“Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont now pursue decarbonization targets to reduce emissions 75-85 percent by 2050. These states’ “strategic electrification” policy calls for eliminating natural gas and propane from home and water heating applications by substituting electric appliances and heat pumps that can use wind and solar systems.”

“Because of insufficient gas pipeline capacity, New England now faces critical shortages. In January, utility Con Edison announced a moratorium on new natural gas customers in Westchester County, New York. That same month, Holyoke Gas & Electric of Massachusetts also announced that it can no longer accept new natural gas service requests due to a lack of supply.”

Global usage of natural gas continues to grow rapidly. Methane and propane are essential low-cost, non-polluting fuels for heating, cooking, industrial use, and generation of electrical power.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

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

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking

New NC bill would prohibit new wind projects in coastal swath

DoD Study: Low Frequency Noise: A Major Risk Factor in Military Operation

What Are Small Modular Reactors?…

Straightforward analysis shows that the AWEA generation/transmission proposal is very expensive and amounts to spending $4 billion unnecessarily (based on a 400 MW infrastructure).

A representative of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) recently wrote what amounted to an op-ed in Power magazine, claiming that building more transmission lines would make the grid more efficient.

The core of her argument was that more transmission lines would bring wind from distant parts of the country to where it could be used.

She said: 

“Now is the time to expand the nation’s network of transmission lines to bring electricity from the country’s most renewable-rich sites to the cities.”

What this would mean, in real terms, is to spend billions of dollars unnecessarily on new transmission lines. It is no free lunch but an expensive, unnecessary second lunch.…

“If ‘some humans survive’ is the only thing we care about, then climate change is a non-issue. I think it’s certain that ‘some’ humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.”

“Future humans, as they live in a climate dystopia: ‘I thought he cared about the environment’.”

“I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic.”

Professor Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M is the alarmist’s alarmist. At a lunch some years ago, he remarked to me (and his more moderate colleague Gerald North) that humankind would have to live underground because of anthropogenic warming. And he stated that fossil fuels had made us slaves, a deep-ecology argument that has been ably turned around by Matt Ridley).…