Free Republic

ALBANY – Democratic lawmakers are looking to change the state constitution in a power grab that will allow them to carve up congressional maps — and target seven Republican-held seats. A proposed amendment released Monday by the Democratic majority would give its own members authority to change the maps to draw new congressional district lines favorable to their candidates, with insiders saying it could mean flipping at least four GOP congressional seats in the state. Democrats, who control both houses of the state legislature and hold a more than 2-to-1 voter enrollment advantage over Republicans, would need voters to approve...

We are often best defined not by the company we keep, but by our enemies. Having the right—left—enemies tends to be a very good thing indeed, as it’s a reliable indicator we’re doing the right things with the right people and for the right reasons. It’s not always easy, however, to know the motives of people, or nations, when we’re dealing with issues of technology and/or public policy. One such issue is the proliferation of data centers, necessary for the burgeoning AI revolution, but controversial for that and other reasons. Among them is the amount of water and power they...

Climate hysteria, which was always about power and money, finally seems to have peaked, and President Trump helped lead the way. There has been a huge shift within the public and private sectors on climate change as it has dawned on governments and companies that the United States, under President Donald Trump, will no longer be a patsy to a cabal of international elites who seek to impose costly climate restrictions upon American businesses and international climate boondoggles upon nations. Trump’s actions are draining the climate swamp of resources, supporters, spirit, and momentum. These include defunding climate boondoggles across federal...

Lake Tahoe doesn’t know where its power will come from after next ski season—and it’s a major problem for the 49,000 residents who call the region home. The Sierra Nevada tourist hub—home to ski resorts, lakeside casinos, and roughly 25 to 28 million annual visitors—is facing an energy crisis with a familiar culprit: the data centers powering the AI boom. NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied the bulk of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, told Liberty Utilities—the small California company that services the region—that it will stop providing power after May 2027. The reason? NV Energy needs the...

Suppose that you are a large U.S. state with a dynamic modern economy. Here’s an idea for a strategy for powering your electrical grid: Intentionally disinvest in your functioning fossil fuel generation plants; fail to maintain them adequately, and let them age into obsolescence. Meanwhile, encourage and even subsidize the development of solar panels as a replacement. After all, solar power is cheaper! Those who follow the policy of New York State with respect to our electrical grid will recognize this description as covering the essential elements of our strategy. In our case, the strategy was mainly enacted into law...

We’re approaching 60 days of the so-called Iran war, and we’re still getting these loud voices that Donald Trump has failed, that the war’s not going well. It’s completely nonempirical. It’s antithetical to the evidence. Here we are at 60 days, and Iran is losing about $500 million in input per day. It’s running out of storage space in a week or two for its daily output of oil, at which point they either have to stop pumping or they’re going to have—if they don’t stop pumping—their wells will collapse. They either have to stop pumping, or they have to...

They’ve hit the mother lode. We may no longer need to rely on foreign batteries to power our electronics. Geologists have announced that the Appalachian Mountains could be hiding a sprawling multi-billion-dollar cache of lithium that could last the US hundreds of years. “This research shows that the Appalachians contain enough lithium to help meet the nation’s growing needs,” declared US Geological Survey Director Ned Mamula in a statement. According to a map by the institution, this East Coast mountain range houses around 2.5 metric tons of this battery precursor, most of which is concentrated in the Carolinas, Maine and...

A massive hyperscale data centre project tied to investor Kevin O’Leary is moving forward in Box Elder County, Utah after receiving approvals from a state military development authority, with final local authorization now the only remaining hurdle, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. The Military Installation Development Authority, known as MIDA, approved multiple steps on Friday to advance the multibillion-dollar development project, which is being pitched as a major economic engine for rural northern Utah. The project is expected to include 2,000 permanent jobs and large-scale infrastructure tied to military installations in the state. It is expected to consume more...

Coal-fired power plant retirements in the United States dropped to their lowest level in more than a decade in 2025, as operators delayed or canceled closures and federal officials stepped in to keep some facilities running to support grid reliability, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). New data released Monday by EIA shows that the U.S. electric power sector retired 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of coal capacity across four plants last year — the smallest annual total since 2010, and a figure below the 8.5 GW of retirements that had been planned at the start of the year. Instead,...

To exactly no one’s surprise, it turns out that a vast leftist network, including the usual communist and socialist oligarchs, is funding the ‘No Kings’ protests. I’m someone who suffers from earworms. As those who have them can attest, they’re no fun. A song gets stuck in your head and refuses to be dislodged. Sometimes, though, it’s not a song; it’s an expression. As I read the latest exposé about the oligarchical leftist funding behind the “No Kings” protests that have been taking place across America today, two earworms clogged my brain: [videos at link] Yes, two classic Hollywood...

