Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is considering an oil billionaire and a North Dakota lawmaker for top posts as he moves to roll back President Barack Obama's environmental and energy policies and allow unfettered production of oil, coal and natural gas.

Donald Trump’s stunning victory in the presidential election has already created the usual swarm of “experts” who know exactly what the new president must do. The chattering class, editorialists, columnists, and bloggers everywhere are rushing to get their ideas heard. From appointment suggestions to major policy initiatives, all seem to know exactly what Mr. Trump should do. So, here is my two cents! ... Here are five specific suggestions for sound environmental policies that would help get the economy back on track.

Offshore wind power is taking off in Europe, but we’re still coming to grips with the environmental impacts of sticking gigantic steel towers in the oceans. One effect of these clean energy behemoths, however, seems indisputable: sediment plumes. Captured by the Operational Land Imager on NASA and the USGS’ Landsat 8 satellite, these striking images show us what looks like a bunch of jet skiers zipping across the North Sea in mathematically precise formation. In reality, these are vast wakes and plumes of suspended sediment generated by three enormous offshore wind farms.

Dear President-Elect Trump, There’s work to be done. And I know you’re up for a challenge. In fact, I’m now sure of it. So let me lay out a policy position that I am truly hoping you will adopt as your own. I’m talking about natural gas as a transportation fuel: cheap, clean, abundant natural gas. And I’m talking about U.S. energy independence, balanced budgets, jobs, trade and the environment. We use natural gas for power generation and as a heating fuel but that’s an old story for a new reality. Fracking has unlocked a phenomenal amount of gas in...

Residents in some rural communities are concerned that a deal in the Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature to increase renewable energy mandates on utilities will result in their homes being surrounded by 500-foot-tall industrial wind turbines. The deal is the result of lawmakers trying to satisfy three special interests that have competing goals as they rewrite the state utility regulation law. Senate Bill 437, introduced by Sen. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek, would amend a current law that allows non-monopoly electricity generation firms to compete for up to 10 percent of Michigan’s commercial and industrial electric power market. Customers of these generators believe...

The latest batch of WikiLeaks emails included a leaked 2008 dispatch from then Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm promoting herself as a candidate for President Barack Obama’s secretary of energy. Granholm would have had to resign as governor midway through her final term had she landed the job. Granholm attached a 12,000-word document describing what she considered her qualifications in an email to John Podesta, who was heading President Obama’s transition team. The list of accomplishments was heavy on corporate welfare programs Granholm had championed. In one section of her pitch, the Democratic former governor wrote extensively about three companies that...

A carbon tax proposal in Washington state, scheduled for the ballot on Tuesday, has been drawing national attention for weeks as a result of the unexpected controversy it’s inspired among environmental groups, many of whom have outright opposed the initiative. And in the final days leading up to the vote, new voices have continued to join the fray, including influential players on all sides of the climate change conversation. **SNIP** Also last week, economic justice organization Rebuild the Dream, founded by former White House adviser and current CNN commentator Van Jones, released two Facebook ads — reportedly at a cost...

The fear of a Donald Trump victory has reached fever pitch in Mexico this weekend, as the nation’s economists pontificate on the potentially devastating effects such an outcome would have on both the country’s currency and its broader economy. In recent weeks, Mexican financial authorities even ordered local banks to stress-test the potential impact on their balance sheets of Trump winning the U.S. presidential election. While the effects of a Trump victory on Mexico are likely to be huge, there are plenty of other reasons the country’s economy and currency are under growing pressure, including a consumer slowdown in the...

Biofuels are often touted as an alternative to fossil fuels, but many depend on raw materials that would quickly become scarce if production were scaled up. As an alternative to these alternatives, the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has found a way to potentially produce 30 million barrels of biocrude oil per year from the 34 billion gal (128 billion liters) of raw sewage that Americans create every day. According to PNNL, the problem with using sewage as a source material for biocrude is it's too wet and requires drying before more conventional processes can handle...

They may not ride in crammed trains or carry angst over potholes but feuding presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both want to fix America's infrastructure. The focus on improving public transit and highways couldn't come soon enough for local commuters, say two experts. "There is a desperate need to invest more into mass transit in Chicagoland," Regional Transportation Authority Chairman and former state senator Kirk Dillard said. "Most states significantly assist in the mass transit arena, but that is not the case today in Illinois," Dillard added, noting New York City budgets about $196 per capita on mass...

It is getting more crisp and cool in the morning. In Michigan, we’re getting back into the habit of scraping the frost off our windows before we get in the car and head to work. We’re also remembering the location of the thermostat in our homes so we can take the chill off the morning temperatures. For most people, that heat, which we expect from our furnace, is brought to us courtesy of natural gas or propane, both of which are transported through pipelines that crisscross this continent. As the cold deepens and we move into winter, having the ability...

