Lake Erie Offshore Wind Proposal: Economic Cronyism, Environmental Boondoggle

By Sherri Lange -- July 26, 2018 15 Comments

“The Icebreaker six-turbine wind project, now foreign owned, is not a ‘gusher,’ the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of wind, as termed. It is a massive industrialization of Lake Erie, from which none will recover for a very long time.”

“We respectfully ask the Ohio Power Siting Board to examine the weight of all evidence–not hearsay, propaganda, or wishful thinking. If so, the staff-report caveats for approval (July 3, 2018) will prove insurmountable.”

Abstract: Icebreaker Wind, formerly LEEDCo (Lake Erie Development Company), has failed to materially advance its proposal of six-turbine project offshore Cleveland, reflecting an Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) meeting at City Hall, July 19, 2018. Key business, recreational, and conservation organizations of Cleveland, passionate members of the public, as well as representatives of concern from PA, NY, and Ontario, line up to protect Lake Erie from the taxpayer/ratepayer boondoggle.…

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Enviros vs. Zero-Carbon Energy (hydropower, in this case)

By Donn Dears -- July 19, 2018 1 Comment

“The court’s naked bias against the use of rivers for hydroelectric projects is demonstrated by its words, ‘damage wrought by exploitation of the waterway.” Using this reasoning, it would be impossible to use any river for hydroelectric power.”

“Environmental organizations routinely oppose the construction of dams for hydroelectric power, i.e., clean renewable energy, while professing that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are an existential threat to mankind.”

“Such opposition against carbon-free capacity dwarfs, capacity-wise, support for wind and solar. How ironic, then, that the public policy program of the climate activists might be net CO2 positive.”

Back in 1992, a writer for Energy Daily [1] noticed something. “A strange thing happened to hydropower on its way to the sustainable energy ball: the party’s environmentalist hosts withdrew their invitation.” Daniel Kaplan continued:

Long a favorite of sustainable energy groups opposed to more traditional fuels … in the last 10 years environmentalists have turned on hydropower.

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Rhode Island’s Climate Lawsuit: On Thin Ice

By -- July 12, 2018 5 Comments

“While assessing the details of the Rhode Island lawsuit, we went back and read the prospectus for the state’s latest bond offering, dated April 3, 2018. Nowhere in the 25-page section on the economics of Rhode Island was there mention of economic risk from the climate damages the state alleges.”

“‘Send money’ seems to be the message. We wondered how the Defendants could stop from committing the acts they are accused of without stopping their sales of oil and gas products in the state. That would send the state back to an economy and society when Roger Williams founded Rhode Island.”

From sea to shining sea, the climate change movement is cranking up its legal actions against oil companies. The latest comes from the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation.

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“The Ideology of Fossil Fuels” (Deep Ecology/Malthusian/ Postmodern/Totalitarian Thought Today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 11, 2018 2 Comments

“Imagining a low-carbon world, then, means reevaluating our conception of freedom itself.”

– Audrea Lim, “The Ideology of Fossil Fuels.” Dissent, Spring 2018.

Audrea Lim in a recent issue of Dissent (a quarterly magazine for Left Progressivism) penned an essay, “The Ideology of Fossil Fuels.” The journalist/editor at Verso Books offers a rather bizarre view of the energy world. She writes in part:

Why is it so much easier, as the saying goes, to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism? …. The most straightforward answer to the question, perhaps, lies in the sticky substance that fuels capitalism as we know it, and is daily bringing us closer to the apocalypse of the [doomsday] preppers’ imagination: oil.

“The mansion of modern freedoms stands on an ever-expanding base of fossil fuel use,” writes the postcolonial theorist Dipesh Chakrabarty in a seminal essay collected in Energy Humanities.

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‘Sense of Congress’ Resolution on a Carbon Tax (parsing the argument)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 10, 2018 No Comments Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: July 9, 2018

By -- July 9, 2018 2 Comments Continue Reading

Climate/Energy Statism: An Inside Conversation (Part II)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 3, 2018 1 Comment Continue Reading

Climate/Energy Statism: An Inside Conversation (Part I: pre-Trump plans that went awry)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 2, 2018 1 Comment Continue Reading

Paris Lives! “Deep Decarbonization” at DOE

By -- June 28, 2018 5 Comments Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: June 18, 2018

By -- June 18, 2018 1 Comment Continue Reading