Energy Policy
January 17, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Most of the country is in the grip of a cold snap, and demand for electricity is high. So where is our power coming from? Fossil fuels and nuclear energy. This chart is from the invaluable Grid Brief: America runs on natural gas, coal and nuclear power. Everything else is an afterthought. Note that over the last few days, when demand for electricity has spiked, wind turbines have contributed almost
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January 13, 2024 — John Hinderaker
It is cold across most of North America, which links these three stories: After Big Tesla Bet, Hertz Selling One-Third of EV Fleet. Hertz is selling about a third of its global electric-vehicle fleet, a major reversal for the rental-car company after it positioned itself as a champion of the technology with plans to vastly grow its fleet of plug-in models. Hertz said Thursday that it would sell about 20,000
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January 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The Democratic Party is pushing for net zero legislation in the U.S.–demanding that on net, America not contribute to global CO2 emissions. Is this a good idea? We can answer that question because it has been tried, as for example by Great Britain. How has that turned out? Rupert Darwall authored this report for the RealClear Foundation titled “The Folly of Climate Leadership: Net zero and Britain’s disastrous energy policies.”
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January 8, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Grid Brief performs the valuable service of reminding us where our electricity comes from, thus dispelling the fog of misinformation that surrounds “green” energy. This chart shows hourly sources of electricity for the week from December 31 to January 7. It shows that essentially, America runs on natural gas. Coal and nuclear, both cheap and reliable, vie for second place. Hydropower is a useful if relatively minor player. Wind is
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December 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker
You wouldn’t know it from reading the newspapers, but that is what we are living in. The recently-concluded COP28 conference touted a coming end to the use of fossil fuels, with coal first in line for extinction. But that isn’t happening. Robert Bryce has the data: The [International Energy Agency] expects coal use to rise by 1.4% this year and set a new record of 8.5 billion tons. So more
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December 13, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The UN-sponsored COP28 has broken up, and hundreds of private jets are wending their way back to civilization from Dubai. COP28 was the subject of high drama during its closing days. Some said the conference was a disaster; Al Gore, for example: COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure. The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as
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December 11, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Chinese Communist Party may be evil, but it isn’t stupid. It has been working on dominating the world’s supply of critical minerals for quite a few years now. Geopolitical Monitor has “A Brief History of US-China Rare Earth Rivalry.” First, a little background: Rare earth elements (REEs), comprising 17 (15 commercially relevant) chemical elements and soft heavy-metals like Thulium and Cerium, are vital in modern technologies from cell phones
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November 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Electric vehicles have been around for 100 years or so. They lost out to gasoline powered cars because gasoline powered cars are better. Is that ever going to change? At the Telegraph, Michael Kelly draws an analogy to the Concorde: The man in the street has failed to embrace BEVs for the same reason he failed to embrace Concorde nearly 50 years ago: the extra cost – of order £10,000
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November 15, 2023 — John Hinderaker
How much does it cost to charge an electric vehicle, and who picks up the tab? Steve Moore’s Committee to Unleash Prosperity has this: Uncle Sam pays the automakers billions of dollars to produce EVs. Then they write a check for $7,500 to consumers who buy an EV and many states kick in up to another $5,000. Now, the government is paying to charge the batteries for the rich people
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October 27, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Wind and solar are both terrible methods of generating electricity, both expensive and unreliable. The one thing that can make the situation worse is the drive to electrify everything, including motor vehicles. The impracticality of this “green” vision has become blindingly obvious, and the “green” movement has begun to fall apart. Steve noted this afternoon the collapsing share prices of renewable energy companies. Here are some more indications that the
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October 22, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Statistics Norway, the government agency that produces official statistics for that country, released a report last month titled “To what extent are temperature levels changing due to greenhouse gas emissions?” The report concludes: [T]he results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations. In other words, our analysis indicates that with the
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October 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward
SALZBURG, Austria, October 19—Back in August of 1990 I attended my first-ever meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Munich, West Germany, not far from my current temporary location. I was still a sluggish graduate student at the time, long past when I should have completed my dissertation, but somehow I had contrived to snag a fellowship to attend, and present a paper whose precise topic I don’t now recall,
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October 9, 2023 — John Hinderaker
…will be those that adopt sane energy policies. Unfortunately, that group does not include the U.S. Our government is determined to drive the coal industry, and coal-fired power plants, out of business, with natural gas next on the list. Does that make any sense? David Blackmon writes in the Telegraph: As the United States continues to rapidly retire its dwindling fleet of coal-fired power plants in the name of fighting
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October 5, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Grid Brief is a daily email for energy junkies. It is well worth receiving, you can subscribe here. Yesterday’s email included a graph that shows the past week’s electricity generation, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This shows the sources of electricity for the nation as a whole. Click to enlarge: This is pretty typical. Natural gas is by far the dominant source of power in the U.S. Gas plants
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October 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker
One of the most laughable assertions of today’s debased era is the claim that wind and solar energy are “cheap.” Hey, wind and sunshine are free, right? So, sure, if you don’t count any of the costs, wind and solar are really cheap. So why are electricity costs rising rapidly? Actually, it could be worse. If solar and wind were not heavily subsidized, and the full cost of those mostly-futile
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September 26, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Opinion polls indicate that the vast majority of Europeans have drunk the global warming kool-aid, at least in theory. But things change when they are confronted with “green” realities. The Wall Street Journal reports: For years, Europe has been at the forefront of the global drive to curb carbon emissions and slow climate change, pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Overwhelming numbers of Europeans say they like the
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September 23, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Destroying the German economy isn’t easy, but that country’s government is working hard at it. Since the Industrial Revolution, it has been hard to imagine a de-industrialized Germany. But that is the way things are trending. The London Times reports: Germany is in the teeth of a “severe and sustained downtrend”, experts warned after a closely watched survey showed that a deep contraction in factory output was keeping its economy
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