From: American Experiment

By: Sarah Montalbano

Date: June 2025

Shattered Green Dreams - The environmental costs of wind and solar

Executive Summary

Wind turbines, solar panels, battery storage, and other “green energy” technologies are too often hailed as unqualified goods for the environment. However, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs, and the same is true for energy production and its environmental impact. All human activities have an impact on the environment.

Debates about the U.S.’ energy mix almost entirely overlook or minimize the negative environmental impacts of wind, solar, and batteries while diminishing the positive impacts of oil and gas, coal, and nuclear. Policymakers must consider the costs of wind and solar and the benefits of oil and gas, coal, and nuclear when determining the desirability and feasibility of ambitious energy transition goals. Further, communities ought to be fully informed of the costs of wind and solar when debating the merits of proposed projects in their areas.

This executive summary is offered based on the findings of this report.

• Every form of energy generation comes with its own set of challenges and benefits. All renewable and hydrocarbon energy sources — wind and solar, hydropower, coal, natural gas, and nuclear — have environmental impacts. The mining of raw materials, manufacturing, and construction, the landscape footprints and ecological impacts of utility-scale wind and solar projects, and repowering and recycling costs must be considered.
• The negative impacts of wind and solar on the environment are too often overlooked. A wide variety and large quantity of minerals are used in solar panels, wind turbines, battery storage, transmission lines, and more. The U.S. currently sources most of its minerals from foreign countries that do not adhere to modern environmental or worker health and safety standards, which exacerbates environmental impacts that could be managed with domestic mining.
• The positive impacts of nuclear, natural gas, oil, and coal are rarely discussed. These sources of energy are highly reliable, 24/7 power sources that provide baseload and peaking power to the grid. They are scalable, affordable, and have small landscape footprints.
• Existing estimates of material intensity of net-zero carbon emissions, both U.S. and global, reflect the enormity of this industrial undertaking. Some methodologies may be significant underestimates due to optimistic capacity factors for wind and solar, high uptake of recycling, and other model assumptions.
• Every form of energy production requires real estate. The low electricity density of wind and solar generation means that they require at least 10 times as much land per unit of power produced as coal- or natural gas-fired power plants. If the U.S. were powered entirely by wind turbines, the land area necessary would exceed two Californias.
• The ecological impacts of wind and solar cannot be discounted. Evidence is growing that offshore wind turbines are disruptive to whale populations and wind turbines strike bird and bat populations. Habitat fragmentation disrupts nesting, migration, and wintering activities of some species. Large land use footprints exacerbate habitat loss and disruption to wildlife, endanger prime agricultural lands, and lead to zoning conflicts with residents.
• Decommissioning and repowering wind and solar energy is required more often than other forms of electricity generation, compounding costs. The operating lifespan of wind turbines and solar panels is between 20 and 25 years at maximum, while natural gas plants may operate for 40 years, and nuclear plants operate between 40 and 80 years. Repowering often occurs well before expected lifespans, which further exacerbates the environmental impacts of wind and solar.
• Some components in wind turbines and solar panels are hazardous, with few commercial recycling pathways. Current recycling pathways are uneconomic and underutilized, which means that decommissioned wind turbines and solar panels often end up in landfills.
• Recycling and technological advances may help reduce mineral needs, but they will not entirely mitigate the need for new materials. Technological advances may eventually change the types and quantities of minerals needed for wind and solar power but are unlikely to radically change system-wide material intensity, as it is not possible to recycle materials that have not been manufactured.
• Debates about the feasibility and desirability of an “energy transition” should include the negative impacts of wind and solar. If voters and policymakers decide the benefits outweigh the costs, it should only be done with a clear accounting of both. (continue reading)

Shattered Green Dreams - The environmental costs of wind and solar

The Trump Administration has led the US off the path to Net Zero by 2050 using Executive Orders, which could be easily reversed by a later climate activist/alarmist administration. The Trump EOs provide a 4- year respite for the US, while climate activist administrations in the EU, UK, Canada and Australia continue their pursuit of Net Zero through the rapid expansion of renewable generation and battery storage.

There has still not been a successful demonstration of a renewable plus storage grid, though there have been several resounding failures of high percentage renewable grids in the Canary Islands, Australia and recently in the Iberian Peninsula. However, the governments of the developed nations, with the exception of the US, are still aggressively pursuing renewable nirvana while exposing their citizens to rising energy costs, the threat of energy poverty and reduced electric grid stability and resilience.

I have written previously (here, here, here and here).advocating a carefully controlled and monitored demonstration program. I have also issued a more limited demonstration challenge (here). Several others have also advocated for either a demonstration program or a detailed engineering plan to no avail.

