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For all the money the Biden administration has been frantically shoveling into the wind sector - I'm praying this is a last-minute, panicked gambit on their part because November looks dicey - it's all coming to late to help out some of the biggest names in wind turbine development. Siemens Gamesa, the Spanish renewable spin-off of German parent Siemens Energy (and one of my favorite villains in the wind farm wars, although no one tops Ørsted) says it's going to lay off up to 4100 people in their turbine divisions across three countries in part of a "restructuring" move.Siemens Gamesa...

[BOISE] – Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador joined a 19-state coalition asking the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional the efforts of California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island to dictate the future of American energy policy. Those five states have brought unprecedented litigation against the nation’s most vital energy companies for an alleged “climate crisis,” and are demanding billions of dollars in damages. As litigation proceeds in their individual state courts, California and the others threaten to impose ruinous penalties and coercive remedies that would affect energy and fuel consumption and production across the country. “It’s not a new...

Ukraine's thermal generation has suffered a devastating blow, losing approximately 85% of its capacity, Olena Lapenko, a project expert at Ukraine's think tank DiXi Group, said during the presentation of the document "Summer Outlooks: Assessing Readiness for Risks in the Electric Power and Gas Sectors," NV Business reported on May 29. "The timeline for recovery remains uncertain, despite some experts' claims," she said. The recent Russian attack damaged at least two facilities of the state hydro power operator Ukrhydroenergo, Lapenko said.

California could be a much nicer place to live if some of the progressives who run the place would stop trying their best to make everything more expensive. California has had blackouts and despite this came close to shutting down its last nuclear reactor. In 2022, Gov. Newsom finally had second thoughts on that after the Biden administration offered a boatload of money to reverse course and keep the last reactor running. But despite moments of lucidity, the state and the governor seem determined to set the state's next energy crisis in motion. Last year the state passed a bill...

It's not a laptop in first class or a cheap Chinese scooter smoking ominously in the plane's cargo hold. Nor is it a massive commercial ship packed to the gills with cars being transported across an ocean that has had one of the EVs parked onboard light off, and now the whole vessel is hopelessly ablaze. It's not another fiery EV in a driveway or garage or the solar panels on a rooftop, even though I have covered all of those. Comments regular Global Traveler turned me on to an ongoing drama in, of all places, San Diego County that...

The Biden Administration announced Tuesday that it would release 42 million gallons of gasoline from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve. The release, the Department of Energy explained, is “strategically timed and structured to maximize its impact on gas prices.” This will, according to the DOE, help lower prices at the pump during the summer months when prices tend to go up along with demand. The Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve was created in 2012 following Superstorm Sandy, which damaged two refineries and shut down 40 terminals in New York Harbor. Some New York gas stations went as long as 30 days...

During the hearing, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee grilled Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about the administration’s “war on energy.”. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told a House Oversight Committee Thursday that the pause on liquified natural gas (LNG) export permits would be rescinded by the first quarter of 2025. The statement was made in response to questions from Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., during a hearing. In January, the Biden administration had announced a pause on export permits of LNG to countries without a free trade agreement with the U.S., which includes European nations. The pause was to do a review...

HOUSTON, May 23 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump raised tens of millions of dollars during a fundraising swing through Texas this week, promising he would support the oil and gas industry by backing new pipelines and restoring fracking on federal land. [cut] A Houston fundraiser on Wednesday was hosted by oil billionaires Jeff Hildebrand, founder of Hilcorp Energy, the largest closely held U.S. oil firm; George Bishop, founder of GeoSouthern Energy; Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources; and Kelcy Warren, head of pipeline firm Energy Transfer Partners. Trump drew standing ovations when he promised to get more natural...

Colorado has long drawn on its high-altitude sunshine and wintry winds for energy. Now Gov. Jared Polis (D) is determined to tap into another renewable resource: one simmering under the Centennial State’s surface. “The low-cost workhorses of the clean energy economy will always be solar and wind energy, especially in places like Colorado that have great wind and great sun,” Polis told The Hill in a Zoom interview this week. But as states strive to cut down on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, they are left with an incomplete solution to the energy transition puzzle and need to...

