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 fact, … [Read more...]
Real Threats to Biodiversity and Humanity
References to climate change almost guarantee funding, even for research topics of little interest beyond academia and eco-activists. Polls reveal that most people worry most about energy and food prices, crime, living standards, Putin’s war on Ukraine, and increasing efforts to control their lives. A recent study by Rutgers University scientists sought to determine how much diversity is required among bee species to sustain wild plant populations. They concluded that ecosystems rely … [Read more...]
Can Green Energy Cause a Global Food Shortage?
China is one of the world’s largest food producers. Recently an acute power shortage there reduced food output. This sent markets into panic. Severe global food shortages and increased prices could follow.What caused China’s power shortage? Over-reliance on renewable energy. It led to insufficient and unreliable electricity generation. That harmed domestic food production and global food security.Many people condemn coal. They espouse “green” policies. But these lead to power blackouts. And … [Read more...]
Paris Panic: Governments Fail to Meet Their Climate Commitments, and Some Are Getting Farther Away
Political leaders and media personalities are fond of saying climate change poses an existential threat to humans and the planet. The weight of scientific evidence doesn’t support this oft-made claim, and national governments around the globe seem to acknowledge this by their actions.Despite what is reported almost daily in the mainstream media, data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show no … [Read more...]
Renewable Failure and Renewable Threats to Wildlife Become a Global Norm
As the Paris climate agreement pushes for more and more renewable installments globally, reports of failure of installed renewables, especially wind and solar, are also becoming increasingly common.Nobody wishes for wind and solar to fail. After all, billions of dollars have been invested in them. I, like many others, desire to see renewables strengthen the existing energy infrastructure globally.Sadly, and inevitably, though, the drawbacks and limitations of wind and solar keep resurfacing, no … [Read more...]
Battery Storage—An Infinitesimal Part of Electrical Power
Large-scale storage of electricity is the latest proposed solution to boost the deployment of renewables. Renewable energy advocates, businesses, and state governments plan to use batteries to store electricity to solve the problem of intermittent wind and solar output. But large-scale storage is only an insignificant part of the electrical power industry and doomed to remain so for decades to come.Last month, Senator Susan Collins of Maine introduced a bi-partisan bill named “The Better Energy … [Read more...]
How the Wind Industry Gains by Losing
So you want to make a profit by selling what you produce. What do you do? Sell it for more than it costs you.But that's so old fashioned!Nowadays, you just get into the wind industry. You find state or local policymakers eager to virtue signal by supporting your renewable-, zero-carbon energy tech. And you get them to sign a contract that guarantees you get positive payment for your product even when its market price is negative.Rate- and taxpayers in Georgetown, TX, a small town outside the … [Read more...]
Are Wind Factories a Clear Case of Environmental Injustice?
Not many people can combine downright poetic writing with clear arguments about justice and economics. Radio broadcaster Bob Lonsberry did it today on his blog, "To the Metal Beasts on the Hilltop." Here's the start: Why do you think wind and solar projects in New York invariably end up in the poorest, most rural and politically powerless communities? Seriously. In this day and age, are we going to look the other way as community after community across upstate New York is stuck with … [Read more...]
What Do “Green Jobs” Produce?
Cornwall Alliance advisory board member H. Sterling Burnett published a good piece in the Washington Times recently that rebuts claims about "Green jobs" in two ways. Burnett points out that in response to President Donald Trump's saying one reason to withdraw from the Paris climate accord was that staying in would drive energy prices higher, causing the loss of 6.5 million industrial jobs by 2040, supporters of wind and solar energy claim that job gains in wind and solar energy production … [Read more...]
Can We Get There from Here?
A tourist asks an Irish old-timer, "How do I get to Dublin?" The old-timer responds, "Well, you can't get there from here." That's what came to my mind when I read Michael Kelly's brief paper "A Challenge for Renewable Energies," at the Global Warming Policy Forum. The gist: "In recent years the energy sector has accounted for about 9 per cent of global GDP, with the implication that the return on energy investment [ROEI] in the world economy is, approximately and as an average, about … [Read more...]