Free Republic

ALBANY - The council working on the beginning stages of a plan to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases in the state is looking into how reducing wood smoke could benefit the health of upstate New Yorkers. he 22-member Climate Action Council is in the midst of a year-long study of how to achieve the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), an ambitious law passed in 2019 mandating the state reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent when compared to 1990 levels by 2030 and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. During the October council meeting, New...

So, did this catch any steam because I really haven’t seen much about the local West Virginia effort from the Left that is gearing up to tell Sen. Joe Manchin that he’s a very, very bad man for opposing the Build Back Better bill. The Democratic senator delivered the kill shot to the bill when he announced, after weeks of talks, that he cannot get behind the legislation. It ruined Christmas for a lot of liberals. His fellow Democrats felt he had betrayed them. He didn’t. They just didn’t listen. He told them exactly what nutty items needed to be...

Used lithium-ion batteries taken from carmaker Audi’s electric vehicles (EVs) have been repurposed into a ‘second-life’ stationary energy storage system by energy company RWE at a project in Herdecke, Germany. RWE has deployed the system, which has a capacity of around 4.5MWh, at the site of its pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plant at Hengsteysee reservoir in the North-Rhine Westphalia region of north-west Germany. The decommissioned batteries are taken from development models of Audi’s e-tron EVs, which have a maximum range of 252 miles when used for transport. They still had about 80% of their residual capacity remaining when taken...

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin is reportedly in the final stages of making a deal with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on building a new pipeline that could further worsen Europe's gas crisis. The agreement would double exports to China, transporting up to fifty billion cubic metres more natural gas every year via a major new planned pipeline - Power of Siberia 2. This comes as the rest of Europe reels from a major energy crisis, with prices climbing to a new record last week, up almost 800 percent since the start of the year. The EU's energy crisis has intensified...

Indonesia has banned coal exports in January due to concerns that low supplies at domestic power plants could lead to widespread blackouts, a senior official at the energy ministry said on Saturday. The Southeast Asian country is the world's biggest exporter of thermal coal, exporting around 400 million tonnes in 2020. Its biggest customers are China, India, Japan and South Korea.

Joe Biden wasted no time after being sworn in as president in destroying the U.S energy renaissance ushered in during Donald Trump’s presidency which made the country energy independent and a net annual petroleum exporter for the first time since at least 1949.Through regulations, executive orders, and other means, Biden has driven up the cost of energy for Americans and made the country more dependent on foreign and often unfriendly entities for its energy needs.Here are ten Biden policies that have ended abundant and affordable energy in America:1. On his first day as president, Biden canceled completion of the Keystone...

PRISTINA, Dec 28 (Reuters) - As Kosovo endures its worst energy crisis in a decade, Xhelal Gashi is considering closing down his bakery in Pristina because he is struggling to cover fuel costs for a generator since authorities introduced power cuts.... Many businesses and households in Kosovo have brought out portable power generators since the country's power distribution company, Kosovo Energy Distribution Systems (KEDS), announced last week that it would introduce two-hour-long power cuts until further notice.... ..."As a consequence, Kosovo is importing energy that was not scheduled in the markets," The European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E), which...

As Covid lockdowns eased this past year, people all over the world went back to work and play. But while oil, natural gas, coal and electricity demand predictably shot up, President Biden canceled and hyper-regulated pipelines, leases and drilling permits. European leaders took similarly shortsighted actions. Inadequate global supplies chased rising global demand, and prices predictably skyrocketed. Regular gasoline that averaged $2.17 per gallon in 2020 hit $3.49 in November 2021, costing American motorists $17 more to fill their tanks. Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughed it off, saying, “If you drove an electric car, this wouldn’t be affecting you.”...

You sometimes see newspaper headlines to the effect that, say, a “50 megawatt solar power plant” is being constructed. But you shouldn’t count on getting anything remotely approaching 50 megawatts of power from such an installation. Energy expert Isaac Orr explains: Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that production from solar panels plummets in the winter. The graph below shows the percentage of electricity generated by solar panels in Minnesota compared to their potential output. This percentage is called a capacity factor in electricity-industry lingo. ... Isaac’s analysis applies specifically to Minnesota, but bear in mind that...

China has long relied on the Middle East to secure much of the oil needed to fuel its rapid economic development. Now Chinese President Xi Jinping wishes to create an “ecological civilization” that relies less on fossil fuels and more on renewable energy. As the world’s largest oil importer seeks to become greener and more self-reliant, one might expect a shift in its attention and capital. The reality, however, Since China became a net importer of oil in 1993, the Middle East has emerged as an increasingly important source of this critical commodity. By the time China surpassed the US...

