Free Republic

More than half of the U.S. and parts of Canada, home to around 180 million people, could fall short of electricity during extreme cold again this winter due to lacking natural gas infrastructure, the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) said on Wednesday. In its 2023-24 winter outlook, the regulatory authority warned that prolonged, wide-area cold snaps threaten the reliability of bulk power generation and availability of fuel supplies for natural gas-fired generation. “Recent extreme cold weather events have shown that energy delivery disruptions can have devastating consequences for electric and gas consumers in impacted areas,” NERC said.

researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity. ...However, the researchers expect it to be scalable so that it could provide emissions-free heat and power to individual homes and even be used in industrial or grid-scale applications. These crystals have an indefinite shelf life, remaining so stable that they could be stored for years, or even decades, with little or no loss. By comparison, even the best available practical...

California’s buildout of wind and solar farms is exceeding the ability of its grid to handle all the electricity during periods of high production and low demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Monday that curtailments, which is when wind and solar farms are deliberately shut down, increased to peak levels in 2023. The California Independent System Operator, which operates the electricity grid for much of the state, has steadily curtailed the amount of electricity from wind and solar farms that flows through its system. The decreases appear to be situational, not a steady process, and are the result of...

It's one thing to try and replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power, but experts are saying the generation of power is only half the battle, and that the problems in getting that power to Americans may be insurmountable. A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) concludes that the size of the global electricity grid will need to double by 2040, in order to reach global emission reductions targets in line with the Paris Agreement. That means, the IEA says, the world will need to refurbish or add 50 million miles of new transmission lines within 17...

I recently wrote about specific technologies which can affect the human brain and other locations of the body and can be used for torture. Those technologies are sometimes described as “Directed Energy Weapons” or “Directed Energy Systems.”A significant point made in one of my articles is that Directed Energy Weapons and Systems use radio frequency, infrared, or other electromagnetic energy and can secretly focus that energy onto a specific group or a specific person within that group to cause harm.Basically, Directed Energy Weapons and Directed Energy Systems commonly use electromagnetic technologies from a remote and secret location and then focus...

Israel ordered its state-run electricity company to halt supply to the Gaza Strip on Saturday after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, the energy minister said. “I have signed an order instructing (Israel) Electric Company to stop the electricity supply to Gaza,” Energy Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Scruggs will have his day in court, but no single case will restore the equilibrium razed by J6 prosecutors.By way of introduction, my name is Adam Johnson — but most people know me as “the Lectern Guy.” On Jan. 6, 2021, I kind of broke the internet after I was photographed smiling and waving as I was carrying then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s podium through the Capitol rotunda. Suffice it to say, the authorities did not look kindly on what I did, and I was later arrested.Eventually, I was transferred to a courtroom after four...

A $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, will help satisfy the Biden administration’s efforts to get everyone into an EV. It also will help extend the life of a coal-fired power plant. Resource Adequacy Panasonic broke ground on the facility last year. The Japanese company was slated to receive $6.8 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been pouring billions into electric vehicles and battery factories as part of its effort to transition America away from fossil fuels. The Kansas City Star reports that the factory will require between 200 and 250 megawatts of...

The electric vehicle honeymoon is over. Don’t expect the marriage itself to last much longer either. The mass conversion from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs) to electric vehicles was never more than a Democrat/environmentalist hallucination anyway. It was the most ill-conceived government policy objective in modern history. The transition should have been a non-starter. It’s riddled with numerous deal killers. It’s like having a dozen fatal diseases all at the same time. Any goal as massive as a total conversion from ICE vehicles to EVs requires careful planning and infrastructure preparation. It would necessitate a rapid doubling of electricity generation...

Although Texas' longest-serving governor was, perhaps unsurprisingly, pro-oil and gas during his tenure, he didn't simply nod to those iconic, staple fuels: “You can be proud that Texas produces more energy from wind turbines than all but five countries,” he said.

COVID-19 cases are expected to rise this fall as new variants become more prevalent. And, as unfortunately expected, it’s already triggered demands by some of our more zealous public health enforcers, not to mention some teachers’ unions, to reinstate mitigation measures including mandatory masking. Some researchers are already recommending that when cases go up, people will need to wear masks indoors again. ... None of this incipient hysteria is warranted. The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is, as expected, continuing to mutate. The EG.5 variant is the most common US strain now, making up an estimated 21% of new infections...