The Trump Administration could perform an important service by conducting such a demonstration, which could clearly demonstrate the complexity and cost of a renewable plus storage grid, its effects on consumer costs and its impacts on grid reliability and resilience. It is essential that this demonstration include no federal or state subsidies or tax benefits not available to other grid participants. Such a demonstration could dissuade future US administrations from returning to pursuit of a renewable plus storage grid. Other nations could also benefit from such a demonstration.

The Trump Administration could also perform an important service by contracting for the installation and operation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) on an existing coal generating station and an existing natural gas combined-cycle generating station which were scheduled to be retired from service. The Biden Administration EPA Clean Power Plan 2 (CPP2) regulation asserted that CCS was the Best Available Control Technology for such generators and required that such plants be controlled to remove 90% of CO2 from the plant exhausts or removed from service.

The demonstration installations should be designed, installed and commissioned by mechanical contractors with extensive utility generation experience. The goals would be to demonstrate the cost of equipping existing coal and natural gas generators with CCS, the capability of achieving 90% emissions reduction, the increase in plant operating costs and the decrease in net plant generation capacity for each plant. Such a demonstration could dissuade future administrations from reinstituting CPP2 or similar CO2 emission control requirements. Other nations might also benefit from the results of such a demonstration.

It is doubtful that any rational utility management would commit to the major investment required to install CCS on an existing generator in the absence of a successful demonstration, or that any rational state utility commission would agree to including such an investment in the utility rate base.

From: CO2 Coalition

By: Richard Lindzen, William Happer

Date: June 13, 2025

Physics Demonstrates That Increasing Greenhouse Gases Cannot Cause Dangerous Warming, Extreme Weather or Any Harm

More Carbon Dioxide Will Create More Food.
Driving Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Net Zero and
Eliminating Fossil Fuels Will Be Disastrous for People Worldwide.

SUMMARY
At the outset it is important to understand that carbon dioxide has two relevant properties, as a creator of food and oxygen, and as a greenhouse gas (GHG).

As to food and oxygen, carbon dioxide is essential to nearly all life on earth by creating food and oxygen by photosynthesis.  Further, it creates more food as its level in the atmosphere increases.  For example, doubling carbon dioxide from today’s approximately 420 ppm to 840 ppm would increase the amount of food available to people worldwide by roughly 40%, and doing so would have a negligible effect on temperature.

As to carbon dioxide as a GHG, the United States and countries worldwide are vigorously pursuing rules and subsidies under the Net Zero Theory that carbon dioxide  and other GHG emissions must be reduced to Net Zero and the use of fossil fuels must be eliminated by 2050 to avoid catastrophic global warming and more extreme weather.  A key premise stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is  the “evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change,” where “main driver means responsible for more than 50% of the change.”

The Biden Administration adopted over 100 rules and Congress has provided enormous subsidies promoting alternatives to fossil fuel premised on the Net Zero Theory. The EPA Endangerment Finding, for example, asserts “elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health and to endanger the public welfare of current and future generations.”

On April 9, 2025 President Trump issued a “Memorandum on Directing Repeal of Unlawful Rules” and Fact Sheet stating “agencies shall immediately take steps to effectuate the repeal of any [unlawful] regulation” under Supreme Court precedents, inter alia, where “the scientific and policy premises undergirding it had been shown to be wrong,” or “where the costs imposed are not justified by the public benefits.”  We understand the Supreme Court has also ruled in the leading case State Farm that an agency regulation is arbitrary, capricious and thus invalid where, inter alia:

“the agency has … entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem”
“the agency has relied on factors which Congress has not intended it to consider.”
We are career physicists with a special expertise in radiation physics, which describes how CO2  and GHGs affect heat flow in Earth’s atmosphere.  In our scientific opinion, contrary to most media reporting and many people’s understanding, the “scientific premises undergirding” the Net Zero Theory, all the Biden Net Zero Theory rules and congressional subsidies are scientifically false and “wrong,” and  violate these two State Farm mandates.(continue reading)

Physics Demonstrates That Increasing Greenhouse Gases Cannot Cause Dangerous Warming, Extreme Weather or Any Harm

President Trump has issued several Executive Orders (EOs) intended to encourage the continued operation of existing coal generating stations, to return some recently shuttered generating stations to operation and to restore access to available coal resources to help meet the expected rapid growth of electricity demand and consumption.

While these EOs would likely help avoid some further loss of reliable, dispatchable generating capacity, it is unlikely that they would stimulate investment in major life extension projects for existing generators or in new coal generating facilities, since the EOs could easily be reversed by a subsequent federal administration focused on Net Zero by 2050 or some other CO2 emissions reduction goal.

