GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  It’s  not easy to find a more expensive and unreliable way to generate power than constructing offshore wind farms.  Now another one of them is suddenly looking less likely. Steven Rodas  reports  on NJ.com: Shell has effectively withdrawn from New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm, Atlantic Shores   — marking the latest major setback to the state’s clean energy ambitions. Spokespeople told NJ Advance Media on Thursday that the developer remained committed to the project. At the end of last year, Atlantic Shores (made up of both Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America) noted that its plans for nearly 200 wind turbines were on schedule. The CEO of the developer also said construction on the wind farm — set to be built roughly 8.7 to 20 miles off the coast of New Jersey between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light — could begin some time in 2025.   We’ll see about that schedule, especially given how many people who live between Atlantic City...

  Jan. 30, 2025 Over the past four years during the Biden administration, the United States started spending ever-greater sums on efforts to blunt global warming and help communities adapt to a hotter world. Many analysts expected the total tab for this work to exceed $1 trillion over the next decade. But in a matter of days, President Trump has thrown much of that spending into question, though how much money is affected is unclear. Some funds are frozen. Some projects are paused. And while a portion of that money is already out the door, there is an acute sense of uncertainty among people doing climate-related work that relies on government funding and approvals. To take just one example of the chaos, consider the aid that the United States sends to foreign countries to deal with climate change. The United States Agency for International Development alone manages appropriations of roughly $40 billion annually, a fraction of which goes to climate-related projects. Raj Kumar, the c...

  This editorial board continues to support New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the ambitious law aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.   We also support the ability of local communities to shape their destinies, particularly when attempting to protect open space and farmland.   Those stances make it difficult to take a side in the ongoing fight between the Greene County town of Athens and Freepoint Solar LLC, which hopes to place 43 acres of solar panels along rural Potic Mountain Road but has been stymied by a zoning law limiting such projects to industrial and commercial areas.   Freeport Solar argues that its plan, though relatively small, comports with the state's desire to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and it says the town's refusal to grant a zoning variance is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the greater goal of confronting climate change.    Neighbors and other opponents of the installat...

  Justin McGown   January 29, 2025   Speculation about what a second Donald Trump presidency would mean for infrastructure investment in the US was widespread during the election.   It was not clear how soon the new administration would move to end offshore leasing of wind power projects and pause the disbursement of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA),or move to once again withdraw from the Paris Agreement.   Yet that it would happen was a near certainty. And  it happened quickly . Last week, Trump signed executive orders that attempt to redirect the course of US environmental and energy policy. The "Temporary Cessation and Immediate Review of Federal Wind Leasing and Permitting Practices" withdraws federal approval for onshore and offshore wind projects nationwide on federal lands,  bringing and already slowing offshore wind industry to a halt and casting doubt on the future of a number of on...

  Appellate Court orders town of Athens in Greene County to issue a variance to Freepoint Solar, which will sell its electricity to Central Hudson Gas & Electric By  Olivia Holloway , Staff Writer   Jan 27, 2025   Solar panels at NextEra's solar farm in Schoharie County. New York’s 2019 Climate Act, which set strict mandates for transition to renewable energy, emerged as a key issue in a years-long court battle between a private energy developer and the town of Athens. Times Union/Rick Karlin   ATHENS — New York’s 2019 Climate Act, which has set strict mandates for the state’s transition to renewable energy sources, became a key issue in a drawn out court battle between a private energy developer and the town of Athens, which had sought to protect its residents from a major solar panel project proposed in a rural residential area.   In a unanimous decision last month, a mid-level appellate court in Albany ruled that the town’s Zoning Board of ...

  Solar power has been setting annual installation records for years. But in 2025, analysts at Wood Mackenzie expect that growth to screech “to a halt.” The consulting firm predicts that the number of new global installations this year will total approximately 493 gigawatts, down from the 495 gigawatts added last year. That compares to years of double-digit annual growth. The significant slowdown, while global, puts a spotlight on a central question facing the U.S. solar industry:  How worried should solar developers be about President Donald Trump’s crackdown on wind? Much of the flattening growth rate is because of China, which has reached its solar targets and is facing similar grid bottlenecks and transmission troubles as the U.S., said Sylvia Leyva Martinez, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report. But major uncertainty is hovering over the U.S. market as well because of Trump, she said. “We don’t have a clear view” of how much Trump’s policies will aff...

  Momentous social movements begin to die the moment adherents figure out their leaders don’t believe what they say. Liberal Protestantism’s long decline started in the 1950s, when congregants began to wonder if their ministers still believed the old creeds (they didn’t). Communism dies wherever it’s tried because sooner or later the proletariat realize their self-appointed champions aren’t particularly interested in equality. Many sects and cults dwindle the moment their supposedly ascetic leaders are revealed to be libertines. Something similar is happening to climate ideology. For three decades   you were labeled a crank, a “climate denier,” someone who pigheadedly rejects “settled science,” if you didn’t embrace the belief that life on earth faces imminent extinction from “global warming” and, later, “climate change.” The possibility that an entire academic discipline, climate science, could have gone badly amiss by groupthink and self-flattery wasn’t thought possible....

  “ I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up. ” – Napoleon Bonaparte We have it on good authority that  it sometimes gets quite cold in Canada during wintertime . As our Canadian readers can attest, in such brutal conditions machinery often acts a little funky. Batteries refuse to turn over, hard things become brittle, fluids freeze or gum up, and dimensions of solid materials quite literally contract. Operating an automobile in this environment can be particularly challenging for the passenger and engine alike, as both need to be warmed up before they can be expected to perform within specifications. In particularly harsh conditions, a car might require 15-20 minutes of idling before the engine and cabin reach comfortable conditions, and remote car starters have become incredibly popular solutions . Brrr, eh?   | Getty An ironclad canon of the Church of Carbon™ is that parishioners are not allowed to have nice things, which explains the follow...