GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  Philip Rose and 11 others   The following opinion was submitted by residents living near the planned Liberty Renewables wind farm in the town of Fenner. Their names appear at the end.   We are proud of the town of Fenner and our town leaders who welcomed 20 250-foot turbines built on a remote piece of farmland in our town. The town and ENEL Northeast (the renewable energy company) worked cooperatively for three years to carefully plan the siting of each turbine, the impact on our lives and homes, and the economic advantages to the town. As a result of ENEL’s project, payments to the town improved roads, maintenance and brought down resident taxes. This arrangement has lasted since 2001. The Fenner Renewal Energy Education Center, a local nonprofit to educate about many different types of renewable energy, works cooperatively with the town and with ENEL, with thousands of people visiting every year. Recently, New York state has become very aggressive in promoting renewab...

  ALBANY — Renewable energy advocates want the New York Power Authority to take greater responsibility and bolder action to meet clean energy targets.   Legislation directing the authority to invest in renewable energy projects to assist the state in meeting clean energy mandates was passed in 2023. The authority spent more than a year identifying projects to invest in and gathering public feedback.   The result has been a plan finalized earlier this month to take majority stakes in 45 renewable energy projects and 146 energy storage projects encompassing 5.5 gigawatts of power. That’s a reduction from a July draft of the plan which included 7 gigawatts of renewable energy. More may be added to the plan as the authority continues to search for opportunities to invest in renewable energy projects.  The feedback on that change has included outrage.   “I don’t think they (the authority) care about the state’s climate goals being delayed,” said Assemblywom...

  ALBANY — National Grid and other utilities are spending billions of dollars to prep New York’s electric grid for a generational shift. ​ Renewable energy, manufacturing plants and  AI data centers  are popping up outside urban areas, often in regions with poor electrical infrastructure. ​ New York utilities are spending more than $4 billion to modernize the grid for those facilities. They are investments for which New Yorkers — many of whom are already struggling with utility costs — will have to pay for in the coming years. ​ “Transmission is the enabler,” said Bart Franey, vice president of clean energy development for National Grid. ​ A renewable energy or a manufacturing facility can’t just pop up and connect to the electric system. Transmission lines act as a freeway connecting the state’s urban cores. Then there’s the distribution system — the highway offramps — which send power from transmission lines to homes and businesses.   Because those t...

  The Ivanpah concentrated-solar project has been an environmental and economic disaster. Launched in 2014, the $2.2 billion solar facility located 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles, was designed to produce 392 megawatts of electricity by focusing sunlight on 459-foot-high towers. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, then-Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz claimed the sprawling project, which covers nearly six square miles of the Mojave Desert, was a “ shining example ” of America’s leadership in solar energy. But Ivanpah was a flop. It never generated more than 75% of its planned electricity output. It relies heavily on natural gas to ensure its complex generators operate properly. The juice it produces is absurdly expensive. And it has been a disaster for wildlife. Some  6,000 birds are being killed every year  while flying between the mirrors and the towers. The project also required relocating endangered desert tortoises. Even the goofballs at the Sierra Club, an outfit that...

  Whatever happened to the climate crisis?   In 2021 Bill Gates was warning that the equator would become unlivable as he promoted his book, “How to Avoid A Climate Disaster.” In October, he effectively said, never mind. “Climate change won’t wipe out civilization,” he wrote.   Former United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney became Canada’s prime minister this year and promptly scrapped Canada’s consumer carbon tax. He has just announced a major new pipeline project.   Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer built a presidential run in 2020 around climate. Now running for governor of California, the word appears nowhere in his launch video.   Why have climate alarmists suddenly gone quiet? The science and the economics haven’t really changed: Carbon emissions are still rising, and the climate is still getting warmer.   What’s changed is the politics. Climate warriors persuaded the public to take climate...

  The day after President Donald Trump halted construction of a $5 billion wind project off the New York coast, the nation’s top offshore wind developers gathered for a regularly scheduled strategy session in Washington.   The mid-April meeting quickly became heated.   Michael Brown, an outspoken Scotsman who leads the developer Ocean Winds, expressed anger that the industry’s main trade association would not join a blue-state lawsuit challenging Trump’s freeze on offshore wind permitting. American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet pushed back, saying the industry should preserve its political capital at a time when Congress was gearing up to eliminate former President Joe Biden’s clean energy tax credits. The pair “were shouting at one another,” said one person at the meeting, who like most industry figures quoted in this story was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive business and political matters. Another attendee described it as “definitely contenti...