No power here in eastern Honolulu. Out all night and continuing this morning. High winds took off part of our plastic lanai roof, uprooted tree in front yard which is currently covering sidewalk. Cable box cover torn off and blown into front yard. You'd think a hurricane came through. No ETA of power return. Ah! Life in paradise.

Gov. Hochul has spent much of her 4 ¹/₂ years in office facing a time bomb left by her predecessor: drastic, legally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets that the state has no practical means of meeting. The 2019 Climate Act requires New York to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about one-quarter from that year’s levels by 2030. The state has made little progress toward this goal, in part because officials shuttered New York’s largest nuclear power plant in 2021. The law remains on the books, and its defenders balk at revision. If Hochul can’t persuade them to change it, Albany’s...

AI-driven power demand is surging far faster than expected, but a shortage of heavy-duty gas turbines is creating a bottleneck.Turbine makers like Siemens, GE Vernova, and Mitsubishi are ramping up production, but expansion projects could take up to 5 years.Without enough gas capacity, AI growth could slow or grids may turn back to coal, potentially delaying coal plant retirements.The surge in electricity demand in the world’s AI hotspots has prompted a comparable surge in demand for reliable supply. That surge was not expected. There are not enough gas turbines to secure that supply. This means the AI revolution would either...

TLANTA, Ga. (WALB) - Millions of Georgia power customers could see lower electricity bills after the U.S. Department of Energy closed a $26.5 billion loan package for Southern Company, the largest loan in the department’s history. Officials said the deal is expected to save customers more than $7 billion in electricity costs by reducing the utility’s interest expenses. Southern Company has announced plans for multi-year rate freezes as part of the partnership with the federal government.

Yesterday, the Colgate powerhouse pentock failed dramatically off of the Bullards Bar Reservoir right there in Yubi County, not very far from the Blanco Global Headquarters, kind of halfway between Grass Valley and the Orville Reservoir.

Corey Lewandowski fired a Coast Guard pilot for leaving Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s blanket on a plane — but was forced to rehire them upon realizing there was nobody else to fly the plane, according to a stunning new report.Lewandowski, an unpaid special government employee who unofficially acts as chief of staff for Noem — with whom he’s had a years-long affair — has overseen a reign of terror over department staff since President Trump took office last year.According to the Wall Street Journal, Noem had to switch planes during an official trip due to a maintenance issue, but...

STRENGTHENING NATIONAL DEFENSE WITH RELIABLE COAL POWER: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order directing the Department of War to prioritize long-term Power Purchase Agreements with America’s beautiful, clean coal fleet to ensure military installations and critical defense facilities have uninterrupted, on-demand baseload power.The Order directs the Secretary of War, in coordination with the Secretary of Energy, to approve long-term Power Purchase Agreements or similar contracts with coal-fired energy production facilities to serve Department of War installations and other mission-critical facilities.Priority will be given to projects that enhance grid reliability and blackout prevention, on-site fuel security, and mission...

There is a cynical reason why Democrat leaders keep illegal aliens in the country. It is not for humanitarian reasons. The net effect of increases in both legal and illegal immigration in the 2020 Census shifted 17 House seats and 17 Electoral College votes. It resulted in a net gain of 14 seats in blue states. Ten seats shifted from red states and four from battleground states. It’s partly due to districts with high percentages of noncitizens who lean heavily Democrat. “Of the 24 districts where one in five adults is not an American citizen, twenty were won by a...

Residents of a small town in Ohio are furious that the state has approved a power plant that would generate more than a million pounds of climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions daily, according to documents reviewed by the Daily Mail. Hilliard, a town of nearly 39,000 people, will soon be home to a 73-megawatt natural gas fuel cell system that will power a fleet of data centers for Amazon Web Services. The company said the fuel cells are needed to sustain electricity consumption for planned expansions to these data centers. Fuel cells convert the methane in natural gas into electricity without...

Sometimes the debate over U.S. energy policy feels more like a shouting match, instead of a factual discussion about how to meet the nation’s rapidly growing needs. In one corner, there’s the push for 100% renewables. In the other corner, it’s almost all about oil and gas. But outside the competing echo chambers on the left and the right, a quiet success story is unfolding in America’s rural – and yes, more politically conservative – communities. It turns out that keeping the lights on isn’t about picking a side. It’s about picking all the energy sources that can deliver affordable...