Free Republic

President Joe Biden's administration announced Tuesday their approval of another large offshore wind project off of the coast of Martha's Vineyard, despite ongoing legal battles to block similar projects. The Interior Department approved the New England Wind Project, a planned commercial off-shore project roughly 20 nautical miles south of Martha's Vineyard and 24 nautical miles southwest of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The planned wind farm would include up to 129 wind turbines off of the coast of the island, the location of some of the wealthiest homes in the United States. 'The New England Wind project will help lower consumer costs, combat...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WISH) — Indiana plans to rebuild a small section of highway that by next summer could charge electric vehicles being driven. Purdue University and Indiana government’s Department of Transportation, in separate news releases issued Wednesday, touted the construction project as the first highway segment in the nation with wireless charging. Construction could begin as soon as April 1. Neither Purdue or the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) reported how much the project will cost. Indianapolis-based White Construction was awarded a contract to build the wireless power-transfer technology in a quarter-mile of U.S. 231/U.S. 52 between Cumberland Avenue...

The Biden administration is funneling $1 billion in taxpayer funds to America's northern and southern borders to make dozens of federal ports of entry more climate friendly. The General Services Administration (GSA) announced it would direct Inflation Reduction Act funds to support the climate initiatives at the border, even as the ongoing surge of migrants strains federal resources. While GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan and Andrew Mayock, President Biden's Federal Buy Clean Task Force co-chair, said the action would reduce "harmful emissions," the move was slammed by Republicans and experts. “As usual, the Biden administration is refusing to address a problem...

California's mega high-speed rail project between San Francisco to Los Angeles faces major funding hurdles VIDEO AT LINK.....................

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Some of the city-sanctioned homeless camps are getting an upgrade. The city of Portland has purchased 100 new tiny home pods for the unsheltered at the Multnomah Safe Rest Village. Each one came with a $16,510 price tag. While the cost is a steep one, Savannah Eadens, a public information officer for the Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites, said the units come with everything a resident will need inside. This includes a bed, bedding, and a heater. The pods at Multnomah Village were paid for by federal American Rescue Plan (ARPA) money and Metro’s Supportive Housing funds.

A proposed high-speed passenger train between Las Vegas and Southern California got another boost on Tuesday with Biden administration approval to issue $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds for the $12 billion project. The announcement benefiting the Brightline West project followed a $3 billion U.S. Department of Transportation grant in December and government authorization in 2020 for the company to sell $1 billion in similar bonds. ... The 218-mile (351-kilometer) Brightline West project aims to whisk passengers at 186 mph (300 kph) or more in electric trains on new tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor ... No date has been announced...

Electric buses are just like electric passenger vehicles: they’re not ready for prime time, only more so. Proterra buses are a case in point. Cities that wasted money on them found they had far less range then advertised. They commonly couldn’t complete even short, flat routes specifically designed for them. The enormous weight of their batteries cracked frames, and getting parts from the factory was virtually impossible. But to make up for their failures, they were far more expensive than reliable diesel buses. Proterra went bankrupt in August of 2023.President Biden gave Proterra at least $10 million, and lauded it...

The Osage Nation won a massive ruling in Tulsa federal court on Wednesday that requires Enel to dismantle a 150-megawatt wind project it built in Osage County despite the tribe’s repeated objections. The tribe’s fight against Rome-based Enel began in 2011 and is the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history. As reported by Curtis Killman in the Tulsa World on Thursday, the ruling grants the United States, the Osage Nation, and Osage Minerals Council permanent injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass.” The decision by U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer...

The Department of Transportation announced more than $6 billion in grant funding for high-speed rail projects this week. The money comes amid ongoing support for a technology that has also encountered concerns about its costs. Brightline West, an affiliate of Florida’s Brightline intercity rail service, was awarded $3 billion in federal funds for its proposed line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which would zoom passengers between the cities in two hours. The California High-Speed-Rail Authority was awarded $3.1 billion to continue work on its system, which will ultimately connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours....

Colorado utilities regulators will consider the new plan, which was revised in hopes of capturing lucrative renewable energy credits while slashing greenhouse gas emissions... Xcel Energy has a vision for Colorado’s clean energy future — one independent power producers, consumer advocates and regulators didn’t see coming — a vision that is both expensive, with a $15 billion price tag, and unparalleled in its sweep. Xcel Energy’s preferred electric resource plan submitted to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in September includes 7,100 megawatts of new generation and storage, mainly wind and solar and nearly $3 billion in new transmission lines. “We...

