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. Droz is also the author of the popular Substack Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues.

Wind Energy — Offshore:
Trump halts all significant offshore wind projects
Dominion sues over offshore stoppage

Wind Energy — Other:
*** When green energy threatens what it is meant to save
*** The Unreported Story of Grid Scale Battery Fires
*** The Battery Storage Delusion: Utility-Scale Batteries Are No Silver Bullet
The world’s first wind power/pumped storage pilot project is a dismal failure

Nuclear Energy:
SMRs Explained: Real-World Economics, Fuel Bottlenecks, and the Race to Scale
Time to Build Reactors Fueled By Nuclear Waste

Fossil Fuel Energy:
Climate Faithful Admit Need for Fossil Fuels
Trump Puts Coal In National Energy Stocking

Electric Vehicles (EVs):
*** EV school buses criticized by parents over breakdowns, lack of heat

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:
*** Two Retractions Raise the Question: Is Climate Science Really Settled?…

“The anti-Big Oil political campaign, which harks back to 19th century’s ‘a right to do an independent business’ (Tarbell) against Standard Oil, is anti-consumer and pro-elitism…. Human betterment via economic and energy freedom is the moral imperative. Political capitalism (of which ‘Big Oil’ is also guilty) is the foe.”

The headline exclaims: “Big Oil’s Climate Ads Have Propped Up Fake Promises and False Solutions for Past 25 Years, Report Finds.” The subtitle of the article by Dana Drugmand: “First-of-its-kind analysis of hundreds of climate-related advertisements from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell suggests that oil companies are continuing to mislead the public on climate.”

Well, it is fundraising time for Inside Climate News. And no, this report, coming on top of many similar ones, presents nothing new. It is more of more of the same.…

“… the doctrine of ‘social responsibility’ involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.” (- Milton Friedman, 1970)

Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment, is all-in with climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. No debate allowed about fundamental premises, despite my best efforts to persuade her otherwise.

Today, she is tangled up in the subjectivity and contradictions of “socially responsible” investing. Business is the process of winning profits and avoiding losses, with distractions such as “socially responsible” minimized. Yes, ethical norms should be respected, as Milton Friedman clearly stated in his seminal essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.” But business is not government or a charity.…

“One wonders if Shell, trying to greenwash best it can, is happy to see the climate outliers within its ranks leave. The company should at least inform employees about the moral case for fossil fuels—past, present, and future—as explained by Alex Epstein to his world audience.”

Richard Plant, self-described “sustainability champion … born at 326.42 ppm,” was obviously working at the wrong company–an oil and gas company, Shell. Shell was not the problem–it has rightly pulled back from the bad economics of wind and solar. Tried and failed, just as happened at Exxon. And at BP, no longer “beyond petroleum.”

Plant describes himself as “an experienced procurement professional … [with] over two decades of experience in global supply chain and category management roles, most of which I’ve spent at Shell.”…