Investment in construction of new coal generating capacity would likely require Congressional action to assure that those powerplants, once constructed, would be permitted to operate throughout their expected useful lives, preferably including life extension, without the imposition of extremely expensive high percentage carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems which would both increase operating costs and reduce powerplant net generating capacity to support the parasitic power requirements of the CCS systems.
 
Coal powerplants have the advantage of relatively inexpensive onsite fuel storage to assure their availability even during periods of fuel supply disruption. Their output can also be adjusted to match changing grid demand as well as the changing supply from intermittent renewable generators, though they cannot adjust as rapidly as natural gas combined-cycle or simple-cycle turbine generators.

States with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), while they would likely allow continued operation of existing coal generating facilities as backup for intermittent renewable generation, would also likely resist life extension for those coal plants or the construction of new coal generation capacity, even if additional conventional generation capacity were required to provide additional backup for a growing renewable generation fleet.

State RPSs were intended to achieve Net Zero by 2050, and to achieve zero emissions from electricity generation by some earlier date, typically 2035 or 2040. The transition of energy end uses other than electric generation would require an approximate tripling of electric generation capacity by 2050. The anticipated growth of AI and other data centers would require substantial additional growth of generating capacity.

However, the developers of AI and data centers are unwilling to rely on intermittent renewable generation to power their facilities. Various developers have taken differing approaches to reliable electricity supply, including restarting currently inactive nuclear generating capacity, installing multiple natural gas combined-cycle powerplants and installing fleets of small modular nuclear generators (SMRs). Most of these proposed approaches would be independent of the existing, regulated electricity generation systems in the regions in which they would be located.

While these independent generation facilities would likely be acceptable in states without RPSs, it is uncertain how the states with RPSs would respond to the installation of large generating facilities which did not advance the percentage of renewable generation operating in the states. This issue could have a major influence on the location of AI and data centers.

From: GWPF

By: Harry Wilkinson

Date: June 2025

The Net Zero Straitjacket - Five Reasons Net Zero Will Bankrupt Britain

Executive summary

No one can be in any doubt that Net Zero will be incredibly expensive. Estimates for the total capital cost range widely, from £1.4 trillion (Climate Change Committee), to £3 trillion (National Grid), or even as high as £6–10 trillion (Net Zero Watch). The Energy Technologies Institute has suggested that the cost of decarbonising housing alone could be up to £2 trillion. Even the lower end of this range represents a staggering level of spending, comparable in scale to fighting a major war. This is not sustainable, and there are worrying reasons to believe these sums will be higher, rather than lower. This short paper sets out five key reasons why Net Zero will bankrupt Britain:

1. The cost of renewable energy has been underestimated. Published official analyses have not adequately accounted for variable weather patterns which mean there can be periods known as Dunkelflaute, when there is low renewable power output, and even whole wind drought years. This means that the quantity of electricity generation and storage required in 2050 has not been calculated correctly.
2. Electricity prices are likely to rise further, an outcome that the renewable industry appears to be betting on, and which is ‘built in’ by rising renewable energy subsidies and growing grid inefficiency.
3. Compulsory policies put Britain in a straitjacket and can only leave the public poorer. Mandating the use of EVs, heat pumps and overly strict environmental standards reduces consumer choice and leaves the public worse off. The Climate Change Act ties all future governments to these rigid requirements.
4. We will miss out on using the energy under our feet. The opportunity costs of Net Zero need to be recognised. Failing to extract our significant fossil fuel reserves means large sums of potential tax revenues go uncollected and many people miss out on high-skilled and high-paid jobs. Importing gas and oil means tax revenues, jobs and investments go abroad.
5. The benefits don’t stack up. The Government uses flawed ‘carbon values’ to claim large benefits for its climate policies. However, these are highly contestable and don’t represent real benefits for the British public from lower emissions. (continue reading)

The Net Zero Straitjacket - Five Reasons Net Zero Will Bankrupt Britain

The federal goals of Net Zero by 2050 and “all-electric everything” have been placed “on hold” at least temporarily. Therefore, the primary drivers of electric demand and consumption growth are now expected to be data centers and AI. Each of these loads are expected to demand 0.5 to 3 GW and to experience relatively constant consumption throughout the year.

The recent federal and state efforts to expand renewable electric generation and discourage continued operation fossil fueled generation have reduced utility capacity reserve margins and therefore the reliability and resilience of their grids. Many utilities do not have the reliable additional generating capacity necessary to power these large new customer loads.