TOKYO -- China is emerging as a dominant player in global wind power generation, with the country's manufacturers supplying nearly 60% of installed capacity worldwide in 2022. The figures, compiled by the Brussels-based Global Wind Energy Council, signal that China is claiming a commanding share in both the wind power and solar panel markets. China's Goldwind, the leader in the domestic market, ranked second in the world market with a 13% share, behind Denmark's Vestas with 14%. Of the top 15 companies worldwide, 10 were Chinese, including fifth-place Envision with a 9% share and sixth-place Mingyang Smart Energy with 7%....

Among the media sources serving as propagandists and cheerleaders for the “green energy transition,” two of the most prominent are the New York Times and Bloomberg News. To get an idea how the “transition” is going, let’s take a look at the latest from those two. From the Times, in this morning’s print edition, we have a feature article that apparently first appeared online a couple of days ago, August 17. The headline is: “The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think.” The sub-head continues the excitement: “The United States is pivoting away from fossil fuels and toward...

MADRID (AP) – Spain´s newly elected Parliament voted Thursday by a majority to elect a Socialist candidate as chamber speaker, breathing some life into acting Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez´s aspirations of forming another leftist government. The crucial vote was won by Francina Armengol with 178 votes in the 350-lower house of parliament, against 139 for the main conservative Popular Party´s candidate. It was the first parliamentary vote since inconclusive national elections on July 23 left no group with an easy path to form government. Parties on the left and right have almost an equal number of seats.

A “battery fire” at a rural New York solar farm has triggered warnings from authorities for local residents to avoid the toxic smoke plumes billowing from the site. Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a warning Thursday night for locals to stay away from the site near Lake Ontario. The blaze began around 1 pm at a solar farm in Jefferson County, outside the village of Chaumont, according to WWNY-TV. The village is about 78 miles north of Syracuse and near the Canadian border. Photos and videos aired by the local news station show smoke shooting from a solar panel array...

Regional electricity providers tasked with keeping America’s lights on warned Tuesday that the Biden administration must delay the retirement of fossil fuel power plants to give renewables time to catch up — or else risk major energy shortfalls. They said grid reliability would be jeopardized by quickly transitioning electricity use from coal and natural gas to green alternatives such as wind and solar. The transmission groups, which collectively deliver power from energy sources to tens of millions of homes in dozens of states, told reporters that extreme heat conditions this summer underscore the need to slow the closures of power...

*Proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for power plant emissions could spur blackouts in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) power grid region and cost stakeholders nearly $250 billion in the coming decades, according to comments filed in response to the rule by the Center of the American Experiment (CAE).*The average annual cost to stakeholders of building enough capacity to stave off the blackouts CAE projects in the MISO region is greater than the average annual benefit the EPA estimates its proposals will bring for the entire country by 2055, according to CAE’s analysis.*“This is the regulatory equivalent of studying...

A recurring question at this blog has been, how do the world’s politicians plan to provide reliable electricity without fossil fuels? Country after country, and state after state, have announced grand plans for what they call “Net Zero” electricity generation, universally accompanied by schemes for massive build-outs of wind and solar generation facilities. But what is the strategy for the calm nights, or for the sometimes long periods at the coldest times of the winter when both wind and sun produce near zero electricity for days or even weeks on end? When pressed, the answer given is generally “batteries” or...

U.S. power plant owners warned the Biden administration on Tuesday that its sweeping plan to slash carbon emissions from the electricity sector is unworkable, relying too heavily on costly technologies that are not yet proven at scale. Top utility trade group the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for revisions of the proposed power plant standards, which hinge on the widespread commercial availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low-emissions green hydrogen, adding the agency's vision was "not legally or technically sound." "Electric companies are not confident that the new technologies EPA has designated...

Canada’s plans to make nuclear power a central part of its decarbonization strategy are taking shape with major announcements around large nuclear builds, small modular reactors and medical isotopes.. Nuclear power accounts for around 15% of Canada’s electricity generation with most capacity in Ontario where some 40% of the population resides. A total of 19 reactors provide around 13.6 gigawatts (GW) across the country, though most are in the provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick, which are 60% and 36% powered by nuclear respectively. ... increasingly vocal support for urgent greenhouse-gas-emission reduction have helped bring the government back to nuclear...