Investors may not realize it, but the Walking Dead is not the only zombie show running right now. The oil markets are at least as scary and have zombies that are much harder to kill than AMC’s popular program. While about 100 oil companies have gone bankrupt in 2015 and 2016, almost none of those companies have actually “died”. Instead, most of the firms are still pumping oil just as rapidly as before. That, in turn, has significant implications for investors in the market. The 70 bankrupt firms are producing roughly 1 million bpd of oil – about the same...

The Arctic Energy Center announced last week that a coalition of Alaskans are petitioning the federal government to grant leases for oil and gas exploration and production in and offshore of the North Slope, including the Inupiat tribe. “Arctic Iñupiat Offshore (AIO) announced today that it is joining the Arctic Coalition, a collection of 21 Alaskan and nationwide organizations that support responsible energy development in and off the coast of Alaska,” the announcement stated. “The group is calling on the Obama administration to listen to the views and perspectives of Alaska residents and keep Alaska’s Arctic offshore acreage in the...

The leaked WikiLeaks emails released this month offer insight into former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s belief that she could reinvent the state’s economy. One leaked Granholm email dated Nov. 8, 2008, was sent to John Podesta, head of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. Midway through her second and final term as governor, Granholm was applying for the position of U.S. Secretary of Energy. She wrote: “As we briefly discussed, in Michigan I have focused like a laser on replacing our dwindling manufacturing jobs with clean tech and renewable energy jobs.” Now, eight years after Granholm was passed over for the...

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk wasn’t kidding when he said that the new Tesla solar roof product was better looking than an ordinary roof: the roofing replacement with solar energy gathering powers does indeed look great. It’s a far cry from the obvious and somewhat weird aftermarket panels you see applied to roofs after the fact today. The solar roofing comes in four distinct styles that Tesla presented at the event, including “Textured Glass Tile,” “Slate Glass Tile,” “Tuscan Glass Tile, and “Smooth Glass Tile.” Each of these achieves a different aesthetic look, but all resembled fairly closely a...

While at best, Clinton’s clean cookstove campaign seems slimy, and may be illegal, one might cast a blind eye if the program achieved its aggrandizing goals. Hillary Clinton’s “trustworthiness” problem is fed by a long history of “varying credibility,” as a recent Politico story delineated, including cattle-futures trading, law firm billing records, muddled sniper fire recollections and e-mail use. While providing pertinent points, the Politico list is just a sampling. One missing item on the “mistrust” litany is a project she reportedly cooked up as Secretary of State, but that was shaped by her family foundation. State Department staff sent...

Shady cash from Vladimir Putin’s Russian energy oligarchs and other rich donors is being laundered through Bermuda-based lawyers and middlemen to “green” pressure groups, lobbyists and spinmeisters – to promote “green energy” schemes that bring billions of dollars from government agencies (and thus from us taxpayers and consumers) to a cabal of billionaires and crony companies. At the epicenter are hedge fund millionaire Nathaniel Simons, his wife Laura and their secretive Sea Change Foundation. “Investors” become even wealthier, as billions of dollars are transferred annually to environmentalists, scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and crony-corporatists in Renewable Energy & Climate Crisis, Inc....

Fewer and fewer oil exploration and production companies are declaring bankruptcy. But more oilfield service companies are. So far this month, only one North American E&P firm filed for Chapter 11 protection, according to data released on Tuesday by the Dallas law firm Haynes & Boone. That’s down from two in September, three in August and four in July. But it’s been an especially tough few months for service companies. As crude prices began crashing in 2014, drillers started idling rigs. That led to fewer jobs for the companies that make their money helping producers pump oil and gas. Moreover,...

This could change everything. Back in 2011, three astronomers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery that the Universe wasn’t just expanding - it was expanding at an accelerating rate. The discovery led to the widespread acceptance of the idea that our Universe is dominated by a mysterious force called dark energy, and altered the standard model of cosmology forever. But now physicists say this discovery might have been false, and they have a much larger dataset to back them up. For a bit of background on the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, it was shared between...

By year's end, Portland General Electric will fire up its 550-megawatt power plant in Boardman for a daylong test burn, feeding 8,000 tons of pulverized, roasted wood into its boilers instead of the usual diet of coal. The exercise is meant to gauge whether the aging fossil fuel plant could reliably generate electricity using renewable feedstock such as "torrefied" wood after its scheduled closure in 2020. If it works — technically, economically and environmentally — Oregon's only coal-fired power plant could one day become the country's largest biomass power plant. It's an uncertain, embryonic effort, but some believe the payoff...