A Free-Market Energy Blog

Electricity Progressive Income Tax: California’s Answer to High Rates?

By Kennedy Maize -- April 26, 2023

“These too-high electricity prices are slowing progress on electrification and straining the pocketbooks of lower-income households.” (- Meredith Fowlie, University of California at Berkeley)

California electric customers could be seeing a radical new approach to electricity rates by 2025, if state regulators adopt a plan by the state’s three large investor-owned utilities. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) have jointly filed a plan to comply with a state law enacted last June (Assembly Bill 205), that would combine a fixed, monthly recurring bill based on household income, not on how much electricity the household uses, along with a more conventional consumption-based charge.

The utilities will lower their consumption rates, making up the losses through the income-taxation mechanism.

Under Assembly Bill 205, the three investor-owned utilities must reduce their sky-high retail electric rates, using an income-related fixed charge mechanism.…

Continue Reading

The Infrastructure Overload of Renewable Energies

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 25, 2023

“The planned energy transition towards ‘net zero’ using ‘renewable’ energy, will inevitably lead to massive environmental destruction, with a six-times increase in environmental damage by 2050. This is concluded by scientists in a recent study [in Nature].” (below)

Highlighting a Nature scientific report, “Spatial Energy Density of Large-scale Electricity Generation from Power Sources Worldwide” [1], Hans Wolkers, science journalist, photographer, and writer, recently reported on social media:

Renewables lead to more destruction of ecosystems

The planned energy transition towards ‘net zero’ using ‘renewable’ energy, will inevitably lead to massive environmental destruction, with a six-times increase in environmental damage by 2050. This is concluded by scientists in a recent study (https://lnkd.in/emQwZBi2).
 
The EU has adopted a net-zero strategy that comes with the installation of even more wind turbines and solar panels.…

Continue Reading

Energy and Environmental Review: April 24, 2023

By -- April 24, 2023

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

Greed Energy Economics:
*** A Texas-Sized Energy Fiasco
*** Lazard’s levelized cost of power generation figures remain “highly implausible”
*** Greens Refuse to Discuss Recycling of Renewables, etc.
Wind Generation Cost to Ontarians on April 13th Hit a Record of $2,055/MWH
California Power Companies Propose to Bill Electricity Partly by Income
Wind Power Has A Profitability Problem
Renewable energy PPA prices continue to rise despite Inflation Reduction Act relief

Renewables (General):
*** The Renewable Intermittency Challenge
*** End preferences for unreliable electricity
*** The Great Green Dream is a Fantasy
Addressing Wind/Solar Instability: Hardwiring the Grid
Australia’s ‘green energy’ chimera
Jamie Dimon’s Climate Corporatism

Wind Energy — Offshore:
*** Pentagon Sounds Alarm Over Biden Plan for Offshore Wind Sites
*** Short video: Is Industrial Offshore Wind Development Killing Endangered Whales?

Continue Reading

Resourceful Earth Day: Fred Smith on Julian Simon

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 22, 2023
Continue Reading

Federal Fiscal Reform: The Economists’ Letter

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 21, 2023
Continue Reading

Headwinds for Offshore Wind (Rhode Island’s RFP a sign of trouble)

By -- April 20, 2023
Continue Reading

Solar Optimism and Coal Alarmism a Century Ago

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 19, 2023
Continue Reading

“Degrowth” (Last refuge for climate alarmists?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 18, 2023
Continue Reading

Addressing Wind/Solar Instability: Hardwiring the Grid

By Ed Ireland -- April 17, 2023
Continue Reading

Battery Weight: Hidden Costs of EVs versus ICEs

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 16, 2023
Continue Reading