The Biden Administration is determined to limit America’s production of fossil fuels, of which we have the largest supply in the world. This will transition us from a position of energy independence, and potentially energy dominance, into a position of subservience to the Chinese Communist Party, on which we will depend for the vast quantities of materials that are needed for wind turbines, solar panels and batteries–which we will not be allowed to mine here. If this plan isn’t outright treasonous, it is possibly the stupidest program ever carried out by a government in world history. The stated rationale for...

Coal and natural gas plants provide 60% of the U.S.’ affordable, reliable, and baseload power. In a time of increased electricity demand, America needs to double down on harnessing these sources—not abandon them.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s recently finalized Clean Power Plan 2.0 (CPP) rule, however, takes the country in the wrong direction. Under this regulation, one that is arguably illegal, existing coal and new natural gas power plants will be mandated to install emissions control technologies that aren’t yet commercially viable. Plants that don’t comply risk permanent closure. This unrealistic mandate is advanced under the guise of reducing greenhouse...

With seven people killed and close to a million losing power, the recent storms hit Texas hard. Restoring electricity may take days and may not be completed by Wednesday. The isolation of the Texas power grid has become a symbol of the state’s independent streak and resistance to federal oversight in recent years. The massive outages during Winter Storm Uri in 2021 were a wake-up call to the vulnerabilities of Texas’ system. But Texas hit the snooze button, resulting in repeated crises in Summer 2022 and Winter 2023. Now it seems Texas is sleepwalking into another avoidable crisis ... ERCOT...

Europe is saying goodbye to natural gas for good with a superturbine that will produce the substitute energy. Although demand for natural gas has fallen in recent years, the continent remains dependent on it as an alternative to coal, a fossil fuel it wants to replace with pure hydrogen. However, to achieve this, a combustion system must first emerge that can work efficiently with any concentration of H mix, including 100%. Different nations aim to achieve decarbonization through a gradual energy transition. In this search for new alternatives to fossil fuels, hydrogen has many possibilities. Its production for energy purposes...

Pole climbing and hurtman's rescue.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.4 percent in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment. Advertisement The index for shelter rose in April, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over seventy percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the month. The food index was unchanged in April. The food at home...

It's rarely great news when an area gets blanketed in volcanic ash – but University of Barcelona researchers have discovered it has a rare combination of useful properties, which make it remarkably useful as an energy storage medium. We've written a number of times about super-cheap thermal energy storage, and a number of other times about highly efficient heat batteries operating at super-high temperatures. The cheapest of these 'brick toasters' use the most abundant of materials, and the most efficient can handle extraordinarily high temperatures using materials like liquid tin and carbon materials – but volcanic ash, as it turns...

When are we going to run out of energy? You don’t hear that as much as you used to, since Those Who Know Best are working to plug up all our energy sources anyway. Most energy sources put out carbon dioxide, and that’s going to make all the plants grow and devour us all, or it will heat the planet up and make Minneapolis a desert — and we’ll all fry. Or something. But we don’t hear much any more about running out of energy. What do the experts say about it? “According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA)...

I have had several posts on a collection of related cases that I have called “The Stupidest Litigations In The Country.” These are cases where climate hysterics have sued oil and gas producing companies, or the federal government, or both, seeking various extreme punishments ranging from massive damages up to and including an order to end all production of fossil fuels. The asserted grounds vary somewhat from case to case, but a central theme is a claimed constitutional right to a “clean and healthy environment.” My last update on these cases was a post on April 9. A main subject...

States like California, New York, and Massachusetts have passed climate policies specifically intended to jump-start this battery industry. But this year, for the first time ever, the fastest-growing energy storage market appears to be Texas, a free-market-affirming red state that officially cares little about solving climate change. Nonetheless, the state’s low-regulation, business-friendly landscape has created ideal conditions to build batteries quickly and at scale, just like it previously incubated thriving wind and solar markets.

While it’s true that some things get better with age, the United States’ aging transmission infrastructure is not one of them. Updated transmission infrastructure is crucial to reducing emissions and ensuring dependable electricity service. Congress has passed green energy laws to help make this update happen, but now it’s up to a little-known government commission to fully realize the benefits of our transformational climate laws. And they need to act before it’s too late. It would be an understatement to say our country’s existing transmission infrastructure—the energy cables, towers and transformers that move energy between a generation system and the...