“Goodbye and good riddance to the most expensive, and the most useless clean coal facility ever built.” (Angus Harvey, below)

The quick fix of coal gasification and CO2 storage is all but dead. Projects will continue, and the subsidies will flow if Biden gets his way. But it is greenwashing and greenwasting.

The shiny star to be, Plant Ratcliffe, better known as the Kemper Project, a $6.7 billion integrated gasification power plant, was an experimental boondoggle from the start (mid-2010). The dream really ended years ago, with The Guardian reporting in March 2018:

“This was the flagship project that was going to lead the way for a whole new generation of coal power plants,” said Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. “If the initial project doesn’t work then who’s going to invest in any more like it?”

“The explanation of [wind speed anomalies] points to the phenomenon called global stilling and it is related to #climatechange induced warming in the poles.” (Roberta Boscolo, UN World Meteorological Organization, below)

“… we were told not to worry … it would resolve itself, they said, either because wind is usually blowing somewhere, or through the development of electricity storage in giant battery farms. This was plain wrong.” (Matt Ridley, September 20, 2021)

The present UK/EU energy crises, expected to head into the winter, have much to do with forced energy transformation from coal/natural gas to wind/solar. After looking the other way, the mainstream media now recognizes the problem but is offering excuses.

Excuses, excuses. It’s COVID and an economic snap-back that was faster than expected, as well as poorly coordinated international energy planning, states Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.…

“Energy and its appropriate deployment are … the most important modern indicators of the wealth and poverty of nations. Society and energy will merge in an unbreakable bond for the entire future of humankind.” (Michael Economides and Ronald Oligney, below)

Is today Columbus Day? Italian-American Heritage Day? Or Indigenous People’s Day, celebrating the culture and contributions of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians?

Maybe the second Monday of each October should be all of these things and Forgotten Man Day to commemorate those who have been forgotten, such as energy consumers in the forced transition to inferior energies, wind power and solar arrays in particular.

Every holiday invites a tie-in to energy: the master resource. I have written as much for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day (no links–could spoil the next time).…

Ed. note: The third part in this series covers IER as a full-time organization, which occurred in 2002, some 13 years after its founding (in 1989). Part I covered the history of the Institute for Humane Studies–Texas, the forerunner to IER. Part II reviewed the formation and early history of IER in Houston, Texas.

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Q1. Roger Donway: The last interview explained your dual life as a full-time employee of Enron Corp. and the president of the “think bucket” IER. How did IER emerge full time?

A1. Robert Bradley Jr.: My Enron life ended a day after the company declared bankruptcy on Sunday December 1, 2001. I was part of the mass layoff the next day. Some 4,000 of us were let go where we were told to clear out our desks and leave.