The California High-Speed Rail has received its biggest boost from the federal government yet, being awarded more than $3 billion in grant funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The announcement was made Tuesday and was confirmed by California Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Another spoke in President Joe Biden’s climate policy wheel is the production of hydrogen, which was referred to as a “key pillar of Bidenomics” in an announcement $7 billion in funding for hydrogen hubs across the country. Other troubled green initiatives Biden has been rolling out include the development of offshore wind energy and the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. This past month both the offshore wind and the electric vehicle industries have seen significant losses as a result of problems that experts, such as energy writer Robert Bryce and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Mark Mills, have long been warning...

The city of San Francisco is in the process of constructing a downtown-area railroad extension that is estimated to cost in excess of $4 billion per mile of tunnel, The San Francisco Standard reported. The extension, known as The Portal, is a tunneled rail service that would connect the Salesforce Transit Center in the city’s downtown corridor to Caltrain and future high-speed trains, according to the Standard. The project’s overall cost estimate was recently revised up from $6.5 billion to a total of $8.25 billion, which makes for a per-mile cost of over $4 billion, ... “[Y]ou’re seeing some whopping...

A couple of days ago, a Substack called Doomberg had a piece titled “False Utopia.” The piece featured a discussion of a post of mine from February 2023 with the title “We Must Demand A Demonstration Project Of A Mainly Renewables-Based Electrical Grid.” My post argued that we should demand a demonstration project of a mainly renewables-based electrical grid that would include all the key elements — generation mainly from solar and wind, plus sufficient back-up or storage to make the whole thing work for the long term without involvement of the evil fossil fuels, plus any other necessary elements...

Green advocates remain undaunted by the energy source’s surging costs and questionable efficiency... Like the proverbial skunk at a garden party, reality has disrupted the offshore-wind fantasy. After announcing a potential $2.3 billion write-down on its U.S. offshore-wind projects, Ørsted CEO Mads Nipper said that it was “inevitable” that consumers would need to pay more for renewable energy, since offshore wind “faces cost increases in orders of magnitude.” Nipper’s confession makes a jarring contrast with claims made about offshore wind’s costs only a few years ago. In 2017, Michael Liebrich told BloombergNEF that green-energy costs were at a “tipping point”...

Solar should be competing for sales in the marketplace, not for subsidies in Washington,' ... The Biden administration quietly issued a 59-page report outlining the current scope of federal energy-related subsidies revealed that the renewable energy sector enjoys significantly larger taxpayer backing than the fossil fuel industry. The report — authored by the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) and published in August — represents the first of its kind since 2018. The EIA analyzed data from 2016 through 2022, and determined that, during that time period, the federal government doled out $183.3 billion in direct and mainly indirect...

The Energy Department is announcing a $325 million investment in new battery types that can help turn solar and wind energy into 24-hour power it said Friday morning. The funds will be distributed among 15 projects in 17 states and the Red Lake Nation, a Native American tribe based in Minnesota. Here is some of what is being funded, through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021: A project led by Xcel Energy in partnership with long-term battery manufacturer Form Energy will deploy two 100-megawatt battery systems at the site of coal plants that are closing in Becker, Minnesota and Pueblo,...

The Biden administration is funding a $4 million project to determine a connection between child labor and climate change in the South Asian country of Nepal. One of the desired outcomes is "increased understanding of the link between climate change and vulnerability to child labor and/or forced labor risks," while another is "increased implementation of child-centered, gender-sensitive and socially inclusive climate adaptation initiatives," according to documents released on the federal government's grant website. "Locally-led" climate change strategy, according to the grant details, should be collaborative with the Nepalese government to address the "priorities of climate-vulnerable populations, such as children, women,...

During an interview with The Weather Channel on Tuesday aired on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that, “Practically speaking,” he’s “already” declared a national emergency on climate change. He stated that, as part of this practical emergency declaration on climate, “we’ve conserved more land,” “rejoined the Paris Climate Accord,” and “we’ve passed a 368 billion-dollar climate control [initiative].” Weather Channel Meteorologist Stephanie Abrams asked, “Mr. President, you called climate change a code red for humanity. The World Health Organization said it would cause an additional quarter of a million deaths a year starting in 2030. Are you prepared to declare...

… A gallon of sustainable aviation fuel costs almost twice as much as traditional aviation fuel, according to the International Air Transport Association. Carbon recycling technology is broadly expensive, limiting how widely these kinds of systems can be embraced, which can then limit their development and adoption. The Biden administration took a step to address that chicken-and-egg problem Monday with the announcement of a $100 million grant program aimed at subsidizing carbon recycling purchases by state and local governments, as well as public utilities. Geoff Cooper, CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, said that the funding will also help stimulate...