Data center and AI developers have approached utilities about providing service, but several developers have also expressed a willingness to develop dedicated generation resources to power their facilities if utilities are unable or unwilling to provide service. Microsoft has contracted with Constellation Energy to power a data center with output from one of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island which would be restarted specifically to serve their data center. Other developers are developing plans to power facilities with multiple natural gas combined-cycle generators, possibly bottomed with absorption chillers to provide cooling. Still other developers are considering using small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) to provide on-site power.

These new data centers and AI facilities will be located, at least initially, in areas where reliable utility power is available, or in areas with adequate natural gas supply and transmission capacity to fuel dedicated generation capacity. These facilities will require firm gas supply and transmission contracts to ensure that service is continued under extreme weather conditions. Facilities to be served by dedicated SMRs would probably have a longer planning horizon because of the newness of the technology, its limited availability and an expected longer approval process.

Some states with Renewable Portfolio Standards might object to the construction of new non-renewable generating capacity. Some states might object to the construction of dedicated non-utility generating capacity. Some utilities might object to the intrusion of non-utility generation in their franchise service territories. Such objections would likely cause the developers to seek alternative sites for their installations.

The large, relatively constant power consumption of these facilities might be the stimulus necessary to support development of new large scale nuclear power plants, which could be a major asset in stabilizing the operation of electric grids which include a high percentage of intermittent renewable generation. There is already one such facility in the planning stages which would require the output of three gigawatt-scale powerplants. Nuclear generation would be an ideal fit for these facilities since nuclear generators operate most economically at a constant capacity and these data centers and AI facilities represent almost constant loads year-round.

Nuclear generation also offers the advantage that it would be unaffected by the reimposition of CO2 emission controls such as the clean Power Plan which might occur under a different federal Administration.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Russ Schussler

Date: May 28, 2025

Why “cheaper” wind and solar raise costs. Part III: The problem with power markets

Part 3 of this series examines power markets, promoted by policymakers (FERC) and industry advocates to lower costs through competitive bidding and merit-order dispatch. While markets can optimize resource allocation in many sectors, they struggle to deliver affordability and reliability in electricity systems dominated by intermittent renewables. This post first explains how power markets operate, then highlights their challenges, and finally explores why they amplify the cost challenges associated with wind and solar.

In Part 1 of this series, we explored how the fat tail problem undermines the cost-saving potential of wind and solar.  It’s easy to supply electricity most of the time.  The fat tail occurs in the rarer periods of maximal demands, when wind and solar are not available.  These periods, not savings during easy times, drive system economics.  Part 2 discussed how rate structures distort perceptions of affordability for solar applications. 

How Power Markets Work (and Fail)

Power markets use a merit-order dispatch system, where generators bid their costs, and the market sets prices based on the most expensive unit needed. During “easy” times—when demand is low or renewable output is high—wind and solar often dominate. Their near-zero marginal costs (no fuel expenses) allow them to bid low, displacing higher-cost fossil fuel plants and driving down market prices. This creates the appearance of cheap electricity and fuels the narrative that renewables are inherently cost-effective.

However, during peak or extreme conditions, wind and solar often underperform due to weather or diurnal constraints. For example, wind speeds may drop during heatwaves, or solar output may be negligible at night or during cloudy winters. When demand spikes or renewables falter, markets rely on dispatchable resources—combined cycle plants, combustion turbines, or even older coal units—to meet the shortfall. These resources have higher marginal costs and are often called upon during the most expensive hours, driving market prices skyward. During Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, ERCOT prices surged to $9,000/MWh as renewables underperformed and demand soared. As discussed in the first posting, doing well most of the time is not enough. The challenge in providing costly backup during peak shortages exposes the limitations of power markets, as explored below. (continue reading)

Why “cheaper” wind and solar raise costs. Part III: The problem with power markets

Increasing the capacity of the electric utility grid requires both expansion of electricity transmission and the expansion of natural gas production and pipeline transmission capacity.

Increasing electric transmission capacity to support coal, natural gas and nuclear generators would be relatively straightforward compared with increasing capacity to support wind and solar generation and storage. The conventional generators would require a smaller number of sites and could be located adjacent to existing transmission corridors, whereas renewable generation installations are generally lower generating capacity facilities, frequently located in remote areas some distance from existing transmission corridors and requiring construction of new transmission facilities in new rights of way.

The capacity of conductors in existing transmission corridors would have to be increased to accommodate the output of the additional generators, but approvals for such capacity expansion would be expected to be less difficult and more rapid than approvals for new transmission corridors. The incremental investment would also be far lower than for new transmission corridors. The incremental transmission investment required to connect renewable generation facilities could also be reduced by the impact of grid-scale storage at the renewable generation sites.

