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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...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced the terms for doling out $20 billion through “climate banks” authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, part of the massive green spending authorized by the law meant specifically to boost poorer towns and people harmed by pollution. The EPA said it was setting up two programs, one with $14 billion in funding and the other with $6 billion, that would in turn each set up a handful of institutions that would partner with private-sector entities to finance green projects, which could include heat pumps, electric vehicle charging stations, building upgrades, and other similar...

The Biden administration will announce Friday it is ready to distribute $20 billion in taxpayer dollars for “clean energy projects” across the nation. These include – but are not limited to – building more electric vehicle charging stations, residential heat pumps, and community cooling centers, all as the Biden administration continues its drive to push Americans away from relying on fossil fuels. Two programs from a federal “green bank” worth more than $14 billion and $6 billion between them will offer competitive grants to states, tribes and nonprofits to invest in clean energy projects, with a focus on disadvantaged communities,...

In a bid to make buildings more energy-efficient and resilient to extreme weather, the administration on Wednesday will award $90 million in grants to help cities, states, tribes and organizations implement stronger codes for new and renovated construction, according to details shared first with The Washington Post. The announcement Tuesday reflects the policy limitations that Biden faces. Building codes are adopted at the state and local levels, so the federal government is limited in what it can require. And with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, Congress is unlikely to impose any new national requirements. These constraints have...

OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the Titan submersible disaster, was forgiven of its $450,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan, according to the ProPublica PPP Loan Database. OceanGate builds submersibles for tourism and research, but its inherently risky business model raises questions, and led to the tragic deaths of five people in the ocean in June. Its liability waiver for sub tourism mentioned the possibility of death three times on the first page alone. Now, some are accusing the company of cutting corners. James Cameron, the renowned Titanic explorer and director of the 1997 movie, said, "I was very suspect of the...

. Due to the agreed upon rules of the House Rules Committee- one Republican can stop the entire Deal with a simple Vote - Thomas Massie. The other votes are already there to stop it in the Rules Committee. One Man - says he a Fiscal Hawk - a Conservative Republican can easily stop it before it starts. They told us this is why we needed to vote Republicans in to Win the House.

The trash burning industry was eager to show it is not a polluting relic but a pioneering clean tech sector worthy of millions of dollars in new federal subsidies. As the Biden administration allocates billions of dollars in new climate subsidies, environmentally challenged industries are sharpening their green pitches. The companies argue they are just as entitled to lucrative federal incentives as solar farms or electric carmakers, and are working to frame their businesses as global warming solutions. The money up for grabs from the Inflation Reduction Act and other programs are in amounts large enough to guide whether they...

In 2008, California voted yes on a $9 billion bond authorization to build the nation’s first high-speed railway. The plan is to build an electric train that will connect Los Angeles with the Central Valley and then San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes. But 15 years later, there is not a single mile of track laid, and executives involved say there isn’t enough money to finish the project. The latest estimates from the California High-Speed Rail Authority suggest it will cost between $88 billion and $128 billion to complete the entire system from LA to San Francisco. Inflation...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden will announce plans to increase U.S. funding to help developing countries fight climate change and curb deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest during a meeting on Thursday with leaders from the world's largest economies. The president will announce a U.S. contribution of $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which finances projects on clean energy and climate change resilience in developing countries, doubling the overall U.S. contribution, the White House said. He will also announce plans to request $500 million over five years to contribute to the Amazon Fund, which works to combat deforestation in...

The federal government is giving Pennsylvania a down payment to plan how to best adapt to and mitigate climate change locally. In Harrisburg on Friday, state and federal officials said Pennsylvania will get about $6 million to create priority climate action plans. The commonwealth will receive up to a $3 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant through the program set up by the Inflation Reduction Act. The resulting plans can include things like installing air quality monitoring systems, plugging old oil and gas wells, or converting school bus fleets to electric vehicles. The plans will make the state eligible for grants...

(Reuters) - The world is failing to cut carbon emissions fast enough to avoid disastrous climate change, a dawning truth that is giving life to a technology that for years has been marginal – pulling carbon dioxide from the air. Leading the charge, the U.S. government has offered $3.5 billion in grants to build the factories that will capture and permanently store the gas - the largest such effort globally to help halt climate change through Direct Air Capture (DAC) and expanded a tax credit to $180/tonne to bolster the burgeoning technology. The sums involved dwarf funding available in other...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67% of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, according to two people familiar with the matter. That would represent a quantum leap for the United States — where just 5.8% of vehicles sold last year were all-electric — and would exceed President Joe Biden’s earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold here by 2030. It would be the federal government’s most aggressive climate...

KEY POINTS: * Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday plans to announce a commitment between South Korean solar cell manufacturer Qcells and Virginia-based Summit Ridge Energy to deploy 1.2 gigawatts of community solar power. * Harris will make the announcement during a trip to the Qcells facility in Dalton, Georgia as part of the White House’s “Invest in America” tour. * The deal would be the largest community solar order in U.S. history and require the manufacturing of 2.5 million solar panels, Biden administration officials said.

At a hearing before a House committee on Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog warned lawmakers that the agency's recent surge in funding — part of President Biden's climate policy spending — comes with "a high risk for fraud, waste and abuse." The EPA — whose annual budget for 2023 is just $10 billion — has received roughly $100 billion in new, supplemental funding through two high-dollar pieces of legislation, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. The two new laws represent the largest investment in the agency's history. Sean O'Donnell, the EPA inspector general,...