GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  In   this post last week , I took note that New York’s electric grid system operator, NYISO, has recently issued some clear, if muted, warnings of the impossibility of the energy transition mandated by the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). In a   November 2023 Report , NYISO stated (deeply buried at page 52) that “ DEFRs are needed to balance intermittent supply with demand,”  and those DEFRs must be “ significant in capacity.”   DEFRs are the elusive and not-yet-invented “dispatchable emissions-free resources.”  At a conference the following month, NYISO’s VP for System Integration Planning, Zachary Smith, reiterated the need for these DEFRs in large amounts. Smith presented charts quantifying the capacity of DEFRs  needed for New York to “balance” its prospective intermittent wind/solar supply  as something in the range of 30+ GW. 30 GW is close to the peak electricity demand for the entire state, and is approximately equivalent to the existing c

JOHNSTOWN, NY   - Nearly five square miles of land in Fulton County have become a new no-no zone for solar development. Johnstown city councilors on Monday  voted to prohibit  commercial solar arrays as recommended by planning officials. “There were just a lot of questions that we didn’t necessarily have the answers to and so we weren’t comfortable with them,” said City Engineer Christopher Vose. The decision, packaged among a spate of zoning changes, comes as Mohawk Valley community officials raise concerns over the long-term impacts of solar farms popping up across the region. A number of local governments have imposed moratoriums over development in order to buy time to craft legislation.  Municipalities such as Mayfield, Ephratah and Oppenheim have already adopted solar regulations. In Fulton County, an outright ban on solar farms is, at the very least, unusual, according to Fulton County senior planner Aaron Enfield. Currently, the city of 8,138 residents is void of solar developm

  Despite extravagant hype, the green-energy transition from fossil fuels isn’t happening. Achieving a meaningful shift with current policies is too costly.   We need to change policy direction entirely. Globally, we spent almost  $2 trillion  in 2023 to try to force an energy transition. Over the past decade, solar and wind energy use has soared to record levels. But that hasn’t reduced fossil-fuel use, which increased even more over the same period. Studies show that when countries add more renewable energy, it does little to replace coal, gas or oil. It simply adds to energy consumption.  Recent research  shows that for every six units of green energy, less than one unit displaces fossil-fuel energy. The Biden administration finds that while renewable energy sources worldwide will dramatically increase up to 2050, that won’t be enough even to begin replacing fossil fuels—oil, gas and coal will  all keep increasing , too. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any student of history. D

These 9 charts from the Statistical Review Of World Energy expose the myth of the energy transition & show hydrocarbons are growing faster than alt-energy   JUN 23, 2024   Global energy use in 2023 hit a new record, 620 EJ, of which about 81.5% came from hydrocarbons . Image:  Energy Institute . During his 16-year career in the NBA, Rasheed Wallace was among basketball’s most intimidating power forwards. He was also among the most volatile. Wallace holds the single-season record for technical fouls (41) and ranks  third all-time in total technicals with 317 . In addition to his disdain for referees, the 6’11” Wallace, gained fame for a particular catchphrase. If “Sheed” or one of his teammates was called for a foul that he thought was undeserved, and the opposing player missed the ensuing free throw, he would often holler, “Ball don’t lie,” to indicate that the basketball knew the referee had made a bad call.  The ball don’t lie. Neither do the numbers in the latest  Statistical Re

  Governor Hochul Announces Approval of New York’s Nation-Leading Six Gigawatts Energy Storage Roadmap | Governor Kathy Hochul (ny.gov) Governor Hochul Announces Approval of New York’s Nation-Leading Six Giga... Governor Hochul announced that the New York State Public Service Commission approved a new framework for the Sta...

  The report tracks 395 local restrictions on renewable energy development, with 55 of those emerging in the last year. June 12, 2024    By  Diana DiGangi Reporter   Offshore wind in particular has seen “significant litigation,” said the Sabin Center’s report .  Dive Brief: A  report from Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law  analyzed local and state opposition to renewable energy projects and found it has significantly increased in the last year, with 55 new local restrictions since last May.  The Sabin Center assessed local restrictions spanning back to 1995 and found a total of 395 restrictions severe enough to block projects across 41 states. The center’s last report on the issue, published May 2023, found 340 restrictions. Severe state-level restrictions are “far less numerous,” the report says, and it logs 19 of those. “The volume and nature of the restrictions and controversies cataloged in this report demonstrate that local opposition to renewable energy fa

  If the big story of this weekend’s European Parliament elections is that voters are drifting right, one   question is why   they’re drifting from parties of the left. In Germany it’s more like a stampede as that country’s Green Party emerged as the biggest loser. The Greens, one of three parties in Berlin’s governing coalition,  won 11.9% of the vote  for Germany’s 96 seats in the EU Parliament, compared to a combined 30% for the center-right Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) which are in opposition in Berlin. This is down from the Greens’ 20.5% share in the 2019 European Parliament elections and the 15% the party took in national elections in 2021. Turnout was higher this year than in 2019, so that steep drop in vote share means  the Greens lost an enormous number of voters . Their tally this weekend was nearly three million shy of their count in 2019.  Their support among voters under age 30 has all but collapsed , to a 12% share, down 19 percentage po

  Monopoly Area Monday Welcome to Grid Brief! Today, we’re looking at power generation in America’s traditional monopoly areas with relevant news items. Scroll to the end for great conversation starters about Texas’ ruling on price gouging and more. Natural gas was at-the-ready to bolster national energy needs as an earlier-than-usual heatwave began to wash across the US leading up to Father’s Day. And here’s a map to orient you as we move through the areas:   Northeast Natural gas was able to pick up the increased demand as a heatwave started to move across the Northeast. Carolinas The Carolinas saw a steady week of supply and demand as coal plants and renewables offset each others production to maintain needed power.   Tennessee (TVA) TVA and local utility providers have  partnered to request  a $350M grant to bolster clean energy and improve their grid infrastructure this week.   Southeast The region experienced a significant increase in electricity demand due to a heatwave, leading