Free Republic

A week ago the Biden administration announced that it had approved an expansion of the license to Chevron so they could resume oil production in Venezuela. This was a surprise given the administration’s hostility to fossil fuels in general and oil from Venezuela in particular. ... That Biden would allow oil to flow from a socialist dictator like Nicolás Maduro isn’t shocking. The administration has made a nasty habit of dealing with dictators while leaving our friends high and dry. Such is the case with tiny Guyana, which was recently discovered to be sitting on an ocean of crude oil....

22,000 people lost control of temperatures in their homes for hours Tuesday.. DENVER — During the dog days of summer, it's important to keep your home cool. But when thousands of Xcel customers in Colorado tried adjusting their thermostats Tuesday, they learned they had no control over the temperatures in their own homes. ... Xcel confirmed to Contact Denver7 that 22,000 customers who had signed up for the Colorado AC Rewards program were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday. "It's a voluntary program. Let's remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part...

As many as half of British households may be facing fuel poverty because of the inexorable rise in energy prices, EDF, the French utility that also has business in the UK, has warned. .... The UK's energy market regulator Ofgem is set to announce the latest energy price cap this week, which will see electricity bills for millions of Britons rise considerably. The price cap, aimed to protect households from excessively high bills by capping the price increases that providers can pass on to them, normally gets adjusted twice a year. In April this year, the cap was raised by...

A question must seriously be asked whether Jared Polis is interested in governing all of Colorado, or just the narrow strip that contains the vast majority of the state’s population. Polis has repeatedly angered the small band of hardy farmers and ranchers that make up Colorado’s second-largest industry by his insensitive slights and tone-deaf insults. It’s as if the governor pays lip service to agriculture one day and then slaps it in the face the next. Case in point: In February Polis ignored the recommendations of his own Department of Agriculture and appointed yet another animal welfare extremist to a...

The coal plant is closing, along with the mine that feeds it and has nearly 115 more employees, and all the workers will lose their jobs over the next decade ... The same scenario is playing out in other small towns across the U.S. After decades of relying on coal for their workforce, tax base and way of life, the towns face uncertain futures as new state and national legislation forces the retirement of fossil fuels ... The impact spreads beyond the plants workers and is felt by the rest of the community, too. In Craig, much of the infrastructure...

Europe’s largest economy, Germany, is expected to become a net importer of electricity in 2023 for the first time since 2002 due to retiring coal plants and the nuclear phase-out, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday. Germany plans to switch off all its remaining nuclear power generators by the end of 2022, while it will also retire a large portion of its coal-fired capacity fleet between 2022 and 2024. Recently, the country has said it would aim to phase out coal by 2030 – eight years ahead of earlier plans. The coal exit for Germany could be more...

Customers across Colorado could see higher electric and natural gas bills if regulators approve proposals by utilities to recover costs from a winter storm that had them scrambling along with many other companies to buy enough fuel to make it through the freezing weather. During its meeting Wednesday, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission will consider the next steps after receiving applications from Xcel Energy-Colorado and Black Hills Energy, which have proposed spreading out the expense for customers over at least a year. The PUC is reviewing how utilities prepared for the weather in February. The frigid weather that gripped the...

DENVER — Xcel Energy customers could see higher bills in 2022. The company submitted a proposal to raise rates to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. They say the increase will help fund “next-generation technology investments that expand and strengthen the reliability of the electric grid for customers, advance Colorado’s clean energy policies, and increase capacity to meet growing customer needs and expectations.” Xcel said that since 2019 and through 2022, it will spend for $4 billion on the investments. How much will my bill increase? Residential customers would see their bills increase by an average of $9.46 a month, or...

Angry utility customers in places like Grand Valley and Grand Mesa pen poison letters: “It’s a monopoly! Reduce obscene CEO pay!”. When Grand Valley Power CEO Tom Walch gets worked up explaining what he sees as the avarice and ignorance of Xcel Energy and worries he is not conveying his rage, he pulls out a letter from an angry co-op customer and starts reading. “They shouldn’t unload this blunder on customers who happen to be on their electrical grid,” Walch recites. “This is going to hurt a lot of businesses here and elsewhere that are already hurting due to the...

he White House said on Thursday a severe winter storm engulfing Texas and nearby states was the type of extreme weather event that climate change is triggering, rejecting assertions by Texas officials that “green energy” caused widespread power outages. The crisis in the largest U.S. oil- and gas-producing state has put Democratic President Joe Biden’s White House squarely at odds with Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who initially did not acknowledge Biden’s 2020 election win. Abbott had ordered state officials in January to fight Biden’s push here to combat climate change by pausing new oil and gas leases, and cutting...