The situation for natural gas transmission is similar. The natural gas transmission and storage system is designed to meet current customer demands. Many existing natural gas generators rely on curtailable or interruptible transmission service and on spot market gas availability to reduce costs. However, during periods of peak demand, transmission service to these customers is frequently curtailed and spot market gas is unavailable or in very short supply. This situation significantly affects electric utilities ability to meet peak demand.

Data centers and AI facilities would require firm transmission service and firm gas supply contracts. However, this should not be a significant issue for them, since their demand is relatively consistent throughout the year, reducing cost per unit delivered. However, satisfying their demand would require pipeline capacity expansion, though much of that expansion could likely be accomplished by installing parallel pipelines in existing pipeline rights-of-way and/or adding compression and storage. The additional capacity requirements of other additional natural gas generation facilities could be included in the pipeline and storage expansions.

The extent of the generation and transmission expansion would be reduced, at least in the short term, by the termination of the federal “all-electric everything” focus, which would have required a rough tripling of generation, transmission and distribution capacity to replace the energy currently supplied by natural gas, propane and fuel oil in the residential, commercial and industrial markets.

Again, Congress could improve the investment environment by clarifying the intent of the Clean Air Act regarding CO2 emissions. The investments required to support data center and AI energy requirements are very large and would typically be subject to 40-year straight line depreciation. It would be essential that the investors be able to rely on fully depreciating their investments over their useful lives. A consistent policy and regulatory environment would reduce the costs and risks associated with the required investments and consequently the consumer costs.

From: Watts Up With That

By: Andy May

Date: May 26, 2025

Musings on the AMO

We hear a lot about the AMO, or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. How much does it influence the global mean surface temperature or GMST? Exactly what is the AMO? These are the issues we will discuss. First let’s look at various definitions of the AMO.

Enfield, et al.: “The AMO index [is a] ten-year running mean of detrended Atlantic SSTA [sea surface temperature anomaly] north of the equator.”

Gray, et al.: Uses detrended raw tree-ring measurements to demonstrate a strong and regular 60-100 year variability in basin-wide (0-70°N) North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) that has been persistent for the past five centuries.

Trenberth & Shea: “To deal with purely Atlantic variability, it is highly desirable to remove the larger-scale global signal that is associated with global [anthropogenic] processes, and is thus related to global warming in recent decades … Accordingly, the global mean SST has been subtracted to derive a revised AMO index.”

NCAR uses the Trenberth & Shea method, but NOAA uses the original methodology and detrends the North Atlantic temperatures using a least squares linear trend. We will also use the original Enfield and Gray method in this post.

The reason for the AMO SST 60-70-year pattern is unknown, but according to Gray et al. it extends back to 1567AD, so it is a natural oscillation of some kind. Some have speculated that it is a result of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic or a “combination of natural and anthropogenic forcing during the historical era.” (Mann, Steinman, & Miller, 2020). But while interesting these ideas are speculative. Further if the oscillation has existed since 1567, it seems unlikely that it is caused by human CO2 and aerosol emissions.

It is clear that “global” warming is mostly an extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere phenomenon. This is discussed here in figures 1A & 1B and here in the discussion around figure 1, which is also shown as figure 1 below. Regions outside the extratropical Northern Hemisphere don’t change temperature as quickly or as drastically. (continue reading)

Musings on the AMO

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) have warned that the reliability of the US electric grid is threatened by the increasing percentage of intermittent wind and solar generation being connected to the grid and the premature closure of conventional generation capacity, particularly coal, but also natural gas and nuclear generators. The transition to renewable generation has been driven by massive federal incentives for renewable generation and state renewable portfolio standards, all focused on achieving Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The FERC and NERC concerns are heightened by the projected rapid increases in electricity demand and consumption required to serve data centers and AI.

The Trump Administration has shifted focus from Net Zero by 2050 to achieving American energy dominance. The Administration has removed restrictions on new coal mining projects and is encouraging the retention of existing coal generation and the construction of new coal generation facilities. The Administration is also working to eliminate restrictions on natural gas production and gas pipeline expansion. The Administration also plans to remove unnecessary restrictions on and excessive delays in approval and construction of new nuclear generation facilities including small modular reactors (SMRs).

This new federal policy direction would permit utilities to select the best mix of generation technologies to serve the needs of their markets, although utilities in states with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) would be constrained to comply with the RPS requirements, unless they were modified or eliminated by state or federal actions. The Trump Administration should strongly encourage the RPS states to reconsider the application of those standards, which are driving increasing electricity costs.

