GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  Citizens Budget Commission says it would cost businesses and consumers billions. Environmentalists disagree. By  Rick Karlin , Staff Writer   Oct 29, 2024   A well-known budget watchdog group is taking aim at plans for New York to enact a carbon tax designed to reduce air emissions, saying it is unrealistic as written.     ALBANY — A leading budget watchdog group is leveling criticism at the carbon tax state policymakers are designing to fight global warming. The Citizens Budget Commission, in a recent report, contends that New York’s incipient Cap and Invest program is unrealistic and could cost businesses and consumers billions of dollars a year.   Supporters of the plan, though, say it’s a tool needed to pay for the ambitious goals of removing carbon emissions from the economy to fight climate change.   The state Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority are scheduled t...

  Koshkonong project cost jumps 42% in 19 months, GE Vernova takes $700M charge on its offshore wind business and will remove blades at Vineyard Wind, plus SMRs and H2!   Oct 26, 2024 ∙    Hurricanes are hell on solar projects. Photo credit:  Duke Energy The frequent flier miles are piling up. Last week, I was in Santiago talking about mining and hydrogen. This week, I was in Idaho Falls, speaking to the Idaho Advanced Energy Consortium about the energy transition, SMRs, and high-voltage transmission. Next week, I’ll be talking about electricity demand growth, inflation, and grid reliability in Huntsville with my friends at the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association. Amid all the travel, I’m doing my best to keep up with the news. And there has been a metric ton of noteworthy energy news over the past few days. Among the most important items are the continuing increases in solar prices, particularly at the controversial Koshkonong solar project in Christiana,...

  FORT DRUM, New York (WWNY) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined a small nuclear reactor would be “the optimal option” to supply Fort Drum’s energy needs. Governor Hochul and state officials met with Fort Drum officials and discussed the possibility of locating a “small modular reactor” on Drum when the governor visited Drum in August, 7 News learned. If a “small modular reactor” (SMR) is successful on Drum, additional reactors might be deployed throughout the state to help New York meet its renewable energy goals. Small modular reactors are, as their name suggests,  much smaller than traditional nuclear reactors, like the ones near Oswego . They also incorporate newer generations of nuclear technology. Proponents argue they are safer and far less costly than traditional nuclear plants. Drum needs about 60 megawatts of power. Since a biomass plant on post which burned wood closed in 2023, Drum has been forced to draw its energy off the regular power grid, the one...

  October 23, 2024     Francis Menton   For well over two decades, the linked causes of climate alarmism and energy transition have provided their adherents with a powerful upper hand in American politics. For that matter, supporters of those causes have had just as strong, if not a stronger upper hand in the politics of all the countries with advanced economies, whether in the EU, or Canada, Australia, and others. Here in the U.S., for all this time, almost no politician — even those claiming to advocate generally for smaller government or less regulation — has been willing to push back directly against assertions of “climate crisis,” or against demands for reducing “carbon emissions” or for achieving a “net zero” energy economy via government coercion and massive subsidies. Most Republicans seeking office have been cowed into deflecting and deferring on these issues, if indeed they have not openly gone along with the left’s energy program. I have long said that...

Benjamin Riggs Guest columnist   October 13, 2024 The rapid industrialization of the ocean off Rhode Island has resulted in a wide range of heated discussion and the realization of the existence of a dangerous disconnect between the problem and the solution that we would be well advised to try to understand before it’s too late. On the one hand, we have  statements by the  Bureau of Ocean Energy Management  that approved all these wind farms that they will have little or no impact worldwide on carbon output and airborne pollution.  But scientists believe they will have a potentially massive, harmful effect on the ocean environment.  We also have statements from Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry over the years admitting that “If all the industrial nations went down to zero emission ... it wouldn't be enough. Not when more than 65% of the world's carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”   Also, every study I know of th...

Soaring growth of solar power has been a  bright spot  in the U.S. energy transition.  The outlook for solar could be dimming. The pipeline for new big solar projects has fallen since August of last year,   according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration data. For years, as projects became operational, more new ones entered the planning phase. Now the pipeline has been slow to refresh. Nearly 24 gigawatts of big projects called utility-scale solar are slated to go online in 2024 but that figure falls to 16.4 gigawatts by 2028, the Journal's analysis shows. In the last five months of this year, solar is expected to account for two-thirds of all new electric generating capacity, the EIA said. A record amount of new capacity—17.7 gigawatts—was postponed or canceled this year as of August,   the most recent month available, up 64% from a year earlier. Setbacks can happen for a variety of reasons.  Trade disputes, labor shor...

An alliance of pro-nuclear countries has called on the European Commission to deliver “ a paradigm shift”  in the bloc’s energy policy by fully recognising the role of nuclear energy, alongside renewables, for the future of an integrated energy system.   The European Nuclear Alliance met on 15 October with ministers and high-level representatives from 14 members states , including the upcoming Polish presidency and representatives of the commission.   After the meeting, held in the margin of the Energy Council in Luxembourg, the alliance said in a joint statement* that in a changing global geopolitical context, the upcoming 2024-2029 commission’s mandate must ensure climate-neutrality by 2050 and address the “existential challenge” that Europe is facing in the form of climate change.   The statement noted that  a recent report  on Europe’s competitiveness by former prime minister of Italy Mario Draghi said  nuclear is an essential component  of th...

Oct. 16, 2024 Technology companies are increasingly looking to nuclear power plants to provide the emissions-free electricity needed to run artificial intelligence and other businesses. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have recently struck deals with operators and developers of nuclear power plants to fuel the boom in data centers, which provide computing services to businesses large and small. The demand has accelerated because of the big investments these and other tech companies have made in A.I., which requires far more power than more conventional technology businesses like social media, video streaming and web searches. Microsoft has agreed to pay an energy company to revive the shuttered  Three Mile Island nuclear power plant  in Pennsylvania. And this week, Amazon and Google said they were focusing on a new generation of small modular reactors. That technology has not yet been successfully commercialized but energy experts say it might be cheaper and easier to build than t...