GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  “The more people know about the wind energy business, the less they like it.” That was the lede for  an article on Big Wind that I published in  National Review   back in 2011. That article focused on work done by Justin Rolfe-Redding, who was then a doctoral student from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. After studying polling data on alt-energy, he found that “after reading arguments for and against wind, wind lost support.” In a webinar sponsored by the American Council on Renewable Energy, Rolfe-Redding explained that concerns about wind energy’s cost and its effect on property values “crowded out climate change” among those surveyed. “The things people are educated about are a real deficit for us,” he said. After briefings on the pros and cons of wind, “Enthusiasm decreased for wind. That’s a troubling finding.” Remember, that analysis was done  14 years ago. I bring up that study because it’s germane to  a remar...

  July 9, 2025   Workers install solar panels in Galena, Alaska, in May   By  J ake Spring   President Donald Trump issued  an executive order  Monday evening ordering his administration to crack down on remaining loopholes allowing access to renewable energy tax breaks, after Congress voted last week to  overwhelmingly roll back the subsidies .   The order aims to placate the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, which argued the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump on July 4 should have gone further to cut subsidies and reduce the law’s impact on the deficit.   Share prices of at least a dozen solar companies, including Enphase Energy and Sunrun, dropped after the order was signed.   A last-minute deal between Senate and House Republicans last week agreed to allow wind and solar facilities that break ground within 12 months to receive subsidies for several years. Democrats uniformly opposed the bill, which gutted the Inflation Re...

  July 8, 2025 The Trump administration is aggressively paving the way to open more nuclear power plants while pulling back on wind power as expensive hot air, Environmental Protection Agency  Administrator Lee Zeldin  said Sunday. “President Trump wants [nuclear plants] approved as quickly as possible … It just requires an agency like the EPA to get out of the way,” Zeldin  said Sunday on  WABC 770 the “Cats Roundtable” program. He criticized his own agency for examples of “gumming up the works” in ways that unnecessarily slowed energy projects including nuclear power. 4 “ President Trump wants [nuclear plants] approved as quickly as possible … It just requires an agency like the EPA to get out of the way,” Zeldin said Sunday . Zeldin said he wants to see Congress approve a law making it easier to license zero emissions nuke power plants, regardless of which political party is in charge of the White House in the future. “That it’s going to require less time, ha...

  Dive Brief: President Donald Trump  issued an executive order Monday  instructing the Secretary of the Treasury to publish guidance within 45 days “to ensure that policies concerning the ‘beginning of construction’ are not circumvented” by wind and solar projects that saw their eligibility for the 45Y and 48E clean energy tax credits slashed  by budget legislation signed into law  on July 4. “It is unclear how the Treasury will amend the ‘beginning of construction’ language while also keeping in mind that a ‘substantial portion of the subject facility has been built,’” Jefferies analysts said in a Tuesday note. This “could be an attempt to pivot back to the House version of the OBBB which had narrowed credit eligibility with ‘begin construction’ AND ‘placed in service’ language.” Prior to the EO, clean energy advocates were already grappling with the anticipated impacts of the legislation, which is expected to slash capital investment in U.S. electricity and c...

  Renewable-energy stocks fell, after President Trump issued an executive order calling for tight application of the eligibility rules for clean-energy tax credits. Shares in solar-equipment maker First Solar fell about 5% in morning trading Tuesday, while Sunrun dropped 11%. Stocks in energy-project developers such as NextEra and AES logged smaller declines. The tax-and-spending bill passed by Republicans last week  made good  on Trump's promise to withdraw President Joe Biden’s green tax credits. The final law requires wind and solar farms to be in service by 2027 to get tax credits, and allows them to claim credits if construction starts in the next 12 months. That means a lot is riding on what counts as “under construction.” Trump's executive order, issued Monday, said a “substantial portion” of a facility must be built to claim credits and told the Treasury to write new guidance within 45 days. The order looks designed to mollify Republican fiscal hawks. The House Fr...

  Jul 9, 2025  ALEXANDRIA BAY — Experts in the energy industry spent two hours detailing the benefits of nuclear energy to local officials after Gov. Kathy Hochul directed the New York Power Authority to explore advanced nuclear energy. The event, put together by Assemblyman Scott A. Gray, R-Watertown, was organized to educate leaders and stakeholders in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties. Gray said the event, held at Bonnie Castle Resort, was a success. “This is going to be a step-by-step process,” he said. Up until Tuesday, Gray said he hadn’t heard anyone put a request in to New York State Energy Research and Development, or NYSERDA, but people didn’t have the knowledge, he said. “Two days later, this (event) was birthed,” Gray said. “I was shocked at the knowledge that we had in the room.” Industry leaders reassured the officials that a nuclear power plant is safe and could create many new high-paying jobs. The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, or GAIN, state...