The data center and AI developers have made it clear that they are not satisfied with the reliability and stability of renewable generation. In states with RPS, they are likely to build dedicated conventional generation facilities to serve their needs, rather than expose themselves to the growing utility renewable generation fleets. Several are planning to build natural gas combined-cycle generators while others are considering nuclear SMRs. In non-RPS states, they are considering either connecting to the serving utility or partnering with the serving utility to construct additional generation.

Unfortunately, the policy changes implemented by the Trump Administration could be reversed by a subsequent Administration committed to Net Zero by 2050. This creates an uncertain investment environment for utilities and independent generation developers, particularly those operating and developing coal and natural gas generation capacity. Reinstitution of controls such as the Biden Administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) could adversely affect the generating capacity and operating economics of those generators or ultimately require their premature closure.

Congress should act to clarify its intent regarding CO2 and Methane emissions under the Clean Air Act. That action, in combination with the recent Supreme Court position on Chevron Deference, would improve the investment environment and make utilities, independent generation developers and their investors more willing to move forward timely and aggressively to restore and maintain grid reliability and resiliency.

From: The Heartland Institue

By: James Taylor, H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken

Date: November, 2024

Utilities Are Going All-In on Leftist Net-Zero Agenda at Ratepayers’ Expense

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Big utilities have hired a massive army of lobbyists to champion expensive and unreliable wind power, solar power, and an aggressive net-zero carbon dioxide agenda at the expense of affordable, reliable, and abundant conventional energy sources. They are trying to convince conservative lawmakers that they are friends of ratepayers and the environment, but both claims are false. Nor are they for “all of the above” energy; in fact, they are for eliminating coal and natural gas from America’s power mix.

American Electric Power, Salt River Project, Duke Energy, Dominion Energy, and American Electric Power are among the big utilities pushing this agenda, which undermines U.S. energy and economic security, a stable electric grid, and affordable electric power. In their own words:

American Electric Power, Salt River Project, Duke Energy, Dominion Energy, and American Electric Power are among the big utilities pushing this agenda, which undermines U.S. energy and economic security, a stable electric grid, and affordable electric power.

American Electric Power champions the Biden administration’s radical net-zero proposal in its Climate Impact Analysis. AEP asserts, “For the nation to achieve its economy-wide clean energy objectives by 2050 or sooner, as called for in the Biden administration’s climate plan, the transformation of the electric sector is vital.”

Salt River Project’s 2023 Sustainability report states the utility plans to “reduce the amount of CO2 emitted by generation (per MWh) by 82% from 2005 levels by 2035” and reach netzero by 2050. The report also champions the elimination of coal and natural gas power by committing to “transforming Arizona’s energy future by decarbonizing our generation sources at an accelerated rate.”

Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy, bragged at a 2022 shareholder meeting, “We’ve taken aggressive action, expanding our net-zero emissions goal to … target energy from coal to represent less than 5% of our total generation by 2030, and a full exit by 2035 … [and replacing them with] renewables and battery storage ….”

Dominion Energy fully supports government bureaucrats imposing forced changes in energy markets, as evidenced by Dominion’s CEO Robert Blue in a press interview: “Sometimes the government needs to focus on outcomes. We’re trying to address a climate crisis and we are going to need to move quickly in order to do that.” Blue said Dominion would be “all for” a federal policy that “achieves the outcomes” of a government-directed transition to wind and solar power.

American Electric Power (AEP) chairman Nicholas Akins brags, “AEP has retired or sold nearly 13,500 megawatts (MW) of coal-fueled generation during the past decade, and by 2030, we will have reduced our coal-fueled generating capacity by 74% from 2010 levels. This is significant progress.”

Electricity demand is growing, and is expected to continue to grow, especially with the boom in computing data centers and server farms for technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Likewise, the Energy Information Administration says the push for electric vehicles will drive electricity rates up further. Despite this, utilities are undertaking electric power supply plans that will make supply less reliable as demand increases.

The plans also come with significant requests for rate increases and special charges, despite the utilities claiming that the renewable sources they are adopting are cheaper than traditional power sources.

To prevent accelerating rate increases and shore up grid reliability, we suggest requiring utilities to make the prime focus of their efforts reliability and affordability. To do this, states should:

Enact laws specifying that electric power reliability and affordability are the highest priorities in utilities plans and rate cases, while rescinding climate policies and mandates and subsidies for renewable power development, which necessarily comes at the expense of reliability and affordability.

Prevent utilities from closing baseload power plants unless and until equally reliable baseload sources are brought online for replacement. Wind and solar don’t meet these requirements.

