The Coming Reliable Energy Crisis Is Entirely Avoidable
Right now, a storm is brewing over America’s power grid. Everything we use in our daily lives - from our smartphones to our household appliances to the cars we drive - is consuming more and more electricity, yet our nation’s supply of abundant and reliable energy is dwindling. In just a few years, blackouts and brownouts could become an increasingly common and exceptionally disruptive occurrence as we try to power our homes or run our businesses. However, this darker future can be avoided if our lawmakers step up to ensure the power grid remains resilient.
In a recent congressional hearing, the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C) Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Reliability hosted top energy sector leaders to discuss the factors impacting grid reliability and the available solutions to prevent disaster. One of the key takeaways from these industry leaders was that government policies at the state and federal level are shutting down long-standing sources of energy, namely coal, faster than newer technologies can adequately replace them.
They are absolutely right. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, roughly half of the coal-powered energy facilities operating in 2011 will be closed by 2026, and roughly 40% of the facilities operating today will be closed by the end of this decade. This ultimately amounts to a significant loss of energy output that Americans need to power their lives.
Environmental activists in the Biden administration and state governments will say that Americans have nothing to fear from the elimination of coal power because renewable energy resources like wind and solar are coming online to replace them. While it’s true that America has stepped up production of renewable energy, the pace of renewable energy growth lags far behind the pace that coal plants are shuttering.
In the House E&C hearing, Frederick Bresler from PJM, one of the nation’s largest energy transmission organizations, noted that the “rate of retirements of fossil fuel resources largely due to state and federal policies is clearly outpacing construction of new renewable resources.” Given that demand for energy is expected to rise as much as 15% in the next several decades, the deep imbalances between coal plant closures and renewable energy production will ultimately strain our power grid to the breaking point - and leave many Americans in the dark.
Even if America could boost renewable energy production enough to be on pace with coal plant closures, there are still significant doubts that a renewable-powered energy grid would be as reliable as we’ve come to expect. Nor do experts anticipate they will be as cost-efficient for consumers. At the E&C hearing, Richard Dewey, President and CEO of New York ISO, which transmits power to millions of New Yorkers, said “It is not possible to run a reliable electric system on just wind and solar.” Unlike coal, these resources are largely dependent on weather, and coupled with the fact that most power lines are not equipped to transmit energy from renewable sources, it is simply impossible for renewable energy to fully meet our growing demand in so short a period.
As it stands, America is headed for an energy crisis where Americans will find themselves without reliable power more frequently and facing skyrocketing utility bills - but it doesn’t have to be that way. Our lawmakers at the federal and state levels should realize that energy production isn’t a zero-sum game; we must maintain a robust and durable coal fleet while continuing to invest in renewable energy technology to make our grid even stronger.
Americans rely on energy to live their daily lives, and only a mix of traditional sources like coal and new resources can meet their demand. Let’s make sure we give Americans a power grid they can truly rely on.
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Biden climate czar quietly met with flailing EV company dependent on taxpayer handouts
John Podesta, President Biden's clean energy czar, quietly assembled with the head of an electric vehicle (EV) company that relies heavily on taxpayer handouts and has floundered financially since its inception, White House visitor logs reviewed by Fox News Digital show.
According to the records, Podesta privately met with Rivian Automotive CEO Robert "RJ" Scaringe; the company's senior policy director, Chris Nevers; its senior public policy manager, Corey Ershow; and Izzy Klein, a lobbyist for the EV maker, at the White House in June. It is unclear what Rivian officials discussed with Podesta, and both the company and the White House didn't respond to requests for comment.
"Well, Podesta has the largest slush fund, un-appropriated, probably in American history. As soon as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed, Biden and company announced it was actually an investment in green energy and yet it's not appropriated to anything," Daniel Turner, the executive director of Power the Future, told Fox News Digital. "So, it makes sense that Rivian and other failing green energy companies are knocking on John Podesta's door."
"The problem is that it will be sold to the American people as investment, it will be sold to the American people as combating the climate crisis," Turner added. "But it is just another example of corrupt government paying off people who fund their campaigns and deciding winners and losers when, at the end of the day, the real losers are the American people who are paying astronomical amounts for basic necessities because of this Biden economy."
Biden appointed Podesta in September 2022 to lead the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation. Among its main tasks, Podesta's office has begun implementing programs in the IRA, Democrats' $739 billion climate and tax bill which enables the government to distribute more than $350 billion worth of loans and grants to green energy projects nationwide.
Department of Energy Inspector General Teri Donaldson warned during a Senate hearing last week that the IRA's unprecedented level of green energy funding brings "tremendous risk to the taxpayers" and was ripe for abuse and exploitation by foreign adversaries.
"You have massive amounts of money moving quickly," Donaldson said. "All of these things happening at once create a level of risk that may, candidly, be unprecedented in terms of amounts of federal money moving in such a complicated landscape."
Meanwhile, Podesta's gathering with Rivian, which has gone unreported, occurred as the California-based company has hemorrhaged money on its zero-carbon vehicle production and turned to government entities for financial support in the form of credits and subsidies. Financial filings reviewed by Fox News Digital show the company, which was founded in 2009, has lost billions of dollars since it went public in 2021.
