Tag: green energy

Wind & Solar Energy Bankrupting Sunshine State

The State of Florida, long a model of economic growth and conservative fiscal policy, now faces a paradox: while bathed in sunshine and surrounded by natural beauty, it is flirting with energy insolvency. Despite its bounty of natural gas and a history of reliable and affordable electric power, the Sunshine State is increasingly embracing wind and solar energy—two intermittent sources heavily reliant on subsidies, regulatory distortion and taxpayer support.

According to energy analyst Dave Walsh, a speaker at last weekend’s Reclaim Campaign event in Venice, Florida, this green energy shift is not only misguided—it is a direct threat to Florida’s economic sustainability.

Dave Walsh, former president of Mitsubishi-Hitachi Power Americas and a frequent commentator on energy policy, has issued repeated warnings about the consequences of an overreliance on renewable energy. His central thesis is simple: wind and solar power are not financially or technically viable replacements for baseload energy.

Unlike clean coal, natural gas or nuclear—which produce consistent power regardless of time or weather—wind and solar depend on conditions beyond human control. In Florida, that volatility translates into higher costs, increasing grid instability, and growing dependence on backup generation that negates many of the claimed environmental benefits.

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Gone with the Wind: Joe Biden’s Last Minute ‘Green’ Project Cancelled in Idaho

The Department of the Interior announced Wednesday that it is moving to terminate the Lava Ridge Wind Project in southern Idaho, reversing an approval made by the Biden-Harris administration in December 2024.

The Department of the Interior announced Wednesday that it is moving to terminate the Lava Ridge Wind Project in southern Idaho, reversing an approval made by the Biden-Harris administration in December 2024.

The agency cited legal deficiencies in the project’s authorization and pointed to widespread opposition from Idaho residents, many of whom raised concerns about the project’s proximity to a World War II memorial site.

The Lava Ridge Wind Project was slated to include up to 231 wind turbines spread across nearly 60,000 acres of land.

The Biden-Harris administration’s approval of the project came during its final weeks and was met with criticism from lawmakers, local officials, and residents concerned about its impact on the Minidoka National Historic Site.

“Under President Donald Trump’s bold leadership, the Department is putting the brakes on deficient, unreliable energy and putting the American people first,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a statement.

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World’s Poor in for Hard Time as Pope Leo Backs Green Agenda and Net Zero

On matters of Catholic dogma, the Popes claim to be infallible. But on the science around climate change and the political Net Zero lunacy they frequently talk out of their pontifical posteriors. Who can forget the late Pope Francis’s claim that humans are causing earthquakes, a suggestion that only the whackiest of climate alarmists can utter. Alas, the new Bishop of Rome is also capable of ruminating out of his rear end with Pope Leo XIV recently giving us his ‘world is burning’ sermon. At a recent ‘green’ mass at his summer estate in Castel Gandolfo, he added: “We must pray for the conversion of so many people inside and outside of the church, who still don’t recognise the urgency of caring for our common home.”

As a ‘lapsed’ Catholic, your correspondent has been the beneficiary of many such ‘conversion’ prayers. Fear works well if you are a schoolboy sitting at the feet of Sister Agnes, headmistress of St Anselm’s primary school in Dartford, with the fires of hell promised for missing mass on Sunday and the numerous Holy Days of Obligation. Papal fears of a world burning due to excessive holidays in Benidorm are a bit tame. After all, it has been done to the far limits of stupidity by the UN activist-in-chief Antonio Guterres. Come on Leo, I can’t help thinking, you can do better than that.

Needless to say the new Green Pope is all-in on the fake science of weather attribution. “We see so many natural disasters in the world, nearly every day and in so many countries, that are in part caused by the excesses of being human, with our lifestyle.” One can only pray that the new Pontiff gets around to reading the latest scientific assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where little or no human involvement is observed in almost all natural weather events, now and forward to 2100. He might care to consider that deaths from natural disasters have plunged by 95% over the last 100 years, while the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has led to a remarkable 15-20% ‘greening’ of the planet.

Wearing green vestments for his special mass in the new ecological education centre at the summer residence, Pope Leo urged the world to recognise what he called the urgency of the climate crisis, and “hear the cry of the  poor”. But the poor are not crying, at least not for the rich Western elite fantasy of Net Zero. Many in the developing world see hydrocarbon use as the key to lifting them out of grinding poverty. They are aware of the enormous increase in staple crops that has occurred over the last 60 years due to the use of hydrocarbon-enabled fertilisers. They can feel the extra food in their bellies – to deprive them of the natural stored energy of the Earth at this stage in their development would, in Sister Agnes’s often spoken words, be wicked.

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Dep’t of Energy says continuing Biden-era energy policies will increase blackout risk by 100-fold

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its annual “Resource Adequacy Report,” earlier this month, and it warns that blackouts are coming if the country carries out the Biden-era plan to retire fossil fuel power plants. That is not sitting well with climate activists. 

