GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

Regarding Germany – a couple of tweets here by Mark Nelson from Nov. 9   A “wind drought” in Europe forced Germany to burn more coal – no choice given their rejection of nuclear power.   And a protracted wind drought can happen anywhere – and does.   Mark Nelson   @energybants   German utility execs who champion the Energiewende are starting to panic after this month's shocking  12-day wind drought . RWE CEO Markus Krebber posted  a desperate plea for more "secure" power  supplies this morning on LinkedIn.  The situation is coming to a breaking point.   Mark Nelson   @energybants   Looking at German electricity this week you could be forgiven for forgetting  they've spent FIVE HUNDRED BILLION € on a renewable energy "transition"   They're just straight up fossil powered! With high costs, high carbon, and a shrinking economy.

New York's energy reliability is narrowing as power plants are aging, demand is expected to increase and the zer o-emission mandates are nearing. By  Brendan J. Lyons ,  Managing Editor   Nov 25, 2024   The control room of the New York Independent System Operator, which oversees the state's power grid. Energy reliability is narrowing as power plants are aging and not being replaced, demand is expected to increase, and the zero-emission mandates of the state's Climate Act are looming. Courtesy NYISO   ALBANY — The ability of New York’s energy grid to adequately handle future electricity needs is narrowing as power plants are aging and not being replaced, demand is expected to increase, and the zero-emission mandates of the state’s Climate Act are looming, according to a biennial assessment conducted recently by the New York Independent System Operator. 0:01 / “So we’re adding a lot of load, projected to add a lot of load in the future, but we’re retirin...

Shale fracking does more to reduce CO2 emissions than all the talk in Baku.   By  The Editorial Board   Nov. 26, 2024   A screen displays COP30 Belem 2025 during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 23.     The United Nation’s COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, ended this weekend with a promise by wealthy countries to spend $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer ones adapt. Was this the ransom for letting high-flying emissaries escape on their private jets? Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” each U.N.’s annual climate confab is a repeat of the last. Poor countries lambaste wealthier nations for their CO2 emissions. Wealthy countries self-flagellate and promise to atone by financing climate projects in developing countries. That sums up the blowout in Baku. The U.S. and Europe are hailing the $300 billion deal for climate transfer payments. But like previous commitments, this one isn’t legally binding, and almost...

By  Will Mathis   November 26, 2024   TotalEnergies SE  has halted the development of an offshore wind farm it plans to build off the coast of New York, as US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to obstruct the green industry championed by his predecessor. “Offshore wind, I have decided to put the project on pause” with Trump’s return, Total Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said at an energy industry conference in London on Tuesday. The move by the French oil and gas giant is  one of the first tangible signs  of a halt in investment in renewable power sources due to the incoming administration. Trump  said  during the presidential campaign that he would target the offshore wind industry with an executive action on his first day in office. President Joe Biden vowed to create an offshore wind industry in the US to reach 30 gigawatts by the end of the decade. Soaring costs and supply chain issues have made rea...

Transportation and building electrification, and commercial projects like data centers and chip fabrication, are driving peak demand higher, according to the New York Independent System Operator. Published Nov. 26, 2024   Robert Walton   Senior Reporter     New York’s electric grid is expected to become a winter-peaking system sometime in the mid-2030s, meaning “gas supply to electric generation plants will be strained beyond what has been observed historically,” the New York ISO said in a report published Nov. 21, 2024 .  The nation’s most populous metropolitan area faces potential electricity shortfalls in 2033 and 2034, driven by electrification and large commercial projects including data centers, the New York Independent System Operator said Thursday. After accounting for expected economic growth and policy-driven demand increases, including ambitious environmental and energy policies and evolving market rules, the grid operator’s  2024 Reliabilit...

Will the EPA outsource itself to California before Trump’s inauguration? Doomberg   Nov 26, 2024   “ I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento. ” – Arnold Schwarzenegger  If they could be injected with truth serum, one wonders whether the high-profile Democratic governors of certain US states would admit to being not entirely disappointed with the outcome of the presidential election. Had Vice President Kamala Harris emerged victorious, those with national ambitions would have had to almost certainly wait until 2032 for a shot at the big chair. With President-elect Donald Trump returning to office, both parties are set for open, competitive primaries next time around, and don’t doubt for a second that jockeying for those contests is already well underway. Among the more determined aspirants is California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose political biography checks all the big blue boxes. After succeeding Willie Brown as mayor of San Francisco in...

Time flies. It is nearly Thanksgiving. Before we know it, it’s Christmas. Then, the big day: Inauguration Day. At a quickening pace,  the Biden administration is pushing money out the door for big-ticket clean energy projects —  before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office on Jan. 20. Over the past 24 hours alone, the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office announced nearly $12 billion worth of loan agreements.   One is for a transmission project to ship wind power generated in the Midwest; a second helps deploy a solar and battery system across 27 states; and a third loan is aimed at getting a large electric vehicle factory built in Georgia. Late last evening, after most reporters logged off their computers, DOE announced   the largest of the three: a $6.6 billion direct loan to EV-maker Rivian to finance and build its Project Horizon plant near the city of Social Circle, a 45-minute drive east of Atlanta,  Hannah Northey, Mike Lee and Bria...

By  Irina Slav     Nov 24, 2024   Data centers are turning into an unexpected obstacle that may well compromise the whole transition offensive against hydrocarbons.   Wind and solar could supply power to data centers for certain periods of a day, week, or month, but  the bulk of the round-the-clock supply must come from baseload generation facilities.   The part about the affordability of the energy system likely has to do with emissions rather than money. Until about a year ago, no one paid much attention to data centers. Everyone used them, of course, but they didn’t think about them. Then, the AI rush began. It was followed by a rush for energy supply. One year in, and data centers are  threatening the very energy transition on which so many governments have staked everything. Power utilities, regulators, and climate activists appear to be experiencing growing concern about the immediate outlook for oil and gas demand , Reuters  reported ...

By  Andrew Stuttaford November 27, 2024 We often hear about the threat to freedom posed by the “far right,” but it’s time to pay more attention to the increasingly open authoritarianism of the deep (or, sometimes, not so deep) Greens, which has extended well beyond attacks on consumer choice and the functioning of a free-market economy. Free speech is undoubtedly in Green sights, as John Kerry reminded  us recently : But, look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence. As I noted: The essence of social media, of course, is that they are channels for many competing sources of information. Besides that,  to condemn the First Amendment as a “major block” to “hammering out” a competing source of information is disturbingly authoritarian . Yes, Kerry may think that a source is “sick...