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline would help to calm a surge in European gas prices and was ready to start exports now a second stretch of the pipeline has been filled. Nord Stream 2, completed in September but awaiting regulatory approval from Germany and the European Union, faces resistance from the United States and several countries including Poland and Ukraine, which say it will increase Russia's leverage over Europe. "I'd like to congratulate Gazprom and your partners in Nord Stream 2 on the completion of work...

It has been almost a year since Joe Biden has been President of the United States and a Democrat majority took control of The House and Senate. And what has happened to the US Treasury yield curve slope over the past year? The yield curve is back where it started. There was the “honeymoon effect” where the curve slope rose. After all, Biden was Obama’s Vice President for 8 years and The Democrats has promised so much in the 2020 election. But by early April, the reality of the massive Federal spending (combined with Fed Stimulypto) began showing was feared:...

We have previously warned about a whopping food crisis and supply problems in the fertilizer market. Well, now is worse because that was BEFORE we had the natural gas crisis. Why is that important? Natural gas is THE critical input into making fertilizer. Urea is essentially ammonia in solid state, the process of which entails reacting ammonia with CO2. And we all now know — thanks to the climate nazis — that CO2 is currently the devil. The problem of course is that with no natural gas there is no urea, and with no urea there is no fertilizer. And...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China, under fire for approving new coal power stations as other countries try to curb greenhouse gases, has completed the first 1,000-megawatt unit of the Shanghaimiao plant, the biggest of its kind under construction in the country. Its operator, the Guodian Power Shanghaimiao Corporation, a subsidiary of the central government-run China Energy Investment Corporation, said on Tuesday that the plant's technology was the world's most efficient, with the lowest rates of coal and water consumption.... ...China is responsible for more than half of global coal-fired power generation and is expected to see a 9% year-on-year increase in...

Huge cargo ships carrying liquid gas that were destined for China have changed course and are now heading towards the UK as Europe remains trapped in a major supply crunch. While the Continent’s energy crisis and high prices have attracted ships away from other parts of the world, the new arrivals are now bringing prices down. Benchmark Dutch front-month gas fell for a fifth day yesterday, dropping as much as 9.2pc in Amsterdam. The UK gas price rocketed to a record 470p per therm last week, up from just 50p in April, but has since fallen to under 270p. James...

Current market conditions, political pressures, and environmental compliance burdens have greatly reduced the amount of power that coal-fired plants produce annually. However, the greatest impact on coal-fired plants has been the resurgence of the American natural gas market, thus providing an abundant and cheap source of a cleaner-burning fuel. Couple this with the growing impact of renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar power, and it’s easy to understand why many coal-fired plants are struggling to stay in operation. The survival of coal-fired power plants demands that managers adapt and reinvent their industry. Units must be able to provide...

Coal and nuclear energy made up 40% of the overall energy mix in Germany. Meanwhile, renewables fell to 41% of the mix. Still, Germany is stuck on kicking its coal and nuclear habit—coal because it’s dirty, and nuclear because of Fukushima. The decision to retire the latter was made shortly after the Fukushima disaster, but since then, coal use has risen to fill in the gaps left by nuclear. This year, Germany plans to shut down the Grohnde, Gundremmingen C, and Brokdorf nuclear plants, which will leave Germany with just three. Those final three will be retired by the end...

The European Union’s executive Commission is considering whether to include nuclear and natural gas in its “sustainable finance taxonomy”, a rulebook that will restrict which activities can be labelled as climate-friendly investments. “We are going to have most likely a discussion tomorrow in college, which then will lead… to approval next year,” EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius told a news conference on Monday, referring to the Commission’s weekly “college” meeting.

The blast at a Texas oil refinery early Thursday will probably push already high gasoline prices even higher — although not immediately. The blast and resulting fire at the ExxonMobil plant in the Houston-area city of Baytown, Texas, injured at least four workers. The accident could hamper output at one of America’s largest refineries for months, weighing on gasoline supply at at time when US refining capacity has already been reduced, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service. “They’re not going to have all systems go for a couple of quarters,” he said. The average...

Cold-stricken Europe is drawing a flotilla of U.S. liquefied natural gas cargoes amid an energy crisis that has sent gas prices to record levels. Facing a winter shortage and little relief from the continent’s main supplier Russia, natural gas in Northwest Europe is trading for about $57.54 per million British thermal units, up almost a third from a week earlier. That’s roughly $24 higher than Asian prices and more than 14 times higher than gas being sold on U.S. benchmark Henry Hub.