Joe and Kamala, the Demagogic Duo. According to media accounts, a "power outage" delayed the debut of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Wednesday [8/12/2020] — a foreshadowing of what we can expect from an anti-energy Biden-Harris administration. Both are committed to an extreme environmentalism that will cripple America's oil and gas industry. Harris is opposed to all fracking.

Will the Left Kill America's Energy Dominance? If the "liberal" green movement had the political power during earlier periods of our nation's history that it has now, we would not have built the railroads. Also, there would be no interstate highway system, and the electric grid system that powers our country would be disconnected and shattered. What else can one conclude when a significant and vital energy pipeline, the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline from West Virginia into the southern states, has been canceled because of environmental activist opposition? Another pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, has been suspended by a federal judge's order in recent days. Even the urgently needed Keystone XL Pipeline, which will transport natural gas and oil from energy-rich areas in Canada and the Dakotas down to Houston for export and delivery across the country, faces a court-ordered injunction. These actions are all said to be in the name of wetlands preservation, Endangered Species Act issues and other environmental protections.

Grim Day for Pipelines Shows They're Almost Impossible to Build. To be an energy superpower, U.S. oil and natural gas requires a suitably gargantuan pipeline network that stretches for millions of miles. The country's ability to expand that infrastructure is being tested like never before. In the span of less than 24 hours, a court ordered the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline to shut down and the developers of the Atlantic Coast gas conduit said they were canceling the project. It was a deluge of bad news for an industry that's increasingly finding that the mega-projects of the past are no longer feasible in the face of unprecedented opposition to fossil fuels and the infrastructure that supports them. Armed with experienced lawyers and record funding, environmental groups are finding enormous success blocking key pipeline permits in court.

Climate Alarmists Want 'Surgeon General' Warning on Gas Pumps. From the very onset of the global warming cultural movement, there was some fairly high-level pageantry at work. [...] And despite decades of exponentially escalating propaganda, the climate change crew is still finding new ways to scare the world into their pocket.

Biden Goes Extreme: Give Oil Industry 'No Ability' To 'Continue To Drill', Take 'Millions' Of Cars Off The Road. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden made extreme remarks during CNN's presidential debate on Sunday night [3/15/2020], suggesting that he would end the oil industry's ability to drill, would ban new fracking projects, and would take millions of cars off the road. "No more subsidies for fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill," Biden said. "Period. Ends."

Feds reject removal of 4 Lower Snake River dams in key report. Years and millions of dollars in the making, a draft federal report on hydroelectric dam operations in the Columbia Basin will not settle the decadeslong fight over saving imperiled salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers. Federal agencies found that taking out the dams would "provide a long-term benefit to species that spawn or rear in the mainstem Snake River habitats," but also would have adverse impacts, including increased power costs, a rise in greenhouse gases and reduced reliability of the electric grid.

Oregon governor calls for breaching 4 Snake River dams; Washington's GOP House members outraged. The governor of Oregon has come out in favor of removing four hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington state, saying that is the best way to increase endangered salmon runs. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, sent a letter to Washington's Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee this week, offering her support for removing the dams. Washington, under an initiative spearheaded by Inslee, has been gathering information on what Northwest residents think about breaching the four dams. That report is expected in early March.

The Editor says...

Hydroelectric power is a rare natural resource. Hydroelectric generators emit no carbon dioxide. When the left-wing, tree-hugging, earth-worshiping socialists do away with coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, hydroelectricity will be one of the few remaining options for those of us who enjoy reliable 24/7 electricity. There is no reason to live in a third-world blackout for the sake of a fish.

Renewable Energy Fairy Tales. Electricity in the U.S. is generated by using coal, natural gas, nuclear energy and hydroelectricity. About 7% comes from wind and solar. Coal is well suited for generating electricity. We have vast resources and modern plants are nearly pollution free. But coal is being driven out of business by the Sierra Club that has a long running hysterical campaign against coal. Although they blame coal for every medical malady imaginable, the real reason the Sierra Club hates coal is that it emits carbon dioxide when burned and they believe that a great global warming disaster from CO2 is looming. Natural gas is gradually displacing coal because fracking has made it cheap and the plants are cheap to build. Natural gas can be burned very efficiently and cleanly in combined cycle plants based on gas turbines. But the Sierra Club does not like natural gas either, even though the natural gas industry gave them millions in the hope of hurting its competitor, coal. Nuclear electricity does not emit CO2 or noxious substances. The fuel is extremely cheap, costing much less than already cheap natural gas. But, in the U.S. the nuclear industry has been driven to the wall by attacks from the environmental movement. Essentially, they have destroyed the industry with legal and political attacks, making it impossible to build new plants.

