Editor Update: Since this article was prepared, Southern Company (the parent of Georgia Power) announced another cost increase and delay.
“Since September 2018, the project budget has increased five times, and is now expected to total more than $30 billion [from $14 billion in 2009].”
The bad news continues at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle #3 and #4, the first nuclear units to be constructed in six years. The most complicated, expensive, and hazardous way to boil water, (government-enabled) nuclear remains a mirage of cost-effective engineering.
A project that broke ground in 2013, expected to cost $14 billion with start-up in 2016 (Unit 3) and 2017 (Unit 4), is now past $30 billion with estimated start dates in 2023/24. The U.S. Department of Energy has contributed loan guarantees of $12 billion to the project.…
Continue ReadingEd. 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.
Greed Energy Economics:
*** The Often Overlooked Costs of an Extended Power Outage
Renewables (General):
*** Why Pretend Green Pork Will Stop Climate Change?
*** What The Future Holds For Our Climate Leaders
*** All That Glitters Isn’t Green, or Renewable
*** Unattainable, Costly, Net Zero: the Thrill is Gone; a black/brown-out reality check
*** Wind and Solar Fail to Reduce Grid’s CO2 Emissions
*** MISO approves $10 billion in new transmission lines to subsidize wind and solar
‘Green’ Energy Myth Exposed: Subsidized Wind & Solar Scam Built on Perpetual Lies
Heatwave Demonstrates Weakness of New York’s Electric Grid
Rights Abuser China Emerging as Dubious Linchpin of Biden’s Lithium-Battery Supply Chain
Why Panos Prevedouros left Hawaii
Wind Energy (Offshore):
*** Biden announces executive actions on ‘climate crisis,’ focuses on extreme heat and boosting offshore wind
*** Offshore wind turbines have never been a good idea
*** Offshore Wind’s Turbulent Future
Five Reasons To Reject Offshore Wind Projects
The Offshore Wind Energy Problem: Government Overregulation, Disincentives, and Anti-market Policies
Wind Energy (Other):
Developer Abandons Plan to Add 30 Wind Turbines in Iowa: Residents Celebrate
Solar Energy:
*** Weather ‘too hot’ for solar panels
*** How Manchin-Schumer would change energy, from oil to solar
*** The Energy Transition Runs Into a Ditch in Rural Ohio
Farmland Be Damned: New York Will Cover Upstate with Solar!…
“The blame for the current energy crisis also falls on our industry for too often compliantly going along with the endless anti-hydrocarbon fashion of today.”
“If it is not for us to speak candidly, honestly and loudly about the critical role hydrocarbons play in the modern world, and most critically for those desiring simply to join the modern world, then who else will play this role?”
Playing offense against the critics of oil and gas is good business. It was courageous back then, and it is ESG’ish today. After all, none other than the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, said More Oil Now. And so did U.S. DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
Remember when Innovex Downhole Solutions called out North Face when the latter refused to fill a shirt order because the customer was an oil company?…
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