How bad is the EV business? Ford Motor Company just reported that the operating loss it incurred on its EV business in 2023 exceeded its total profit for the year. That shocking fact comes directly from the company’s earnings report, which carried the headline, “Ford+ Delivers Solid 2023...” The Dearborn-based auto giant had an operating loss (also known as EBIT, or earnings before interest and taxes) of $4.7 billion on its EV business last year. Meanwhile, the company reported net … [Read more...]
Michael Bloomberg’s $1 Billion Assault on The Electric Grid
Climate-related philanthropy in America has been hijacked by a radical agenda that will hurt the affordability, reliability, and resilience of the U.S. electric grid. More proof of that hijacking came when mega-billionaire Michael Bloomberg announced that Bloomberg Philanthropies would give $500 million to the Beyond Carbon campaign. The goal of the effort is to shutter the bulk of our most important power plants — the ones that burn coal and natural gas and are therefore dispatchable and … [Read more...]
Let Them Eat Solar Panels
Image: Creative Commons under Unsplash Recently, during a speech at a high-dollar fundraiser for the League of Conservation Voters in Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden exulted about a solar project in Angola. According to a transcript of his speech that can be found on the White House’s website, Biden said: “We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean. We have plans to build in — in Angola one of the largest solar plants in the world. I … [Read more...]
The “Energy Transition” Isn’t All It Claims To Be
We are inundated with claims about the “energy transition.” In February, E&E News, reporting on the State of the Union speech, said, “President Joe Biden laid out his vision for the energy transition Tuesday night.” In March, a reporter for Politico declared, “The U.S. energy transition is well underway.” Also in March, during a speech at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that "As this transition progresses, our energy mix will change." Or … [Read more...]
Jamie Dimon’s Climate Corporatism
Deep Throat never said, “follow the money.” That phrase, which has become one of the most famous axioms in politics and journalism, was featured in the 1976 movie “All the President’s Men,” which starred Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. But that phrase was not in the 1974 book of the same title by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward that recounted their investigation into the Watergate debacle 1 Instead, it appears the phrase was first used by an attorney named Henry … [Read more...]
The Iron Law Of Electricity Strikes Again: Germany Re-Opens Five Lignite-Fired Power Plants
Last week, numerous media outlets reported that Germany will extend the lives of three of its nuclear power plants. The move to keep the reactors online, which was opposed by the country’s Green Party, showed that German politicians are recognizing the need to keep reliable generation plants online to assure the country has enough electricity this winter. But another equally important announcement was also made last week that got far less media attention: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz … [Read more...]
In Pandering to the Green Left, Biden Is Underwriting China’s Genocide of Uyghurs
Last June, the Biden administration was so concerned about China's use of Uyghur Muslim slave labor to produce the polysilicon needed for solar panels that it imposed bans on imports of that product from some Chinese manufacturers. But that was last year before the domestic solar industry went into free fall due to a Commerce Department investigation into allegations of dumping that effectively halted the import of solar panels from four southeast Asia countries that were accused of … [Read more...]
Rolls-Royce’s SMR Needs 10,000 Times Less Land Than Wind Energy, Proves ‘Iron Law Of Power Density’
Last month, Rolls-Royce said that it expects to receive regulatory approval from the British government by 2024 for its 470-megawatt small modular reactor and that it will begin producing power on Britain's electric grid by 2029. Will that happen? Time will tell. Many nuclear projects and startups have blown past their projected in-service dates. But Rolls-Royce’s announcement is important for two reasons. First, it adds more credence to the notion that a global nuclear renaissance is, in … [Read more...]
Washington Post and NPR Ignore the Rural Backlash Against Renewables
During my three decades as a reporter, I’ve seen plenty of hype and poor news coverage about renewable energy. But two recent pieces—in the Washington Post and National Public Radio, respectively—are particularly egregious. These reports demonstrate, yet again, that some of the biggest media entities in the world have no clue about—and apparently no sympathy for—the rural Americans, from Maine to Hawaii, who are fighting to protect their homes and neighborhoods from large wind and … [Read more...]
As coal use surges, America finds it’s hard to unplug from carbon
So much for the myriad claims about going “beyond coal.” According to a new report from the Rhodium Group, U.S. coal consumption jumped by 17 percent last year compared to 2020 levels. That’s a huge increase, which Rhodium says was “largely driven by a run-up in natural gas prices.” Rather than burn gas, which averaged about $4.93 per million Btu last year — more than two times the price in 2020 — many electricity producers chose to burn coal instead. The surge in domestic coal use … [Read more...]
