A Free-Market Energy Blog

Bad News Vogtle #3 and #4 Yet Again

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 24, 2022

The pile of missing or incomplete documents added up to a delay of three to six months, Southern said. That additional time is costing $920 million…. While Georgia Power customers have been bearing the brunt of Vogtle’s costs, Southern said in a regulatory filing that … “[the] incremental costs associated with these provisions will not be recovered from retail customers.”

Plant Vogtle’s latest move highlights the nuclear industry’s chief troubles with building large, baseload reactors: safety and cost. (Kristi Swartz, February 18, 2022)

Plant Vogtle hits new delays; costs surge near $30B,” read the headline from EnergyWire (E&E News) last week.

The 2,200 MW project was supposed to cost $14 billion and be completed in 2016 (Unit 3) and 2017 (Unit 4); the project now nears $30 billion with a start date in 2023.…

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Burnout! Climate Politics Dizzies the Left (are eco-solutions eco-worse?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 23, 2022

Emily, What you are going through is so rampant in the climate community and a topic of much discussion and concern…. Next week we are hosting an online workshop with an “ecopsychologist” to help folks with climate anxiety….”

There is a lot of talk about climate anxiety these days. Climate activists are witnessing a tripartite boom in oil, gas, and coal, while record wind and solar generation is limited by cost, siting resistance, and intermittency. Bad news all around–for them.

Realists among the climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists have realized that consumers/voters are ultimately going to choose the most economical, reliable energies, politics aside. And with their deep ecology notion of no more than a 1.5°C warming above the pre-industrial, time is running very short under the most optimistic of scenarios.

Emily Aiken Bows Out

Enter Emily Aiken, the publisher of HEATED, “a newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis.”…

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Record Coal Demotes ‘Net Zero’

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 22, 2022

“The pledges to reach net zero emissions made by many countries, including China and India, should have very strong implications for coal – but these are not yet visible in our near-term forecast, reflecting the major gap between ambitions and action.” (International Energy Agency, below)

The father of energy economics made it official back in 1865. “Coal, in truth, stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities,” wrote William Stanley Jevons:

It is the material energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of early times.

Another writer of the day added:

Coal is everything to us. Without coal, our factories will become idle, our foundries and workshops be still as the grave; the locomotive will rust in the shed, and the rail be buried in the weeds.

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Epstein on Energy: ‘Fossil Future’ on Deck

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 21, 2022
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CO2 Analogy to Tobacco: “Nonsense,” states James Hansen

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 18, 2022
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Dessler on Koonin: Cancel Culture at Work

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 17, 2022
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Coal Is Back (webcast today makes its energy, policy case)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 16, 2022
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“‘Fuel of the Year’ Syndrome:” Methanol in California Revisited

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 15, 2022
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Energy and Environmental Review: February 14, 2022

By -- February 14, 2022
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Gas Stove Alarmism Fails

By -- February 11, 2022
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