Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** The Often Overlooked Costs of an Extended Power Outage

Renewables (General):
*** Why Pretend Green Pork Will Stop Climate Change?
*** What The Future Holds For Our Climate Leaders
*** All That Glitters Isn’t Green, or Renewable
*** Unattainable, Costly, Net Zero: the Thrill is Gone; a black/brown-out reality check
*** Wind and Solar Fail to Reduce Grid’s CO2 Emissions
*** MISO approves $10 billion in new transmission lines to subsidize wind and solar
‘Green’ Energy Myth Exposed: Subsidized Wind & Solar Scam Built on Perpetual Lies
Heatwave Demonstrates Weakness of New York’s Electric Grid
Rights Abuser China Emerging as Dubious Linchpin of Biden’s Lithium-Battery Supply Chain
Why Panos Prevedouros left Hawaii

Wind Energy (Offshore):
*** Biden announces executive actions on ‘climate crisis,’ focuses on extreme heat and boosting offshore wind
*** Offshore wind turbines have never been a good idea
*** Offshore Wind’s Turbulent Future
Five Reasons To Reject Offshore Wind Projects
The Offshore Wind Energy Problem: Government Overregulation, Disincentives, and Anti-market Policies

Wind Energy (Other):
Developer Abandons Plan to Add 30 Wind Turbines in Iowa: Residents Celebrate

Solar Energy:
*** Weather ‘too hot’ for solar panels
*** How Manchin-Schumer would change energy, from oil to solar
*** The Energy Transition Runs Into a Ditch in Rural Ohio
Farmland Be Damned: New York Will Cover Upstate with Solar!…

“… fossil fuels are a convenient, condensed source of energy that has helped raise living standards throughout much of the world.”

“We must all be aware that demands for effective policies will yield only superficial change as long as the role of special interests in government remains unaddressed.” (- James Hansen)

James Hansen speaks truth to power in a number of areas regarding energy and climate. There is a lot to like. But when it comes to public policy, he refuses to go where his sober analysis tells him. He is not ready to make a tectonic shift toward adaptation rather than mitigation, despite the latter’s impossible economic and policy math.

“Magical Thinking”

Magical thinking has plagued climate policy. Vaclav Smil has explained the problem with little pushback. Smil, in fact, is in the mainstream as shown by the NYT’s April 2022 article, “This Eminent Scientist Says Climate Activists Need to Get Real.”…

“The Supreme Court’s common sense decision states that federal regulatory agencies cannot bypass Congress and unilaterally impose unprecedented and economically and politically significant mandates. Nor can they ignore their own legislatively-approved mandates, stretching them far beyond what was intended. Finally, they cannot extend their reach outside their own expertise.”

Writing in The New Republic, Simon Lazarus, retired Senior Counsel for the Constitutional Accountability Center, charges that the Supreme Court has appointed itself to be America’s regulatory czar, declaring:

The high court cast aside the peoples’ elected representatives to enact the climate denial agenda of the mega-donors who funded their nominations.

Lazarus rests his case on claims that the Court:

1. Had no right to take the case
2. Ignored the clear text of the law – specifically Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act
3.  Ignored the interests and stated desires of American utility companies

In making his argument, Lazarus adopted the now-familiar debate tactic of accusing the opposing side of doing exactly what he and his side are doing, namely creating regulatory czars and, in the process, bypassing the country’s elected representatives.…

“… the best arrangement for utilizing market forces in electricity … would be the spontaneous, voluntary, indigenous, bottom-up approach for the development of market relationships rather than government mandates.”

 “The proper aim of consumer groups and free market advocates should be not to force utilities to allow others to use their private property but to reduce the impediments to competition between existing and new suppliers.”

The prevailing goals sought by those seeking reform in the power market are mandated access and common carriage for state regulated utilities. However, that is not the best arrangement for utilizing market forces in electricity. Far better would be the spontaneous, voluntary, indigenous, bottom-up approach for the development of market relationships rather than government mandates.
 
The state of Georgia has a system that can be such a free, prosperous market.…