Free Republic

A wind energy company named Avangrid has been in the process of developing a massive offshore wind farm called the Commonwealth Wind project, working with the support of the state of Massachusetts for several years. When completed, it was to be a 1,200-megawatt energy source. A second offshore project from Mayflower Wind was to produce an additional 400 megawatts. But now, the companies behind both of these projects have asked the state to put the plans on hold. The reason given was that the projects are “no longer viable” under the current conditions and they will be unable to move...

Political activist Robert Kennedy Jr. warned that a "society in fear" due to the COVID-19 pandemic could result in the "complete obliteration of critical thinking." Kennedy, who spoke at the Ron Paul Institute's conference, noted that only a small fraction of the individuals comprising the CDC's COVID-19 death total died primarily from COVID-19. "Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19 as a cause of death, 5.5% listed COVID-19 without codes for any other conditions," according to the CDC. "The people who died, 96% of them, had almost 400 reasons that might have killed them," Kennedy said during a session...

If you still own shares in solar energy it’s probably a sign that you’ve been in the sun too long: the sector is tanking – and deservedly so – as reality dawns that this is a Potemkin industry, an Enron of a con-trick, whose survival depends not on the energy it generates but on the subsidies it squeezes from the taxpayer. Consider Exhibit A: the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the California desert. This $2.2 billion project, heavily backed with federal grants by the Obama administration, is absolutely brilliant at killing birds. According to some estimates it accounts for...

I was water-skiing with my children in a light drizzle off Hyannis, Mass., last month when a sudden, fierce storm plunged us into a melee of towering waves, raking rain, painful hail and midday darkness broken by blinding flashes of lightning. As I hurried to get my children out of the water and back to the dock, I shouted over the roaring wind, "This is some kind of tornado." The fog consolidated and a waterspout hundreds of feet high rose from the white ocean and darted across its surface, landing for a moment on a moored outboard to spin it...

An ambitious and controversial push to erect America's first offshore wind farm has been dealt what some call a potentially "fatal" blow after two utility companies pulled out of commitments to buy energy from the lagging operation. The $2.6 billion Cape Wind project, a private operation benefiting from millions in federal subsidies, is attempting to pioneer offshore wind energy in pursuit of an eco-friendly, sustainable energy supply. Wind turbines would be installed off the coast of Massachusetts' Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound. But Cape Wind is now in limbo after utility companies terminated huge purchase agreements. They pulled out after...

When it comes to green gentry liberalism, think of an Americanized version of the PBS hit—where everyone knows his or her place, and our betters look best. Last week was a good week for natural gas, but a bad one for green gentry liberalism. John Podesta, a veteran of the Clinton White House who is once again a presidential adviser, tried to explain some energy facts of life to the true-believing liberal base. Still, it’s unclear if Podesta’s intended audience was listening, and that willful blindness may cost the Democrats control of the Senate. Podesta warned that opposition to natural...

Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column

Green Energy: Bypassing abundant supplies of environmentally friendly and reliable natural gas, the Bay State forces its utilities to buy energy from offshore wind farms. The tilting at windmills continues. It is instead found in the vast resources locked up in the Outer Continental Shelf, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska and in the vast shale formations that bless the U.S. with an abundance of oil and natural gas. A nationwide boom in natural gas production is set to fuel nearly 900,000 jobs and add roughly $1,000 to annual household budgets by 2015, according...

Nstar ratepayers could see their electricity bills balloon by as much as $382 million over 15 years under a merger deal with the state that forces the utility to buy energy from Cape Wind — a power premium that dwarfs a one-time $21 million customer credit touted yesterday by the Patrick administration. “The merger has some good things in the early years, but once the Cape Wind contract kicks in, it will erase any savings that ratepayers will have gotten,” said Robert Rio of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a group that represents some 7,000 employers. Gov. Deval Patrick wrangled a...

Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday announced that NStar [NST] — as part of its bid to merge with Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities — has agreed to buy 27.5 percent of the electricity that will be generated by the yet-to-be-built Cape Wind project. And by “agreed” we really mean “succumbed to unprecedented pressure from Patrick’s team, designed to ensure that the offshore wind project may some day, with enough government coaxing, actually break ground.”

