Free Republic

Banks, governments, and businesses would face failure due to the essential role of fossil fuels in the economy.Critical infrastructure like electricity, internet, and trade systems would collapse without fossil fuel support.Agriculture and home heating would become inefficient and inaccessible to many, leading to widespread social upheaval.It is now popular to talk about leaving fossil fuels to prevent climate change. Pretty much the same result occurs if we run short of fossil fuels: We lose fossil fuels, but it is because we cannot extract them. Practically no one tells us about the extent to which the current system depends upon fossil...

This post reports on two new instances of people applying a little critical thinking to the issue of using so-called “green” hydrogen as an essential piece of a future de-carbonized energy system. This is a subject that I have previously addressed, here in a post of June 13, 2022, and here again in my energy storage Report of December 1, 2022. The two new pieces covered in this post are (1) a February 1 Report for the Manhattan Institute by Jonathan Lesser titled “Green Hydrogen: A Multibillion-Dollar Energy Boondoggle,”, and (2) a February 13 article in the Washington Examiner by...

Lawmakers in New York City may soon ban Tide detergent pods and other laundry and dishwasher products under a bill introduced this month. According to the New York Post, the “Pods Are Plastic Bill” would make it illegal to sell laundry detergent pods and laundry sheets that are made with polyvinyl alcohol. Fines for selling these products would begin at $400, double for a second violation, and $1,200 if violated more than two times.Reportedly, the bill, if it became law, would not take effect until Jan. 1, 2026.The bill, introduced by City Councilman James Gennaro (D) last week, is part...

Lloyd Austin underwent an invasive surgical procedure called a prostatectomy for his prostate cancer. He was readmitted to the ICU ward of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center seven days later, on January 1st, due to complications caused by a severe infection. It appears he was septic. He concealed his inability to carry out his duties from Biden, Congress, the Pentagon, and his Deputy Secretary, Dr. Kathleen Hicks. On January 4th, finally becoming aware of Austin’s hospitalization, security adviser Jake Sullivan notified Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico. Even though Biden continued to back Austin, Austin was already...

Starting this month, 145,000 Wyoming ratepayers will make a down payment on what's projected to add up to billions of dollars in additional costs. Regulators recently approved Black Hills Energy's new $1.1 million surcharge on utility bills to research the viability of adding controversial carbon capture technologies to coal-fired power plants. Rob Joyce, acting director of the Wyoming Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the rate increases are due to the state's mandate for utilities to continue burning coal. "The people who benefit from these kinds of policies are the legislators who are connected to legacy fossil fuel companies, utilities...

Next time pop star Taylor Swift starts waxing all pious about saving the planet, maybe someone can ask her about those two private jets she traipses around on a plume of carbon compounds to get around the planet. According to Gizmodo: Flying from Tokyo, Japan back to the U.S. to get to the Super Bowl and watch her boyfriend Travis Kelce play was very important to pop superstar Taylor Swift—so important that she apparently had a second private jet on standby. The existence of a second private jet for Swift, who was in Tokyo giving a series of concerts, was...

Today, Joe Biden is cracking down on manufacturing, but I bet he doesn’t have the scientific data to give credibility to the new policies, but he doesn’t care. He is bending over for the green pushers. Here’s this, from Fox News:Biden’s latest climate rules crack down on manufacturing, ignoring industry warnings of economic devastationBiden admin’s actions will ‘grind permits to a halt for a large portion of our country’The Biden administration finalized regulations severely tightening restrictions on fine particulate matter that the manufacturing and energy sectors are legally allowed to emit, an action that industry said would have devastating economic...

Woof, the news just keeps getting grimmer and grimmer for Danish offshore energy behemoth Ørsted...and it's great.Thanks to a heads-up this morning from HotAir regular John Clark, I have had an encouraging time digging into what's looking damn near like a collapse of one of the biggest names in the wind farm business. It bodes some serious ill for the entire sector.You all know from reading my posts that Ørsted has had a miserable twelve months, thanks to a number of circumstances. Most of them stem from contracts agreed to based on overconfidence in continued government largesse, cheap financing, low...

New Mexico may be small in terms of population, but we are the second-largest producer of oil. We punch well above our weight when it comes to American energy. That’s starting to be a problem for President Joe Biden. New polling data shows Biden’s support in our state plummeting. With an approval rating of just 41% and a disapproval rating of 57% (according to a new Public Opinion Strategies poll), Biden finds himself 16 points underwater (in New Mexico). This decline is particularly worrying for the president, given that he won New Mexico by a comfortable 10-point margin during the...

If you are at all interested in matters of climate and energy, you have probably read hundreds of articles over the past few years about the inevitability of the coming energy transition. A piece of the claimed inevitability is that all good and decent people support this transition as a matter of moral urgency; but it’s not just that. Nor is it just that government backs the transition with all its coercive powers, from subsidies to mandates to regulations. No, most importantly, the transition is said to have become inevitable due to unstoppable economic forces. Wind and solar are now...