Establish a position of ratepayer advocate on state utility regulatory commissions, whose charge would be dedicated solely to ensuring utility plans brought before the commission minimize the cost of monopoly utilities’ new construction and rate plans, while reinforcing reliability.

Require that sources of electric power be labeled for transparency reasons to account for their full panoply of environmental and economic impacts — which allows an applesto-apples comparison of proposed and existing energy sources.

Establish the security of the electric power grid and supply by requiring states’ electric power be produced from technologies and fuels sourced domestically within the United States to minimize reliance on foreign nations for critical materials.

Provide security for people dependent on electricity for their daily lives. Going forward utility commissions should only sanction electric power sources that can provide power on demand, readily available 24/7. (continue reading)

Utilities Are Going All-In on Leftist Net-Zero Agenda at Ratepayers’ Expense

Fires require a source of ignition at a temperature above the ignition temperature of the available combustible material and possessing sufficient energy to raise the temperature of the available combustible material above its ignition temperature. The common natural source of ignition is lightning. However, faulty electric transmission and distribution infrastructure, accidental spread of cooking and campfires from homeless encampments and intentional arson are also common sources of ignition which cause fires which can develop into wildfires if there is sufficient combustible material available.

Climate change has been accused of making wildfires more frequent and/or more intense. However, climate change cannot cause a fire because it does not possess the necessary characteristics of a source of ignition, so it is incapable of making wildfires more frequent. Wildfire intensity is a function of the mass and condition of available combustible material, which some have suggested are more available or more prone to ignition as the result of climate change. However, there are far more significant factors which affect combustible material availability, including poor forest and grassland management. No data are available to support an assertion of incremental climate change effect.

However, the pursuit of climate change policies by governments have introduced several new “fire starters” which could cause wildfires if not properly managed. Solar collector arrays, wind turbines and grid-scale storage systems all have the potential to catch fire and to start secondary fires in the presence of combustible materials.

This image shows a fire in a ground mounted solar collector array. The solar array is surrounded by grass, which could easily spread the fire if it were sufficiently dry. One recent fire in Australia spread to tall grass in the area surrounding the collectors. Australia has experienced fires at solar installations caused by electric transformer and inverter failures. Damage to solar collector arrays caused by high winds or tornadoes can damage collector electrical connections and interconnecting wiring. Solar array fires are relatively easy to address because the collectors and other system components are located near the ground and accessible to firefighters.

Wind turbine fires are more frequent than solar array fires, and are not accessible to firefighters because of the height of the turbine assemblies. The most common cause of wind turbine fires is lightning strikes, which can ignite the turbine blades or the lubricating oils in the turbine machinery. Firefighters are limited to controlling the spread of secondary fires on the ground surrounding the wind turbine resulting from burning debris falling from the burning turbine. Such fires can spread quickly if the wind turbines are surrounded by relatively dry vegetation. Firefighters must also maintain a safe distance from the base of the turbine in case the unipole on which the turbine is mounted fails and falls onto the ground.

Grid-scale battery storage systems have experienced numerous fires. These fires are believed to have resulted from internal faults in the batteries, rather than from any external cause. The recent fire at the Moss Landing facility in California destroyed the older portion of the facility. These battery fires are very intense and very difficult to extinguish. Fire personnel have learned to allow them to burn themselves out while protecting the surrounding areas from secondary fires ignited by the burning batteries. These batteries also emit massive quantities of toxic smoke when they burn, frequently requiring evacuation of local residences and commercial buildings.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Russ Schussler

Date: May 5, 2025

Casting blame for the blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of France

On April  28th Spain, Portugal and parts of France suffered a major grid outage. A  formal evaluation will likely be released at a later date cataloging many of the contributing factors and system deficiencies. Unfortunately, such reports often provide more confusion than clarity, as they tend to prioritize the triggers for system outages over the underlying causes. Post hoc it is easy to look at the vast data available and construct favored narratives about how the outage might have been avoided. This piece will look at “advance” warnings that point to the true cause of the blackout in Spain, Portugal and parts of France.

Core Insight: It has long been predicted that replacing conventional synchronous generators, which rotate together with the grid, with asynchronous inverter-based resources like wind, solar, and batteries will increase the risk of blackouts. Grid planners recognize that unanticipated adverse events—such as line outages, generator trips, substation failures, and major faults—will continue to impact power grids. Their challenge is to ensure the grid is robust enough to withstand and recover from such disturbances without major consequences. Proponents of wind, solar, and batteries may attempt to attribute blackouts to the adverse events that triggered the outage, rather than to flaws in the underlying system. This is akin to blaming an automobile’s brake failure on the conditions that necessitated sudden braking, rather than on the failure of the braking system itself. While lessons learned may help mitigate risks from adverse events, such occurrences cannot be entirely eliminated from grid operations. Reducing the risk of blackouts depends on enhancing grid robustness.

