Ed. Note: Just 15 months after receiving a $3.0 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (Jigar Shah), Sunnova stock price has cratered with the prospect of bankruptcy. Sunnova founder (and Enron-ex) John Berger’s battle cry–“solar is going to rip apart the energy business as we know it”– is an example of the philosophical fraud committed by political capitalists who are tipsy on taxpayer dollars.

UPDATE: Sunnova is bankrupt several times over. “The company has approximately $1.9 billion in debt that needs to be fully repaid by the end of 2028,” reported Houston Chronicle (02-20-2025). “That includes $975 million in debt due for payment in 2026. In comparison, Sunnova’s market capitalization, or the value of its total shares, is $251 million….” It is also in legal peril (see here).…

“In a rational and moral world, the catastrophe of the Los Angeles fires, fueled in part by climate change, would be one of many climate ‘Pearl Harbors’ that might help wake up the public to the urgent need for climate action.” (- Joe Romm, last week)

“Is it just a coincidence that the worst of the worst happened in California, the Climate State? The Green State? The DEI State? Joe, the mainstream is not buying your ‘Climate Ate My Homework’ reasoning.” (below)

Just add “policy” in two places in Romm’s quotation above, and substitute “inaction” for “action” at the end, and his conclusion can be fixed. But who is Joe Romm? And what is his track record? I have tangled with Angry Joe for decades (I am a ‘sociopath’ to him) and can address these questions.…

Ed. Note: With yesterday’s background, Part II examines the politicization of one of Alaska’s major hydroelectric projects to reveal ulterior motives from “stakeholders” and elected officials.

“Once an RPS becomes law, the boards will be able to point to the new law in effect requiring them to adopt unreliable and expensive sources and be held harmless once things start to spiral out of control, up to and including rolling brownouts and blackouts.”

“Pumped energy storage is only necessary as a mitigating backup to the planned 100% unreliable not-so renewables. The Renewable Portfolio Standard will mandate a government-subsidized solar, wind and transmission build-out by grifters and profiteers. Wind and solar power producers should be made to pay for all infrastructure that makes them as reliable as a gas turbine.”

For environmental groups and their political carriers, the question is how to expand wind and solar power in the state, the very resources that are dilute, intermittent, fragile, expensive, and taxpayer-dependent.…

“Federal officials, aware that solar power breakthroughs have shined and faded almost as often as the sun, say the Enron project could introduce commercially competitive technology without expensive Government aid.” (- Allen Myerson, Solar Power, for Earthly Prices, New York Times, November 15, 1994)

Thirty years ago, the ‘newspaper of record’ excitedly reported atop the business section that a breakthrough with solar energy had occurred with the business genius of the upstart energy company Enron. Formed in the mid-1980s, Enron had just entered into the solar business and was destined to revitalize–if not save–the U.S. wind industry just a few years later.

Good press continues to create an Enron-like illusion of the coming competitiveness and profitability of solar and wind energies for on-grid electricity. Basic energy physics explains why the sun’s (dilute, intermittent) flow cannot compete against the sun’s stored (dense) energy embedded in natural gas, coal, and oil.…