Ed. Note: Hydropower (“white coal”) was once the lone alternative to coal for electrical generation, supplying about one-third of U.S. supply in 1950. Today, hydro supplies around six percent of national power (and falling). The post below speaks to the political imbroglio of this energy source with the example of Michigan.
Michigan regulators have granted Consumers Energy a two-month delay in dealing with its controversial plan to sell 13 small and elderly hydroelectric plants to a Maryland-based private equity firm.
The Jackson, Mich., investor-owned utility last week (Sept. 8) asked the Michigan Public Service Commission to remove a decision on the company’s unusual hydro selloff from its scheduled Sept. 10 meeting until November. The utility said it wants “an opportunity to resolve the issues in this case cooperatively” with the parties to the case.…
“Currently, in many car markets, an electric car is more expensive to purchase upfront than a comparable gasoline- or diesel-powered model, which tends to be the biggest consideration for most consumers.” (New York Times, August 18, 2026, below)
The statistic of increasing global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) is often cited as if consumers in an open, free market prefer EVs to internal combustion engines. A careful reading of a recent New York Times article, “The Gulf Oil Shock Is Pushing E.V. Sales to New Heights Globally” (August 18, 2026), supports the counter-thesis that EV sales are driven by special government favor. Here-today-gone-tomorrow EV subsidies (as in the U.S.) raise the question of sustainability. From a government-neutral, consumer-first perspective, EVs are not sustainable.
“Electric car sales are on track to hit record highs this year,” begin Mira Rojanasakul and Brad Plumer, “with 29 percent of all new cars purchased around the world expected to be either purely battery-powered models or plug-in hybrids,” versus four percent in 2020.…
“Today, global operating nameplate capture capacity is approximately 60 million tonnes a year. If fully utilised, that would represent gross capture equivalent to roughly 14-15 hours of annual global energy and industrial emissions. Actual verified net storage is lower.” (- Martin Jagger, below)
Martin Jagger, a climate activist specializing in carbon capture & storage, recently wrote a sobering post on the progress of this technology in addressing the assumed-to-be climate crisis. This problematic approach is another example of the tears-in-the-ocean choices of climate mitigation policy.
“For twenty years,” he begins, “I have argued that CCS has an important role to play in managing emissions from industries where practical alternatives remain limited.” The progress to date has been small, and the effect on global emissions minuscule. He explains:
…Today, global operating nameplate capture capacity is approximately 60 million tonnes a year.