Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.
Of special interest in this issue is an article by Donn Dears, “Texas Remains in Peril.”
Greed Energy Economics:
*** Report: Cost of onshore wind has been rising for 20 years
*** Some Cost of Renewable Electricity Web pages
Net Zero Watch pours scorn on Tony Blair Institute claims about ‘cheap’ onshore wind
Revisiting the Keystone XL Pipeline and Joe Biden’s False Promise of ‘Green Jobs’
Activists, progressives say NY needs to spend $15B in climate fight
College symposium on climate change should look at costs of putting big solar, wind energy in rural NY
Wind Energy — Offshore:
*** Furious Fishermen Take On Offshore Wind Industry Wrecking Atlantic Fishing Grounds
Video: How offshore wind development threatens the environment, and human livelihoods
Biden 30,000 MW Offshore Wind by 2030 — An Expensive Fantasy
New York State just sealed a deal for 2.5 GW of offshore wind
Developer Requests Delay Putting One of NY’s First Offshore Wind Projects in Operation
Wind Energy — Other:
Texas Energy System Remains in Peril
Two More Contributions On The Impossibility Of Electrifying Everything Using Only Wind, Solar And Batteries
Another Low Blow — Wind Energy Falters (Again)
VCEA makes Virginia’s electric grid dangerously unreliable
New York’s Heritage Wind Decision Aims To Reduce Project’s Impact On Birds
Backlash Against Renewables Surged In 2021, With 31 Big Wind And 13 Big Solar Projects Vetoed Across US
Solar Energy:
*** Unreliability makes solar power impossibly expensive
Supervisors delay decision on VA solar facility as neighbors speak against proposal
Pennsylvania community may ban future solar projects in ag zone
Nuclear Energy:
*** Nuclear power: The case for small modular reactors
*** Modular Molten Salt Reactors Starting 2028
*** Report: Without Nuclear energy, there is no large-scale decarbonization
This Alaskan Air Base Will Host An Experimental Mini Nuclear Reactor
The Idaho National Lab Director speaks out for urgent action in support of nuclear
Russia will use nuclear energy from the world’s first land-based small modular reactor
Lab hits milestone on long road to fusion power
South Korea to explore hydrogen production in ‘close to its largest’ nuclear plant
California’s Nuke Follies
Fossil Fuel Energy:
*** Extreme Shortages Guaranteed!…
Q. It’s been a year since your last MasterResource article. I know you recently retired from Spire, Inc., a St. Louis-based gas utility holding company you joined in 1994. What happened?
A. I was planning to retire for medical reasons anyway, but Spire beat me to it and that accelerated my retirement.
Q. But here you are still in the natural gas fight.
…A. I am very much still involved. I and a few other ex-gas utility ex-pats are starting a consulting group. Our objective is to become a technical resource for consumers and other entities that value and want to protect end-use alternatives to electricity. We want to be a technical alternative to NRDC (and its “useful idiots”). For now, we are going with the decidedly dull but to-the-point name of Gas End-Use Advocacy Group.
“Personally, I don’t see any interest on the other side to debate anything. Rather, they seem to think their environmental nirvana can only be achieved by replacing our free-market system. For that, they want a ‘green’ form of command-and-control socialism.” (Mark Krebs, below)
Q. Yesterday, you explained how DOE’s Office of Energy Efficient and Renewable Energy employs “garbage-in, garbage-out” (GIGO) to justify more stringent gas-appliance regulation. But step back: specifically, when and how did electrification become official energy policy?
A. Electrification, aka “deep decarbonization,” was in the background through at least the Obama and Trump Administrations. But it had come out of the woodwork with a vengeance under Biden. This started with an unprecedented gush of Executive Orders starting on day one. This implementation is now well underway.
Q. Please identify the primary Biden Administration regulatory chain of events that empowered this present “transition” to electrification through refocusing its mission on “carbon efficiency.”…