New England’s power grid manager says it’s unlikely the long-planned Cape Wind offshore wind project will be producing electricity by mid-2015, raising the prospect of more delays in a project beset by them. Grid operator ISO New England made the determination about Cape Wind in a Jan. 3 report, explaining why it rejected Cape Wind’s bid to participate in a power market it oversees. The wind project was proposed in 2001 and has faced obstacles that have repeatedly forced its timeline to be extended. And last May, its efforts to win a federal loan guarantee were stalled partly because of...

BOSTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the Federal Aviation Administration's ruling that Cape Wind's turbines present no danger for local air traffic. The decision could further delay construction of the wind farm first proposed a decade ago. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FAA misread its own rules when assessing Cape Wind, which aims to be the nation's first offshore wind farm. The court said the FAA did not adequately determine whether Cape Wind's 130 turbines - each 440-feet tall - would pose a danger to pilots relying on sight...

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) - Giant windmills are popping up on farms, scenic mountain ridges, prairie grass and now an Indian reservation, dramatically changing the nation's landscape and spinning a debate about where they belong. Wind power grew rapidly in 2005, becoming more competitive as natural gas prices jumped and crude oil prices reached record highs. Improved technology, a federal tax credit and pressure on utilities to use clean energy sources helped fuel the growth from coast to coast. Officials in Atlantic City, N.J., in December dedicated the nation's first coastal wind farm. And last week, General Electric Co. announced a...

<p>Developers and government agencies are proposing 11 wind power projects across New England, from the mountains of Maine to the Boston Harbor islands, including some that would be among the biggest wind farms in the world.</p> <p>Most of the public attention - and controversy - has focused on two enormous wind farms that would be built in Nantucket Sound and several miles south of the island, raising concerns about the impact on coastal views. But energy officials say there are at least nine other new or expanded wind farms being planned, including two in Berkshire County, and researchers are studying the possibility of wind turbines on one or more of the Boston Harbor islands.</p>

Is John Kerry willing to increase the odds that U.S. troops will have to fight another Middle Eastern war just to preserve the pristine view from the millionaires' mansions along Nantucket Sound? If you were to apply Kerry's alarmist campaign rhetoric about energy policy to his own actions in regard to energy production, the conclusion would be: Yes, he is. But Kerry's not a warmonger; he's just a windbag. And never was this more apparent than when his environmentally correct energy policy ran aground on Horseshoe Shoal -- where a company specializing in clean energy production would like to build...

Mike Gallagher takes on RFK JR on FoxWTF is wrong with this guy? What a drama queen!

NEW BEDFORD — Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attacked the Bush administration, corporate polluters, the media and a misinformed public Thursday night in an impassioned speech about the erosion of U.S. democracy and the global environment. "Democracy and the environment are intertwined," said Mr. Kennedy, who spoke in front of a crowd that half-filled the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center. "You can't separate one from the other." Mr. Kennedy, who serves as a chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, also teaches law at Pace University in New York, writes books and co-hosts a weekly show...

By R.F. Kennedy, Jr. AS an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas. I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes, of which there are many. But I do believe that some places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development. I wouldn't build a wind farm in Yosemite National Park. Nor would I build one on Nantucket Sound, which is exactly what the company Energy Management is trying to do with its Cape Wind project. Environmental groups have been enticed by Cape Wind, but they should be wary of...

General Electric, the U.S.-based industrial giant and leading manufacturer of wind-power turbines, is scaling back efforts to expand its presence in the offshore wind power market. The rationale: there is no meaningful offshore wind market to speak of – at least not yet. Given slower-than-expected industry growth, the offshore market may not mature as rapidly as many wind boosters once believed.

The president of an Arizona Navajo chapter hopes a picture will be worth a lot of hot air. The not-so-flattering painting of Joseph P. Kennedy II is on display at a Cortez, Colo., art gallery after a dispute over wind turbines on Navajo land. The 15-by-28-inch portrait depicts an angry Kennedy with wild eyes, a large gut and a finger jabbing the air. “It’s a parody,” said Edward Singer, the artist and president of the Navajos’ 1,500-member Cameron Chapter who met with Kennedy a year ago. “He was shaking, perspiring profusely, yelling, arguing and berating the Navajo community and I...