Ed. 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 New Greenwashing – False Advertising about Green Energy Jobs
*** Sow the Wind (Power), Reap the Whirlwind

Wind Energy — Offshore:
NJ to study environmental impacts of offshore wind projects
Environmental Organization Opposes Lake Erie Wind Project
Wind Turbine Generator Impacts to Marine Vessel Radar
Tsunamis may sink West Coast offshore wind
Indian tribe and conservationists fight California offshore wind turbines

Wind Energy — Other:
*** Wind project ordered to stop emitting night-time noise, pay neighbors damages
*** Energy reliability is everything
*** No Amount Of Wind And Solar Power Can Ever Provide Energy Independence
Renewable Failure
Iowa’s claimed wind energy percentage is wildly exaggerated
Judge says proposed VA wind project needs further review
More Confirmation of the Infeasibility of a Fully Wind/Solar/Storage Electricity System
Wind Turbines Of Madison County: MidAmerican Energy Prevails In Lawsuit
Leading Environmentalists Now Vigorously Oppose Turbines In German Forests
Local voices quashed in NY wind siting process
The wind projects angering renewable energy fans

Solar Energy:
*** Virginia community tightens solar project rules
Protect NY farmland from solar and wind development
Solar’s dirty secrets: How solar power hurts people and the planet
California’s solar market is now a battery market

Nuclear Energy:
*** Study: Radiation Hormesis: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
*** Indiana SMR bill signed into law
*** White House pivots to nuclear energy
What Happened To Nuclear Cruise Ships?…

“This letter to Biden is a very mixed bag of legalize and subsidize. It is hardly free market; it is a testament about how some Republicans and conservative Democrats are playing the government welfare game in a time of political defensiveness.”

Classical liberalism explains and justifies voluntary transactions between consenting adults. The framework is private property rights, the rule of law, and government abstinence, or neutrality.

Applied to civilian energy, the government should not research, commercialize, subsidize, or penalize. Government should buy energy for its usage, not requisition it. Market transactions should not be subject to price controls, allocation controls, or differential taxation. Jawboning by government officials toward non-market ends should be avoided too.

This background is necessary to parse a March 10, 2022, letter to Joe Biden from two Republicans, one (Trumpian) Democrat, and one Independent.…

“Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.”

“For critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.” (NYT, below)

Let history note that the February 23, 2022, print edition of the New York Times admitted that “net zero” was a long shot. This breaks the narrative that Net Zero was the inevitable future with politics and business and high technology leading the way. Forget energy density; energy reality would be remade by a shared narrative of hoping and wanting it to be remade.…

“Mr. President, America is the world’s energy superpower. It is time we started acting like it again.”

We live in ironic political times when it comes to petroleum, a pillar of the master resource of energy. But consumers know and like their best energies, prominently including gasoline and diesel at the pump.

When citizen voters fuss about key petroleum products, politicians take off their ‘green’ masks and bow to reality. Remember Al Gore in his 2000 presidential run when motor-fuel prices became an issue? The author of Earth in the Balance stated:

I have made it clear in this campaign that I am not calling for any tax increase on gasoline, on oil, on natural gas, or anything else. I am calling for tax cuts to stimulate the production of new sources of domestic energy and new technologies to improve efficiency.