Energy Policy
August 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Breitbart reviews polling on next year’s EU parliamentary elections, which suggests significant conservative gains across the continent: Polling has projected populist and conservative-leaning blocs to make significant gains in the next European Union parliamentary elections, as support for centrist parties wanes in the wake of growing discontent over failures on immigration and the green agenda. Those are the two issues that dominate European politics: both wide-open immigration and “green” energy
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August 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new rule limiting CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired (coal and natural gas) power plants. As you might expect, given the ideological bent of EPA, the rule is a Trojan horse, the real purpose of which is to induce the nation’s coal plants and some natural gas power generation to shut down under the increasing weight of federal regulations. Center of the American Experiment
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August 8, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Wall Street Journal reports that the wind industry has fallen on hard times: The wind business, viewed by governments as key to meeting climate targets and boosting electricity supplies, is facing a dangerous market squall. After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions. The setbacks are piling up for both
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August 6, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The alleged transition to “green” energy is destined to crash and burn. A modern society can’t meet its needs for electricity with wind and solar sources that produce nothing a large majority of the time, supplemented by wholly notional “batteries.” The race to disaster is being accelerated by government-mandated use of electric vehicles, which will put impossible burdens on an already-inadequate grid. So it becomes a question of where the
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July 30, 2023 — John Hinderaker
One of the climate alarmists’ most intractable problems is the disproportion between the problems their models forecast and the solutions they propose. That is, if you believe the models, there is no remotely plausible course of action we can follow that makes a perceptible difference. So our impoverishment is pointless. The hero of the Senate, John Kennedy, made this point while questioning Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk. The exchange occurred
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July 29, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Politics in the Netherlands have been increasingly contentious of late. The most recent coalition government fell earlier this month, and now Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag has not only resigned her post, but says she might be leaving the country. This article in the London Times illustrates how liberal elites see themselves and their opponents. But if you read between the lines, reality begins to glimmer through. Just two years ago,
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July 23, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Republican presidential field is crowded, and includes several potentially strong candidates. Most people would not put Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota, on that list, if they are even aware that he is running. Of course it is true that Burgum is a long shot, but there are reasons why he may be worth a closer look. First of all, who is he? Check out this Wall Street
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July 14, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We’re finally having a summer heat wave out in California, after, it should be noted, an extremely cold summer so far, but that won’t slow down the climatistas. The chart below of California electricity sources as of 7:30 pm this evening is a little hard to de-cypher, but if you study it a bit you can see how crazy California’s fetish for wind and solar power is. First, the inverted
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July 11, 2023 — John Hinderaker
It has been obvious for a long time that the real goal of the “green” movement is to put control over our economy in the hands of government. (Of course, it wasn’t immediately obvious that it would be the Red Chinese government.) What stands in the way of the long-rumored but still far-off green transition? The free enterprise system. John Kerry admitted as much on MSNBC: On Monday’s broadcast of
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July 11, 2023 — Steven Hayward
The Biden Administration has suffered two setbacks in federal courts this week. Both are significant. The first is the decision released today allowing Microsoft to complete its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the video gaming platform. The Biden Administration, which wants to take us back to 1950s-era antitrust madness, had sought to block the acquisition. The Wall Street Journal reports: Microsoft can close its $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a
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July 11, 2023 — Steven Hayward
As everyone knows, we’re headed rapidly to an all-electric car future! But apparently no one has told car buyers this news yet: Unsold electric cars are piling up on dealer lots The auto industry is beginning to crank out more electric vehicles (EVs) to challenge Tesla, but there’s one big problem: not enough buyers. The growing mismatch between EV supply and demand is a sign that even though consumers are
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July 6, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The U.S., like much of Europe, has supposedly committed itself to replacing fossil fuels with “green” energy, which mostly means wind. This will never happen, and the effort to make it happen will collapse in ignominy and economic and social chaos. The reason is simple: wind turbines, and even more so solar panels, fail to produce electricity a large majority of the time. Just as bad, their failures are unpredictable
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July 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker
We are told constantly that the world is in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to “green” energy. “News” outlets commonly report this as fact. But in reality, no such transition is underway, nor will it ever be. Robert Bryce, one of the country’s top energy experts, explains; see original for links: [T]he hard truth is this: the energy transition isn’t. The numbers from the just-released Statistical Review
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June 25, 2023 — John Hinderaker
There could be a worse way to generate electricity than by implanting giant windmills in the ocean, but it is hard to think what it might be. Not surprisingly, Britain is finding its plans for offshore wind to be illusive: How Britain’s offshore wind industry ran out of puff. Championed by politicians as a controversy-free alternative to onshore wind and solar farms, the Government wants offshore wind capacity to surge
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June 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker
America used to have stable, cheap electricity. This is really the definition of a first-world country; or it used to be, anyway. Now, for the first time in many years, we can’t safely rely on the electric grid, while at the same time the price of electricity is spiraling upward. This video by Kite & Key Media provides a good, if simple, explanation of why our grid is now under
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June 15, 2023 — Steven Hayward
I’ve meant to do at least a weekly item on top energy news, but there is so much that I usually overwhelmed. Let’s look at two news items from just today. It seems that all those grandiose net-zero, climate-friendly pledges that traditional energy companies make are not merely virtue-signaling, but already being thrown over the side in the face of a reality that is biting hard. For example, Royal Dutch
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June 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Paul Driessen has an excellent piece at Watts Up With That? He discusses the pernicious “sue and settle” practice that left-wing activists and government agencies are pursuing, and argues for venuing climate-related litigation in the federal courts. But I want to focus on his comments on the environmental evils of “green” technologies: he litigants and courts will also encounter the bitter reality that the “fundamental transformation” they so earnestly seek
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