Several trends in America’s electrical energy future threaten to converge in a harmful way. These are the dearth of new coal-fired or nuclear power plants, the shift from these sources to natural gas-fired power plants for baseload service, the unpredictable course of the ongoing economic recession, and the influence of environmental extremists on renewable energy [...]
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The Energy Information Administration has reported back to Congress on the economic fallout expected from the energy bill. Here’s the nuts and bolts:
ACESA increases the cost of using energy, which reduces real economic output, reduces purchasing power, and lowers aggregate demand for goods and services. The result is that projected real gross domestic product (GDP) [...]
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The Communist Chinese People’s Daily On-Line has published a puff piece about a reportedly “huge” solar voltaic generating station in Shanghai. They claim it’s the world’s largest of its kind, which is undoubtedly true. The plant is a mite over 6 MW — roughly 8,000 horsepower if you prefer old fashioned English units. That’s big [...]
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The People’s Daily says the Shanghai stock market is indicating that a “double dip” recession is now inevitable. Check it out. Among their audacious claims is that the Dow follows the Shanghai market. We’ll know in a few weeks if that’s really so.
Regardless, the U.S. economy is sputtering under the threat of massive tax increases [...]
Edison Electric Institute president Tom Kuhn said in an article in the National Review that energy bill proposals now before the Congress have to do something to protect consumers from higher prices.
If you gasped and said, “Say wha…?”, then you have the right idea. In keeping with the galloping dementia of our ruling class, the [...]
The London Telegraph is reporting a story that ought to be both a scandal and a warning but will probably be neither. It turns out that big multinational firms own wind farms in the U.K. And since wind tends to produce electricity at times when there is no demand for it, the wind farm owners [...]
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The issue of buried pipe at nuclear plants is a serious Achilles heel for the commercial nuclear power industry. Pipes get old, spring leaks, and some of the leaks contain radioactive materials. The radioactive materials are then in the environment where we don’t want them.
The Indian Point reactor in New York is the poster child [...]
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Why not? Denise Bode, president of the American Wind Energy Association wants a permanent tax credit for her pet thingy, windmills. I figure we should skip the middle step of pretending this is about energy or efficiency or the environment. She wants money, and taxpayers have money. Congress is where you go to get it. [...]
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The cap-n-tax bill to punish the use of energy is again swirling in the legislative Oort cloud about to loose a death comet upon us. This bill could easily be worse than ObamaCare® in its effect on the American economy. Energy touches absolutely every aspect of modern living. Like a VAT tax, it will add [...]
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Here’s a lengthy analysis from The Wall Street Journal on the changes in global energy outlook due to the development of gas derived from fractured rock, particularly from shale. This story is only slowly emerging in the mainstream media, but despite their inattention, it may be the biggest energy story in the past many decades. [...]
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Google has made a small (by its standards) investment in wind farms. The terms of the investment are of interest to you because you’re going to be giving away free money to one America’s richest companies, and you don’t even have a choice about it. Google’s investment is $38 million in a North Dakota wind [...]
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Environmentalists here in Florida are going ape over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and one of them is advocating an amendment to the Florida Constitution forbidding oil drilling in Florida coastal waters.
But I was just wondering whether environmentalism isn’t partly to blame for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Environmentalists have gotten oil [...]
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Spain is looking for ways to cut its energy expenses as liabilities loom from Greece’s debt crisis. Since Europe has a common currency, they’re all in this together. To slash costs, Spain is about to undo its commitment to solar power.
It’s hard to imagine what could be a plainer statement of the down side of [...]
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Somebody decided to give the guys at Cape Wind a break. Puns about “windfall” are swirling, but no need for that. Massachusetts is already sucking down federal dollars on the green jobs racket. Just check out this from the Boston Globe:
Massachusetts already has a growing wind energy industry. A federally-funded facility where workers will test [...]
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Green gadget energy subsidies aren’t getting us much. Says the EIA, “Year-to-date, coal-fired plants contributed 44.7 percent of the Nation’s electric power. Nuclear plants contributed 20.2 percent, while 23.3 percent was generated at natural gas-fired plants. Of the 1.0 percent generated by petroleum-fired plants, petroleum liquids represented 0.7 percent, with the remainder from petroleum coke. [...]
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