The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Four people die in helicopter crash near major NC wind project

PhD: Massachusetts wind turbine study is junk science

Alert: Integrating the Social Cost of Carbon into NYS Utility Pricing

Societal Benefits of Fossil Fuels

Study: Hidden consequences of intermittent electricity production

Study: Vermont Energy Goal Numbers Don’t Add up

Unwinding Failing Renewables Policies

The EPA Needs to Stick to its Knitting

Global Warming: Who Are The Deniers Now?…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

The True Cost of Solar Electricity

Study: New York’s climate goal—staggering costs, no benefits

A Review of the Regional Green Gas Initiative

Study: Turbines reduce the productivity of surrounding vegetation

Hidden consequences of intermittent electricity production

Integrating the supposed “social cost of carbon” into wholesale power markets

MIT: Researchers Announce Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

DOE staff releases their Energy Reliability Study

These are my observations on the DOE study

Some other comments are: here, here, here, here and here.…

“To actually accomplish replacing all light vehicles in the UK with battery-powered vehicles, while also meeting the requirements of the UK’s Climate Change Act, would require building 39,000 new 2 MW wind turbines, which is nearly 6 times the number of wind turbines built over the last 15 years. The cost would be approximately $165 billion or £131 billion. (More, if offshore wind or solar is built.) This is 90% of the UK budget for its entire health care program, or nearly three times larger than the UK’s defense budget.”

The media went gaga over France’s and the UK’s proposal to eliminate the use of internal combustion engines in automobiles by replacing them with battery-powered vehicles (BEVs).

As it now stands, the global BEV count of two million represents a 0.2 percent market share.…

“The China study highlights that the government’s push to promote EVs may actually create a greater hurdle for it achieving its goal of restricting CO2 growth.”

Yesterday’s post noted That Tesla’s federal tax subsidies, which apply to the first 200,000 vehicles produced, could be reached and exceeded next year. In such an event, what happens to Tesla’s Model 3 backlog when price-sensitive EV buyers, who have ordered the car, realize it may be delivered without the tax subsidy?

The answer might be seen in the EU, where EV tax subsidies have been cut, leading to a sharp fall in sales. This recently occurred in Hong Kong, as I described last week. But other countries have put EV subsidies, and thus EV sales, on the bubble.

Norway’s EV Effort–But Oil Rises

Critics of EV studies such as that of Bloomberg New Energy Finance (NEF) point to the recent history of oil consumption in Norway, one of the leading EV success stories.…