“A 10% reduction off the retail rate for wholesale power would net Summit Ridge Energy a price of $0.1181 per kWh, which is 244% higher than the average wholesale rate in 2021 that all other power producers received. And that boost will be absorbed and passed on to all retail ratepayers.”

“The $2.5 billion investment in production plants that Q-Cells promises isn’t really coming from the company, but from the U.S. Treasury courtesy of federal taxpayers’ largesse and Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.”

Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris visited a Korean-owned solar photovoltaic module plant in Dalton, Georgia. Long known as the carpet capital of America (and perhaps less illustriously as the Home of the Blonde Bombshell), Dalton will now host a vastly-expanded Korean-owned solar panel production facility operated by a company called Q-Cells.…

“The supply-side reliability fix offered by the Texas Senate is a direct response to the February 2021 carnage created by, yes, wind and solar taking over a once reliable grid. It is a hard-wired governmental solution to a soft-wired governmental problem. But there is an alternative. Free markets, anyone?”

The big guns of climate alarmism and forced energy transformation are out to prevent Texas from shoring up its grid from the cancer of wind and solar. Out of the blue, the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter (Substack) appears, with the message that renewables are not the problem but the solution, complemented by, in Doug Lewin’s words, “Fast-acting reciprocating engines, batteries, geothermal power, and demand response [to] help with both resource adequacy and operational flexibility.”

In denial about the wounded supply side–where the obvious solution is to demote (government-enabled) intermittent resources–the answer is “smart meters” in the home so Big Brother can oversee demand.…

The filed comments exceeded expectations. The free-market commenters were especially prevalent and displayed great content. Some trade associations also deserve special recognition.

Biden’s “whole of government” Department of Justice is becoming far less likely to challenge DOE on matters of fuel neutrality.

Good news! Filed comments opposing the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Conventional Cooking Products (Ovens)” beat the other side in quantity, quality and range. The sheer volume of opposition comments makes a summary difficult, as does the new format of the regulations.gov website (requiring each numbered comment be opened one-by-one to identify the sender’s identity). There are 2,650 comments in this docket, dating back to Feb 24, 2014. [1]

The following table is provided to give examples of some of the more thorough yet diverse comments opposing adoption filed in the last few days before the comment period closed on April 17th:

Review of Comments

The filed comments exceeded expectations. The…

Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** A Texas-Sized Energy Fiasco
*** Lazard’s levelized cost of power generation figures remain “highly implausible”
*** Greens Refuse to Discuss Recycling of Renewables, etc.
Wind Generation Cost to Ontarians on April 13th Hit a Record of $2,055/MWH
California Power Companies Propose to Bill Electricity Partly by Income
Wind Power Has A Profitability Problem
Renewable energy PPA prices continue to rise despite Inflation Reduction Act relief

Renewables (General):
*** The Renewable Intermittency Challenge
*** End preferences for unreliable electricity
*** The Great Green Dream is a Fantasy
Addressing Wind/Solar Instability: Hardwiring the Grid
Australia’s ‘green energy’ chimera
Jamie Dimon’s Climate Corporatism

Wind Energy — Offshore:
*** Pentagon Sounds Alarm Over Biden Plan for Offshore Wind Sites
*** Short video: Is Industrial Offshore Wind Development Killing Endangered Whales?…