gov. Gray Davis what happens when the price of electricity goes up and blackouts happen.