Most people seem to believe that wind and solar panels produce no waste and have no negative environmental impacts. Unfortunately, these people are wrong. In reality, everything that humans do has an environmental impact, whether it be mining, using a coal-fired power plant, or even tourism. When it comes to energy and environmental policy, the real question to ask is not “will there be an impact?” but rather, “can the impacts be minimized?” ... Because everything has an effect on the environment, it is important that everyone understands the impacts of all energy sources so we can make the best...

Funny how the environmental objectives of the "Save the Planet from the Flying Global Warming Monster" squad and that of Marxism line up so neatly. Of course you shouldn't have personal autonomy or private property. It's bad for the 'planet'. And by the planet, we mean the red planet. So it's no surprise that The Nation, where the synergy of the red and the green meet, should roll out a story like this, "If we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership." ... And give up...

America’s energy sources, like booming oil and crumbling coal, have defied projections and historical precedents over the last decade. ... unexpectedly, ... In 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that in 2019, the U.S. would be producing about six million barrels of oil a day. The reality? We're now producing 12 million barrels of oil a day. Meanwhile, EIA projected oil prices would be more than $100 a barrel. They're currently hovering around $60 a barrel. What’s happening: A pair of extraction methods — horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — have unlocked far more oil and gas than experts...

Greta Thunberg apologized Saturday after saying that politicians should be put "against the wall” after some critics alleged that the teen climate activist was advocating for violence against officials. “Yesterday I said we must hold our leaders accountable and unfortunately said “put them against the wall”. That’s Swenglish: “att ställa någon mot väggen” (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable,” Thunberg tweeted. “That’s what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language. But of course I apologise if anyone misunderstood this. I can not enough express the fact that I - as well as the...

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and his merry band of Green Little Dealers offer a national alarm bell for the national Green New Deal proposal. ... Advocates for free markets, affordable energy for everyday people, and expanding our miraculous energy independence must closely watch what’s happening among the states. Case in point: Colorado’s Green Little Deal ... directly attack key industries such as coal, oil and gas, and automobiles while giving considerable power to government to regulate and transition workers, all disregarding economic realities. ... Polis has established Offices of “Just Transition” and “Future at Work.” ... The big difference between...

a group of Democratic senators took cash from a Ukraine lobbyist to push Ukrainian gas interests at the same time the Democrats are pushing the Trump-Ukraine yarn. ... Remember Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner? .. previously been a top fundraiser for John Kerry, who was Secretary of State at the time. And soon after Devon and Hunter joined the Burisma Board, the company channeled $90,000 to a lobbying firm called ML Strategies, which was headed by none other than David Leiter, John Kerry's former chief of staff. That's handy because then-Secretary of State John Kerry himself has visited Ukraine...

Michigan’s electric utilities gamble that the reliability of service won’t collapse. Consumers Energy would have to double the number of wind turbines currently operating in this state to replace the electricity produced by just one of the coal- and gas-fired power plants it intends to close as part of its plans to rely more on renewable sources. The problem, however, is that those additional turbines only spin about one-third of the time, leaving a big energy gap for the households and businesses that rely on the company for their electricity. .. regulated utilities and their vendors operate 1,107 industrial wind...

Centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Monday blasted former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to shut down all coal plants in the U.S. in 11 years -- saying it would “devastate” communities in his state.

Representative K.C. Becker and Senator Faith Winter have introduced legislation that would give Xcel Energy a green light and blank check to prematurely close existing power plants, replace them with expensive, intermittent resources, and then force captive electric ratepayers to pick up the tab with interest for the massive fuel switching scheme and workforce transition plans. ... Colorado Energy Plan (CEP) .. The monopoly utility is more than willing to build and build and build so it can fuel switch to utility-scale wind, solar, and batteries (which don’t really exist yet) at the expense of Colorado ratepayers. Instead of saving...

The Environmental Protection Agency acted again Thursday to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry, this time scaling back what would have been a tough control on climate-changing emissions from any new coal plants. The latest Trump administration targeting of legacy Obama administration efforts to slow climate change comes in the wake of multiplying warnings from the agency’s scientists and others about the accelerating pace of global warming. In a ceremony Thursday at the agency, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposal to dismantle a 2015 rule that any new coal power plants include cutting-edge techniques to capture...