Biden’s obsession with so-called “green” energy policies is thus costing the United States on two fronts. At home, American producers are struggling under a regulatory onslaught and open hostility from the White House – despite literally keeping the country’s lights on this winter. Meanwhile, America’s adversaries are taking full advantage of this weakness abroad, as China in particular seeks to step in and fill the void left by decreased U.S. energy exports. Amid the cold snap that gripped the nation in early January and sent temperatures plummeting below zero for millions of Americans, the country’s power grid largely held up...

The Biden administration’s War on Things That Work ran into a significant setback in the courts recently. At the start of Biden’s second year in office, he directed the Department of Energy to issue new “efficiency standards” for a variety of home appliances and plumbing fixtures. They went after everything from gas stoves and toasters to shower heads and toilets. They were seeking to undo regulations regarding “short-cycle appliances” put in place by the Trump administration which offered more flexibility to manufacturers and consumers in terms of water and energy conservation standards. But now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals...

What will the death of the green energy illusion look like? From time to time (see, for example, here and here) I have described a vision where some state or country runs headlong into a “green energy wall” — an impassable barricade of physical impossibility, characterized by scarcity and blackouts, into which the country crashes suddenly. Among the net zero zealot countries I have identified as the leading candidates for imminently hitting such a wall are Germany and the UK. But perhaps, instead of a sudden crash, the demise of the green energy illusion will look more like a slow...

The polar vortex gripping the nation has exposed a fatal flaw in President Joe Biden’s push to force Americans into electric cars. EVs don’t work well in the cold. Several news stories out of Chicago this week report how EV owners have been struggling to keep their cars charged as extreme cold saps their batteries of energy, extends charging times, and forces owners to wait for hours to get an open charger. “Several motorists told local news outlets that they had been stranded at charging stations in the cold with cars with dead batteries, while successful charging was taking far...

At any given moment in the course of human events, not everyone can be the leader. And thus can the world only have a small number of “climate leaders” to light us the way to the Great Green Energy Nirvana of the future. Among that select group of “climate leaders,” New York is definitely one. We know that because New York enacted its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2018, announcing its “climate leadership” to the world for all to envy. But there are a handful of jurisdictions out there that are not to be outdone in the competition...

The cries of climate alarm get ever louder and more urgent. (E.g., New York Times, January 9, “It’s confirmed: 2023 was the planet’s warmest year on record and perhaps in the last 100,000 years. By far.”). We’re all about to boil! Something must be done! OK, but then there is the proposed solution: Order up by government fiat that our current fully working and inexpensive energy system must be replaced with a never-demonstrated pipe dream conjured up by political science and gender studies majors who know nothing about how an energy system works. We’re far enough into this by now...

Officials today launched an investigation after one of Sadiq Khan's electric buses exploded during today's rush hour. Terrified residents in Wimbledon described a massive 'bang' after a double decker burst into flames during this morning's commute, sparking chaos on the roads as black smoke filled the streets. Astonishing video obtained by MailOnline shows the dramatic moment firefighters battled to put out the inferno. Transport for London (TfL) today launched an investigation after the blaze destroyed the rear and blew out the back windows ... 'It took a long time for them to get it under control with flames flying out...

Electric buses are just like electric passenger vehicles: they’re not ready for prime time, only more so. Proterra buses are a case in point. Cities that wasted money on them found they had far less range then advertised. They commonly couldn’t complete even short, flat routes specifically designed for them. The enormous weight of their batteries cracked frames, and getting parts from the factory was virtually impossible. But to make up for their failures, they were far more expensive than reliable diesel buses. Proterra went bankrupt in August of 2023.President Biden gave Proterra at least $10 million, and lauded it...

Biden energy loan czar Jigar Shah was a major investor in a struggling green energy company that is in advanced talks to receive a $1.5 billion loan from his office. The Department of Energy’s loan office, where Shah serves as director, is working to fast-track the funding to Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel company on the brink of bankruptcy. But the ties between Plug Power and Shah could add to concerns from lawmakers about conflicts of interest in the federal loan program. Securities and Exchange Commission records detail a long-standing financial relationship between Plug Power and Generate Capital, an investment...

New York City's effort in the 1990s to regulate toilets and shower heads to cut down water usage ignited consumer outrage, even inspiring a 1996 Seinfeld television episode in which the character Kramer was so fed up with his apartment's low-flow shower head that he purchased a high-flow head on the black market. Three decades later, the Biden administration is leaving few appliances in the home untouched in its quest to regulate the amount of water and energy Americans use for their household chores. The list of impacted appliances includes gas stoves, dishwashers, air conditioners, refrigerators, light bulbs, washing machines,...