In 2022, Rivian lost a staggering $6.8 billion; in 2021, it lost $4.7 billion; and in 2020, it shed another $1 billion, according to the filings. And the company reported it produced 24,337 vehicles and delivered 20,332 vehicles last year, meaning the company lost $33,087 per car delivered over the course of the entire year.
Overall, Rivian's share price has nosedived more than 87% since its initial public offering in late 2021.
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RGGI Halted in Pennsylvania
A proposed carbon tax -- known as the Regional Greenhouse Initiative (RGGI) opposed by the CO2 Coalition has been killed by Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court.
In deciding a case that had been pending for months, the court found that former Gov. Tom Wolf's unilateral action to have Pennsylvania join the RGGI regional consortium of states constituted a tax that required legislative approval and was in violation of Pennsylvania's constitution. The current administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro has 30 days to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
"We are gratified by the court's decision and pleased to have been part of the widespread opposition to RGGI," said Gregory Wrightstone, CO2 Coalition executive director. "Our analysis found RGGI to be unscientific, unnecessary, economically damaging and of no environmental benefit.
"RGGI, like all so-called green initiatives, is based on the false premise that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity is overheating the planet. CO2 is in fact an essential plant food, and modern increases in atmospheric levels of the gas have contributed to record crop harvests and an overall greening of Earth. The decision to kill RGGI is a vote for benefiting humanity and a prospering economy.
CO2 Coalition findings of RGGI's shortcomings were sent in a 2021 report to more than 400 Pennsylvania leaders in business, labor and government. Wrightstone and other CO2 coalition representatives testified against RGGI
in committee hearings in the Pennsylvania House and Senate and before the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission.
Others opposing RGGI included Power PA Jobs Alliance, an organization of business and labor groups, and Republican members of the Pennsylvania Legislature. Suits filed in Commonwealth Court by various parties, including members of the legislature and power plant owners, led to the court's nullification of RGGI.
RGGI would have imposed a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants that burn coal and natural gas to generate electricity, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to energy costs and destroying thousands of jobs in the state's energy sector. The 2019 proposal of Gov. Wolf is believed to have accelerated the July closing of the state's largest coal-fired power plant at Homer City and to have discouraged the development of new fossil fuel-fired generation in the state.
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/RGGI-Halted-in-Pennsylvania.html
*********************************************Australian Left prioritizing "clean-energy"
At midterm, the elements of Albonomics are falling into place.
Anthony Albanese’s governing mission is to build economic self-sufficiency at home, “resilience” as he puts it, while trying to set the nation up for opportunities as a “renewable energy superpower”.
In the Prime Minister’s schema, the market alone can’t be trusted to deliver the transition to clean energy and secure the net-zero emissions target by 2050, Labor’s top-shelf priority in its pitch to voters for a second term.
So, spend big, and multiply, with Canberra’s guiding hand.
Albanese’s government is laying the foundations for a green new deal, with a honey pot of subsidies for investors who meet more rigid tests and a group of chosen industries that are seemingly born ready for this almighty industry policy heave-ho.
Business is on board, for two reasons, other than the national interest: one, there will be an immense amount of public money up for grabs, and two, Joe Biden has forced the rest of the rich world to respond. The US Democrat’s game-changing and limitless green-dream Inflation Reduction Act could eventually be worth $US1 trillion.
In terms we can all understand, that’s the Australian dollar equivalent of all the goods and services we produce in eight months.
We can’t get under the IRA, we can’t go over it, but we have to do something about it.
Albanese fuses a global emissions reduction obligation with abundant natural advantages staring us in the face, but no economy-wide pricing of carbon pollution to direct investment to its best uses.
We’re in the world of “second-best” policy and yet we must stay the course.
Coming off a big personal and psychological loss on the voice, with a community cranky with the nation’s establishment powers, Albanese faces a fatigued electorate; it can only absorb so many big bets, where the outcome is not assured but the journey will involve “value destruction” as well as “value creation”, as economist Pradeep Philip described it.
The key message out of Thursday’s The Australian-Melbourne Institute outlook conference is that a public battered by rising living costs, falling real wages and housing stress must deal with even more disruption in what Jim Chalmers has branded the “defining decade”, these “turbulent ’20s”.
We need more economic dynamism, as it is called, which involves risk-taking and failing, to fashion a high-performance economy to be able to nail the energy transformation and fund the kind of welfare state that is our entitled destiny with a rapidly ageing society.
But to get rich, and hit the nirvana of full employment and low inflation, we’re going to have to get out of the comfort zone, not simply rely on governments to do the heavy lifting, as Westpac’s chief economist Lucy Ellis declared.
Labor’s new growth model is not yet settled, but the moving parts are steadily locking in, as the Treasurer acknowledges.
We’ll need to be smart, as well as lucky, and adaptable to change and, as Michele Bullock put it the other day, “shock after shock after shock”.
Albanese is playing to the conditions, hoping the times will suit him and his government long enough to at least snag a second term.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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