The report’s executive summary opens with a declaration that the U.S. possesses “abundant energy sources and capabilities such as oil and gas, coal, and nuclear.” It warns that the speed at which utilities are retiring fossil fuel-powered generators and replacing them with unreliable and intermittent wind and solar power threatens to increase the risk of power outages by 100X in 2030. 

“This report affirms what we already know: The United States cannot afford to continue down the unstable and dangerous path of energy subtraction previous leaders pursued, forcing the closure of baseload power sources like coal and natural gas,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. 

The Biden-Harris administration’s report in April 2024 under then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm took on a noticeably different tone. Their executive summary warned that relying on fossil fuel resources to meet reliability requirements is “risky,” and natural gas generators should be replaced with hydrogen or fitted with carbon capture, a technology DOE engineers warned wasn’t affordable or scalable. Granholm’s report mentioned climate change 14 times, but the Trump administration’s report doesn’t mention it at all.

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Woke Netherlands Is Rationing Electricity as the Power Grid Is Overwhelmed and the Kingdom Is Focused on ‘Cutting Emissions’

Go woke, go ‘broken power grid’.

Around the world, the unreliability of the new power-generating technologies and the unwise rush towards ‘net-zero’ goals are leading the countries most invested in these ruinous policies into deep power supply troubles.

After blackouts in Spain, Portugal and parts of France two months ago, now it’s the ultra-liberal kingdom of the Netherlands that is reaping the electricity shortage that they sowed with their woke agenda.

It arose today that the Dutch are now rationing electricity.

Their overloaded power grid can’t take the pressure of rapid electrification and ‘ambitious climate goals’ (a.k.a. the Church of Climate Change policies).

Daily Mail reported:

“More than 11,900 businesses are stuck in a queue for access to the network, alongside public buildings including hospitals, schools and fire stations.”

The present crisis comes as the Dutch concentrate efforts ‘to cut carbon emissions’.

“After shutting down production at the massive Groningen gas field last year, the Dutch government has pushed a fast transition to electric heating, solar power and battery storage.”

The national grid did not grow to demand, creating widespread bottlenecks, and increasing costs.

“Officials estimate €200 billion will be needed by 2040 to expand grid capacity. Electricity prices are already among the highest in Western Europe, and Dutch households face yearly tariff increases of up to 4.7 percent for at least the next decade.”

Citizens are asked not charge e-bikes and electric cars during the peak usage hours between 4pm and 9pm.

“The Netherlands has been one of Europe’s most aggressive adopters of green policies, aiming to cut emissions in half by 2030.”

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Kathy Hochul’s only slowing down the suffering from her green-energy lunacy

Gov. Kathy Hochul finally admits the state’s “climate” goals are impossible to meet for now, but she offers no reason to trust she won’t continue to pursue them to appease green extremists, at huge cost to regular New Yorkers, if she wins re-election next year.

The climate law demands the state achieve 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040, but it’s still burning as much carbon as ever; its faltering (but hugely expensive) alternative-energy gains aren’t even enough to keep up with expected increases in demand.

The gov is making the smallest possible concession to reality, while dodging as much blame as she can: “We cannot accomplish what those objectives were back in before I became governor in a time frame that’s not going to hurt ratepayers,” she announced this month. “So, we’re slowing things down.”

Mind you, she’s burning ever-more of your dollars (via taxes and utility bills) on costly offshore wind projects, still blocking new pipelines, still preventing new-home natural-gas hookups and making non-electric vehicles more expensive.

She’s simply admitting that it’s not remotely enough, even though it keeps driving New York electricity costs through the roof. (Even roofs with solar panels on top!)

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Net Zero to Cost Taxpayers £800 Billion, Warns OBR

Britain’s move to a Net Zero economy will cost taxpayers more than £800 billion over the next two decades, the OBR – the UK’s fiscal watchdog – has said. But even this is based on implausibly generous assumptions, say critics. The Telegraph has the story.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said Government plans to limit climate change will cost the public purse £30 billion every year until at least 2051, as tax revenue from the sale of petrol and diesel fuel dries up.

This includes nearly £9.9 billion of spending every year on tech investments – for example updating the electricity grid – as well as £20.5 billion in revenue losses from declining fuel duty from petrol cars, as electric vehicles (EV) become more common.

Investments in green technology will initially make up most of the Net Zero cost before lost tax receipts become the bigger factor, the OBR said.

“In the next decade, expenditure accounts for the bulk of the fiscal cost, particularly public investment in residential buildings, removals and surface transport, which start to decline from 2036 to 2037,” it said.

While the sums are significant, the fiscal cost of Net Zero has been revised down from £1.1 trillion since the OBR last reviewed it in 2021. The watchdog said this was because of fuel duty freezes leading to lower lost receipts and a higher-than-expected uptake of EVs.

