Energy Policy
September 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Some conservatives have an unreasonably positive view of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., based on the fact that he sounds sensible on two or three issues. But in fact, he is nuts, as manifested most grotesquely in his conviction that Sirhan Sirhan did not murder his father. Beyond that, he is, on the large majority of issues, an unreconstructed far left-winger. Take fracking. My colleague Isaac Orr points out that Kennedy
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September 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Everyone knows that Germany was the “first mover” on the net-zero bandwagon, spending more than a trillion Euros over the last 15 years on its “energiewende” (“energy revolution”) only to see their greenhouse gas emissions begin rising again, and last year reviving coal-power to keep the lights on. One thing they did achieve was causing consumer energy prices to roughly double. I guess that “wind-and-solar-are-cheaper” isn’t working out according to
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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 27, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Did you know that there is a federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)? But of course there is. And you might suppose that since pipelines carry mostly oil and natural gas, it would be housed inside the Department of Energy. But no: it is part of the Department of Transportation. So we have yet another instance of government cabinet department that does nothing to produce an increased supply
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August 27, 2023 — John Hinderaker
No Tricks Zone publishes a summary of an article by Dr. Klaus-Dieter Döhler, a natural scientist and environmentalist, and Josef Kowatsch, a nature conservationist, that criticizes the global warming industry in Germany. Their criticisms apply equally to that industry in the U.S. The authors point out that reality has refuted the tricked-up models that are the only basis for global warming hysteria: They write: The business model “global warming” is
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August 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Sailing can be a lot of fun, but the days when it was the best way to ship large quantities of goods from place to place are long gone. And yet, in keeping with the bottomless stupidity of the present day, here we are: New ship puts wind in the sails of voyage to net zero: For the first time in many decades, the captain of a serious cargo vessel
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August 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
It is hard to believe, but Germany is on its way to becoming a post-industrial country. What its economy will look like at that point is anyone’s guess, but it won’t be pretty. The Telegraph interviews Monika Schnitzer, who heads Germany’s Council of Economic Experts. She leads off by talking about the need to distance Germany from China: Berlin outlined a plan to “de-risk” the relationship with China last month.
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August 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Sweden is making a major move into nuclear energy: Uranium mining is set to return to mainland Europe as the region seeks alternatives to Russian nuclear fuel and Sweden pushes to treble its atomic energy capacity, the country’s climate minister has said. Sweden has lots of uranium: Romina Pourmokhtari, who last year became the youngest cabinet minister in Swedish history at the age of 26, said there was a parliamentary
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August 17, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We noted here the last few days that the predictable rush to blame the horrific Maui fires on climate change goes against what the so-called “consensus” science of the IPCC says about attribution of specific weather events. But you can’t stop the narrative for pesky little details like that. But maybe the climatistas are right—just not in the way they know. In fact, it’s their fault. It is thought that
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August 15, 2023 — John Hinderaker
That would be energy expert Robert Bryce. At Substack, he demolishes the Left’s latest “green” fantasies, beginning with the same Paul Krugman column that Steve noted here. None of the claims in Krugman’s August 7 column are new. For years, academics from elite universities, climate activists, leaders of the anti-industry industry, and legacy media outlets (and the New York Times in particular) have been peddling shopworn claims about “all-gain-no-pain” renewables.
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August 11, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I wrote here about the EPA’s proposed new CO2 regulations on power plants that would devastate the electrical grid. This public comment, drafted by American Experiment’s Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling and filed on Tuesday, explains why the rule is so destructive. It will mandate a grid that is heavily dependent on solar and wind installations, and therefore subject to devastating blackouts. If the EPA set out to disrupt our
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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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