My Warnings and Predictions

My May 7, 2015 posting, Transmission planning: wind and solar noted the following: (continue reading)

Casting blame for the blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of France

Most government environmental regulations are based on observations of atmospheric concentrations, exposure durations and adverse health effects. Specific sources of emissions of the pollutants in question are measured individually and the combined exposure levels calculated. Studies are conducted to determine the safe exposure to each pollutant as a function of concentration and frequency and duration of exposure. The technologies available to control emissions from each of the sources of concern are evaluated to determine their technical and cost effectiveness. Regulations are then developed which establish the emissions limits for each controlled source required to establish and maintain safe exposure.

This regulatory approach has worked well when applied to the emissions of pollutants which remain largely local or regional. It has been used to limit vehicle tailpipe emissions, powerplant emissions, refinery emissions and other industrial and commercial emissions. It has also been applied to eliminate the use of tetraethyl lead in gasoline and to ban the use of lead in paint and other coatings in combination with the application of the Linear No Tolerance (LNT) concept to emissions other than ionizing radiation.

However, this regulatory approach is not well suited to the regulation of “globally well-mixed trace gases” such as CO2, for several reasons. While atmospheric concentrations can be measured, no individual nation can regulate the atmospheric concentration of a “globally well-mixed trace gas” which is emitted by multiple sources in every nation on the globe. Control of exposure duration is also not possible because exposure is continuous globally. Finally, there are no observed adverse health effects at current exposure levels, or at exposure levels an order of magnitude higher than current exposure levels.

The supposed ”global” effort to control CO2 “pollution” is based on supposition of adverse effects on global climate which would lead to adverse human heath effects. This supposition is based on the outputs of numerous climate model studies which suggest the possibility of large global temperature increases, more frequent and more intense extreme weather events and ultimately crop failure. The timing and severity of these changes is very much a function of the climate model chosen and the starting assumptions for the model run.

However, current observations dispute the supposition. The potential atmospheric warming effect of CO2 is essentially “saturated”, in that additional CO2 concentrations would have a minor effect on atmospheric temperatures (<1°C for a doubling of CO2 concentration). Observations confirm that the additional atmospheric CO2 concentration has contributed to increases in agricultural production and to global greening, both as a result of CO2 fertilization and the ability of plants to use available water more efficiently Observations do not confirm any increase in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events and actually suggest some reductions in frequency and intensity, with the exception of heat waves which are typically not extreme (climatology plus 3°F for 2-3 or more days).

The current atmospheric CO2 concentration is well below the optimum concentration for plant growth and also well below the concentration at which adverse human health effects might be expected.

The supposed “endangerment” is unsupported and, in fact, countered by observations. It is an unreasonable basis for regulation.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Chris Morris

Date: April 11, 2025

Geothermal electricity generation

Geothermal power stations are mature technology with proven performance, reliable operation and ideal for baseload generation. The units are synchronous, so they support the grid.  The production from them is considered by most to be renewable. They do not use fossil fuels to provide the heat. It is not “carbon free”, but no generation truly is. It has a relatively small footprint, environment harm is low, and it can coexist with farming or industrial development. Most developments have a cheaper energy cost than onshore wind, using published accounts for analysis. For countries or areas where the resource is there, geothermal generation is very viable.

The resource

Geothermal power stations are very much a niche generation source (only about 15GW worldwide,  from 673 units at 198 fields according to Google), totally dependent on locality. They are mainly associated with plate boundaries, particularly the Pacific Ring of Fire. Compare the plate boundaries and volcanic activity in Figure 1 with station locations in Figure  2

Associated with the plate boundaries and other weak points in the earth’s crust, the deep underlying heat in the mantle can find its way to the surface easier. “Bubbles” of magma can push up to relatively shallow depths. These may force their way to the actual surface as volcanoes with their lava. With the distortion and earth movement from this activity, the crust’s rock formations are deformed and cracked – earthquakes.  Groundwater can enter all the fault cracking in the rocks. This will be heated up by the hot magma, even if that has solidified.

Geothermal resources exploited for power production are the plumes of hot water formed from the heating of this deep groundwater. In geologic terms, such convection systems are short lived – generally lasting between 200 and 450 thousand years. They end because the heat source has gone or the cracking has been filled by precipitated minerals from the circulating water as it cools. The world is full of solidified magma (granite) and prehistoric geothermal systems. Many of the latter are now mined for gold and other precious materials. (continue reading)

Geothermal electricity generation