It also assumes the Government will spend less on the transition after the Climate Change Committee revised down the costs across the whole of the economy.

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The Green Lobby’s Dishonest Crusade for Solar and Wind

You wake up to an alarm, flick on the light, brew coffee, and drive to work. Every step requires energy – the stuff that shares the coin of physical reality with matter, the E in E = MC2.  It keeps homes warm, food fresh and economies running. 

Supplying 80% of the world’s primary energy, coal, oil and natural gas make up the lifeblood of modern civilization. Yet, there continue to be calls for the abandonment of these fuels without any feasible, scalable replacement in sight. 

It is dishonest for “green” lobbyists to claim that electricity from wind and solar can replace fossil fuels, when currently most of the energy used in the world is not even in the form of electricity.

Electricity represents only about 20% of global final energy consumption. That means four-fifths of the world’s energy use comes from fuels that power ships, planes, trucks and industrial furnaces. Oil fuels vehicles, natural gas provides heat for homes and industry, and coal is critically important for the manufacture of steel from iron.

Demand for hydrocarbons is expected to exceed that of electricity for many decades.

You’ve probably heard it before: “Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels.” This is a falsehood supported by a misleading metric – the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). When Mark Twain spoke of “lies, damn lies and statistics,” he had LCOE in mind.

LCOE purports to present an apples-to-apples comparison between various energy sources. However, the measure is meaningless because it ignores key costs such as those of providing backup power to compensate for the intermittency of solar and wind. Something must be available to step up when the wind and sun are not available for power generation.

While it may be true that sunshine and wind are “free,” converting them to a form of energy that works with modern power grids and integrating them into the 24-hour operation of electrical systems supplying millions of customers is difficult and expensive. 

A 2022 study by Robert Idel exposes LCOE’s flaws.

First, LCOE assumes constant output, but solar and wind produce only 20%-30% of their designed capacity, compared to 80%-90% for plants running on coal, natural gas or nuclear fuel.

Second, integrating solar and wind requires expensive infrastructure, including new transmission lines between population centers and remote industrial installations of wind turbines or solar panels or to natural gas plants standing by as backups. 

Third, LCOE ignores more subtle but, nonetheless, important operational considerations. For instance, as the output of solar and wind rises and falls with changes in the weather or daily westward progression of the sun, fossil fuel plants must ramp up or down, reducing efficiency and raising costs.

The rosy numbers of LCOE don’t reflect the reality of electricity bills. In California, where so-called renewables make up more than 50% of electricity generation, residential rates hit 30 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2023 – more than double the U.S. average.

Higher energy prices infiltrate every corner of life – manufacturing, logistics, heating, cooling, farming, data storage and more.

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Wind Turbine Blade Hospitalizes One Person After Crashing Onto Busy Interstate in Maryland

A wind turbine blade crashed onto I-70 in Maryland on Monday morning.

The Maryland State Highway Administration reported, “At approximately 5:30 a.m., a tractor trailer traveling westbound on I-70 was pulling a wind turbine blade that struck the guardrail causing the blade to go partially into the eastbound lanes.”

SHA added, “The blade was then clipped by a tractor-trailer traveling eastbound.”

The incident hospitalized one person and closed the westbound lane on I-70 for several hours.

A video of the incident was uploaded on X.

Per Fox 5 DC

A wind turbine blade detached from a tractor-trailer early Monday, blocking traffic in both directions of Interstate 70 in Washington County, Maryland State Police said.

The crash occurred around 5 a.m. near Exit 26 at Interstate 81 when the blade crossed the center median and landed in the eastbound lanes.

Maryland Department of Transportation traffic cameras showed the massive blade stretched across the highway. Officials say one person was transported by ambulance to Meritus Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Drivers experienced delays throughout the morning commute.

In the last year, Democrat Governor of Maryland Wes Moore, who is speculated to run for President, has signed legislation to create offshore wind energy off Maryland’s coast.

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Blue states with net-zero emissions goals consider nuclear as hopes for 100% wind and solar fade

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), Monday directed the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop and construct a nuclear power plant of not less than one gigawatt. The new plant was needed, Hochul said in her announcement, in order “to support a reliable and affordable electric grid, while providing the necessary zero-emission electricity to achieve a clean energy economy.” 

It was a surprising announcement for a state that closed and dismantled the Indian Point nuclear power plant only five years ago. The consideration of nuclear in the energy mix is part of a pattern seen in other blue states committed to eliminating electricity generated from fossil fuels. California has now delayed the closure of its only nuclear power plant, and Michigan is looking to restart a previously shuttered nuclear power plant. 

In all three cases, it appears that the states are coming to grips with the reality that intermittent wind and solar backed up by short-duration, expensive grid-scale batteries won’t be enough to supply the power needs of the state, especially as AI places more demands on the grid. Still clinging to the hope of a fossil fuel-free grid, these states are looking to nuclear as a more politically tenable option. 

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