“What [new mainstream climate science developments] point to is the declining credibility of demands for cutting back CO2 emissions by switching from abundant, affordable, reliable fossil fuels to scarcer, more expensive, less reliable wind, solar, and biofuels, the effect of which would be higher energy costs and therefore higher costs for everything else—harming the world’s poor most of all.”

It is extremely likely that the most oft-cited statement from the recently leaked “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) of the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be:

It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the increase in global average surface temperature from 1951–2010.

Mainstream media and global warming enthusiasts will latch onto that. With little or no awareness of either its textual or its historical context, they will say, “There!…

The nominee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chairmanship Ron Binz will have plenty of potential questions to answer today at his confirmation hearing (9:30am ET), including these posted by the Institute for Energy Research.

The importance of the Binz nomination stems in roughly equal parts from:

(1) The growing significance of FERC as an agency with new and expanded authority,

(2) The context and timing of the nomination, which comes as part of an aggressive (Congress-and-voters-be-damned) climate action plan, and

(3) The details of Ron Binz’s history as a radical (pro-renewable) regulator and energy “expert.”

To complement today’s questions posed by members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, university economist and electricity specialist Robert Michaels would ask the nominee the following questions:…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Greed Energy Economics:

New York Wind Wars – Hiding the Facts

An indicator that we will have to ratchet up our anti-PTC effort soon

How Renewable Portfolio Standards Can Subvert The Economy

FERC Chair nominee targets natural gas

Electricity Demand Patterns Matter for Valuing Electricity Supply Resources

Wind Energy, The Devil and Local Representatives

…

“It is time for responsible people who care about our environment and wildlife to step forward – and demand investigations; prosecutions for fraud, dereliction of duty, and receipt of taxpayer subsidies and other payments made in reliance on false and misleading reports; a suspension of all payments to wind turbine companies, government officials and environmental groups involved in the deception; termination of permits for wind turbines in or near bird and bat habitats; and enforcement of endangered species and migratory bird laws fully and equally against all industries, including industrial wind power.”

While Altamont Pass operators have been hiding most of their wind turbine mortality with search intervals of 30–90 days (see Part I), the rest of North American wind farms hide mortality by using search areas that are far too small.…