Search Results for: Renewable energy
May 30, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Jon Reisman, Professor of Economics & Public Policy Emeritus at the University of Maine, devoted Power Line reader, and self-described “Statler and Waldorf Intern,” passes along this update of the Beach Boys classic tune everyone will recognize from the opening line: California’s Grid With apologies to Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Greta Thunberg Well, East Coast grids are hip I really dig wind mills they wear And the Southern grid,
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April 17, 2017 — John Hinderaker
The Telegraph reports that post-Brexit, Britain’s government intends to shelve renewable energy commitments that will dramatically increase energy costs to British consumers: Britain is preparing to scrap EU green energy targets which will add more than £100 to the average energy bill as part of a bonfire of red tape after Brexit. The UK is currently committed to getting 15 per cent of all energy from renewable sources such as
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August 4, 2015 — John Hinderaker
This post can be viewed as a companion to Steve’s post immediately below. “Greens” are hailing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan as a Great Leap Forward, economically as well as environmentally. As I understand it, the EPA is even claiming that requiring more energy to be generated via wind and solar will not increase its cost. That is ridiculous, of course, as wind and solar are nowhere near as
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November 23, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Via the indispensable Watts Up With That? come two of the most interesting articles I have read in a very long time. The first is by two Google engineers who were charged with thinking creatively about how to replace fossil fuels with renewables. After four years, Google shut down the project. The engineers concluded that it simply couldn’t be done: At the start of RE
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August 30, 2014 — John Hinderaker
At Watts Up With That?, Ed Hoskins spotlights the intractable problem with solar and wind power: much of the time, the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. This means that in practice, solar and wind facilities can produce only a small fraction of their nominal capacities. This chart requires a bit of study; for three countries, the U.S., Germany and the U.K., it contrasts the nominal (“nameplate”) capacity
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March 2, 2014 — John Hinderaker
For quite a few years, pundits claimed that fossil fuel production had peaked, or was about to peak. Renewables were widely seen as the future of energy. That was then, and this is now. Fossil fuel production has exploded, especially in the U.S., and investment in renewable technologies, solar and wind, is in decline. In the U.S., cronyism keeps some dollars flowing toward well-connected “green” tycoons, like billionaire Tom Steyer,
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December 24, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The federal budget is not the only thing looking at dropping off a fiscal cliff. One of the loose ends caught in the whole mess is the renewal of the “production tax credit” (PTC) for wind power, a supposedly “temporary” measure to help the industry get on its feet, but which, like wartime rent control, somehow becomes a permanent necessity to “save jobs” now. The wind industry is currently lobbying
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November 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
The spreading eddies of the Solyndra scandal are “changing the narrative,” as the meme-sters like to say. (And yes, I’ve refrained from commenting on the White House Solyndra-related email that said Joe Biden’s office was “orgasmic” about Solyndra. I’m tempted to say Biden and his people need to get out more, but doesn’t he get out enough? Besides, some stories are best left to Jon Stewart. More interesting is the
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November 12, 2011 — Steven Hayward
The lead story in today’s New York Times is a devastating look at solar and wind power subsidies. Too bad it appears on a Saturday when fewer people will read it (which may not be a coincidence). The print hed and sub-hed tell it better than the online version: “Rich Subsidies Powering Solar and Wind Projects: Big Rise in Government Aid—Companies Are Virtually Assured of Profits.” It’s worth reading the
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March 13, 2024 — John Hinderaker
American Experiment’s Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling tell you what you need to know to respond to ill-informed advocates for “green” energy. There is much more at the link, but here is an overview: 1. Renewables can’t survive on their own The renewable energy industry is a subsidy-based industry, as wind and solar are largely dependent on lucrative state and federal subsidies. However, renewable advocates justify these perpetual subsidies by
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October 27, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Yesterday we noted here the green energy fiasco of Siemens and a couple other renewable energy companies, but it turns out the damage is being seen across the board. Just a couple years ago everyone piled into green energy companies because they were said to be the future, while traditional oil, gas, and coal companies were doomed to long term decline, and who would want to have “stranded investments” in
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September 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
There is a financial crisis in the wind industry. You can see it in headlines like Support for offshore wind sinks as costs soar, and The ill wind of offshore wind projects. At the Telegraph, Matt Ridley sums up the ineluctable reasons for the current crisis: The MPs who have forced Rishi Sunak into a U-turn on onshore wind power love to repeat the favourite slogan of the wind industry:
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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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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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June 8, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We’re constantly told that renewable energy will be abundant and dispatchable enough such that we can close down nuclear, coal, and gas power plants. And then Germany comes along to admit the nonsense, in this pair of headlines just three months apart: The second great green lie is that renewable energy will be cheaper. Well: [Hat tip: Willis Eschenbach] More here from the Daily Mail: Germany faces electricity shortages that
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April 21, 2023 — Steven Hayward
The Green Nude Eel cheerleaders for wind and solar power love to show you charts like this: They seldom show you this chart: Or this one, showing that natural gas has been the largest new source of electricity generation in the U.S. (but it is not a “new” technology, which is why the cutline for the first chart above is deliberately deceiving, and also inaccurate—most new gas-fired power plants of
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