GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  Even before he took office, Donald Trump’s  promise to halt all offshore wind projects  upended an industry just as it was getting off the ground. Now, a freeze on wind project approvals threatens so many plans that it could   undercut the country’s climate goals.   After the election, Shell pulled out of a major turbine project off New Jersey, and a French undersea cable maker nixed a factory in Massachusetts that was set to employ hundreds at the site of an old coal-fired power plant. On Feb. 3, New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities  decided not to buy power from any wind projects  in its latest round of bidding, given that two companies had pulled out and the remaining one had lost Shell as a partner.   Two days later, the CEO of the Norwegian oil company Equinor, Anders Opedal, said on an earnings call that the company was cutting its global investments in renewables by half through 2027 and   acknowledged the U.S. wind market was “cha...

  The Illusion of Clean Energy The notion of renewable energy as our savior from environmental doom is captivating yet misleading. Many people imagine fields of wind turbines and solar panels generating clean electricity with no downside. This vision, however, ignores the complex reality behind so-called clean energy. Yes, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric power do provide alternatives to fossil fuels and can significantly reduce carbon emissions when in operation. But it's crucial to remember: 'clean' energy is not synonymous with 'absolutely perfect' or 'free of environmental impact.' The process of manufacturing, transporting, and maintaining these technologies often involves the use of resources and results in environmental consequences that are sometimes overlooked. The Renewable Energy Myth: Why It’s Not as Clean as You Think | Watch

  WASHINGTON—A federal clean-energy program fueled   by  hundreds of billions of dollars  during the Biden administration has lost about one-fourth of its staff as part of President Trump’s program to reduce employees across the government. Roughly 60 employees, including dozens of so-called probationary employees hired in the past few years, have resigned since Trump took office or were fired last week at the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, according to people familiar with the matter. The office, which provides cheap funds to clean-energy projects, had more than doubled its staff to about 250  and amassed a $400 billion war chest as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. More cuts are likely to come   as the Trump administration’s return-to-work policy kicks in, the people said, with one person estimating that subsequent moves could trim the staff by 50%.  Some of the people said they feared the Trump administration would additionally ta...

  An interesting source of near real time comparative data for electric power generation is   electricitymaps.com.   The site is easy to navigate – almost like Google Earth. You can see electric power generation in every US state and Canadian province, and most of the countries of the world where data is available, just by moving a mouse across a map.   Here is a screen shot from the app taken a few moments ago. It shows data from New York – i.e., the NYISO   This afternoon 22% of NY’s power is coming from renewables. But Electricitymaps.com counts hydroelectric generation as renewable. The NYISO site separately shows that wind power is doing very little in NY this afternoon and solar is doing essentially nothing. Nuclear power is considered “low-carbon” by Electricitymaps.   So – as seen here:  this afternoon 47% of NY’s electricity is nuclear power generated, and 22% is hydro generated with a touch of wind added.    Natural gas, as with mos...

February 14, 2025   For more than a decade, money manager Garvin Jabusch would show a chart of the planet’s rising temperatures when pitching investment ideas to clients, saying they could help save the planet and still make money.  These days, he no longer uses the chart and avoids talking about climate change. “I’ve given up on anyone ever caring about that,” said Jabusch, investment chief of  Green Alpha Investments , which manages about $300 million. He  isn’t the only climate-focused investor downplaying references to global warming and related topics . Parnassus Investments, the biggest US sustainable-investing firm, has removed references on its website that its funds are “fossil-fuel free.” And  Engine No. 1 , the small activist firm that led the shakeup of ExxonMobil Corp.’s board in 2021, has removed wording on its web page that corporate performance is “greatly enhanced” by investing in workers, communities and the environment. The fund...

The Inflation Reduction Act’s fate will soon be decided by a Republican-controlled Congress, and the market the law built up to fund its signature clean energy markets is on edge, even if there’s still brisk business being done. Before the IRA, to claim a clean energy tax credit essentially required having an actual investment interest in a project. One of the biggest changes of Biden’s climate law, however, was to make those tax credits transferable, meaning that if a developer itself didn’t have a large tax liability, it could transfer — i.e. sell — those credits to someone who did.   This fed what quickly became a thriving market connecting developers and owners of clean energy projects with tax equity investors who buy the credits to reduce their own tax bills. Much of the clean energy business relies on this structure to fund its activities. So when the investment bank Jefferies issued a note late last week on the residential solar company Sunnova — whose share price is down o...