Editor’s note: Part I yesterday described Krebs’s work to level the playing field against the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Today’s post continues by examining how EERE modeling skews the results towards “deep decarbonization” (electricity over gas, via appliance regulation).

Q. What are some “tricks” by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for finding “net benefits” to imposing stringent efficiency standards on gas appliances?

A. EERE’s “determinations” have come from highly subjective life-cycle costing (LCC) analyses. Remember: these modelers are in the business of finding different answers from what self-interested consumers are determining. They make their models “smarter” than the market for mutual benefit.

Tricks include inflated energy-price forecasts (for the disfavored energy, gas), lowballed maintenance costs for favored appliances (electric), and so on.

“The adage ‘if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu’ is alive and well within The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The same goes for legislation and elections which have sanctioned EERE’s regulatory biases.” (Krebs, below)

Q. Mark, you have been a tenacious voice for free consumer choice to use natural gas in the face of government “deep decarbonization” intervention to substitute electricity under the guise of “energy efficiency.” Tell us about your activism today.

A. I am now independent, having retired from the gas industry. My statements are solely intended to serve the best interests of energy consumers, and not necessarily the gas industry, or any one of its parts, or any other energy sector.

Q. In November 2020, you wrote a three-part series that reviewed the legal highs and lows of the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology (EERE) during the Trump window of opportunity.…

“… anti-hydropower interests are attempting to capitalize on a shift in political power together with emotionally charged arguments and opinions to weaken support for hydropower, while falsely promoting wind and solar technologies as environmentally benign replacements.”

“Negative [wind] impacts associated with viewsheds, decommissioning and turbine disposal, tourism, birds, wildlife, and flashing lights were at the top of the list of concerns identified by a Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce opinion survey.”

I recently read an interesting opinion piece by the general manager of the Benton County Public Utility District in Washington State, Rick Dunn, “Clash of Titans: Clean Energy, Conservation and NW Power Grid.” Published in Clearing Up, a Pacific Northwest energy review, the controversies of renewable energy as “clean” and “green” (which I noted back in 1997) come to the fore.…

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

Of special interest in this issue is Michael Shellenberger’s article “Why the Pro-Nuclear Movement Is Winning,” previewing his next book: The War on Nuclear: Why It Hurts Us All.

Greed Energy Economics:
Congress eyes $235B in clean energy subsidies. Here they are
The Real Cost of Government Mandated Wind and Solar
New data on real offshore wind costs
Why Carbon Hysteria And Decarbonization Policies Are Economically Insane
Wait, who agrees NC electricity costs must keep going up? Not consumers
New Book: Green Murder
Study: Electric Cars Cost More To Refuel Than Gasoline Powered Cars
Solar And Wind Are Forcing Poverty On Africa

Renewable Energy: Health and Ecosystem Consequences:
Tucker exposes the hidden impact of green energy
Wind Noise: A Continuing Issue (night amplification)
The Dirty Little Secret: Wind Turbines Create Health Issues
EPA’s Commitments to Action on PFAS

Wind Energy:
Wind Turbine Failures Behind Europe’s Energy Crisis are a Warning for America
No Christmas for wind project operator or neighbors
Icebreaker wind project proposed for Lake Erie needs to find more financing soon
Plug-in cars are the future.…