Climate Serfdom Is No Future, It's the Road to Destruction. The political world is saying "no" to policies that make energy less available, more expensive, less reliable, and more intrusive. Hyperbole of peak demand is going the way of Peak Oil as the hydrocarbon production boom creates its own demand. Little wonder that compared to 1988 when global warming became a political issue, U.S. fossil-fuel consumption has grown 13 percent despite generous government subsidies to ethanol, wind power, and solar power. In fact, growth in carbon-based energies in the last 30 years almost matches the total production of these three subsidized renewables, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Florida to buy 20,000 acres in Everglades, largest purchase in 10 years. A swath of land in the Everglades at the center of a fight between a family determined to drill for oil and a constellation of parties urging them not to might finally have a new future. The state intends to buy the 20,000 acre tract outright and halt the threat of oil drilling on the protected lands near Broward County's western suburbs, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday.

Energy Paradoxes Put Europe in a Precarious Position. Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world's largest importer of oil and natural gas. Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it. Europe itself is naturally rich in fossil fuels. It likely has more reserves of shale gas than the United States, currently the world's largest producer of both oil and natural gas. Yet in most European countries, horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas and oil are either illegal or face so many court challenges and popular protests that they are neither culturally nor economically feasible. The result is that Europe is almost entirely dependent on Russian, Middle Eastern and African sources of energy.

Triggering A Recession Tops The Dems' Presidential Agendas. The 2020 Democratic presidential field is in near unanimous agreement that fracking has to be banned or at least regulated to death over time. It plays well to the party's base, especially its green fringe. It's also an endorsement of recession. Joe Biden, currently atop the Democratic primary polls, recently said he would "love to" ban fracking "right now," and would also "love to make sure we can't use any oil or gas, period," reports Common Dreams, a website that caters to leftist and socialist devotees. But the decelerated Delawarean's plan is to "transition away from" fracking rather than killing it all at once. So put him in the "slow death" category among Democrat candidates. Meanwhile, in the summary execution category we find Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and former Indianapolis Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Warren even said that on the day she is inaugurated, "I will ban fracking — everywhere."

Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming. A surge of oil production is coming, whether the world needs it or not. The flood of crude will arrive even as concerns about climate change are growing and worldwide oil demand is slowing. And it is not coming from the usual producers, but from Brazil, Canada, Norway and Guyana — countries that are either not known for oil or whose production has been lackluster in recent years.

The Editor says...

The article above, apparently from the New York Times and quoted by MSN, reeks with bias. Oil is not produced and has never been produced "whether the world needs it or not." Oil production is always a response to steady demand. The combustion of hydrocarbons (resulting in carbon dioxide as a byproduct) does not cause climate change. The climate is not changing. Most of the global warming in the 20th century occurred before 1940, when internal combustion engines were still relatively rare. An abundant supply of cheap oil is a good thing. The writers at the New York Times apparently hate America, and can't stand to see capitalism succeed.

Long Island liberals wake up to how green extremism hurts constituents. "A gas shortage threatens the Long Island region," bleat six Long Island state senators, all Democrats, in a letter pleading for approval of a pipeline proposed to fix the problem — belatedly admitting that the policies they've long favored don't work for their own constituents. This year, Sens. Todd Kaminsky, John Brooks, James Gaughran, Anna Kaplan, Monica Martinez and Kevin Thomas all voted for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Green New Deal law, whose very purpose is to further crimp energy supplies, and for a $100 million hike in taxes on energy. And, as Senate GOP leader John Flanagan (their fellow Long Islander) notes, all were AWOL when the Williams pipeline was up for consideration by the state Department of Environmental Conservation — which recently issued a pseudo-scientific veto of the project. Or maybe anti-scientific is the right word: The DEC pretends the Williams pipeline is a threat to water quality. But it would run under New York Harbor roughly parallel to an existing pipeline (now at capacity).

Green Dream to End Fossil Fuels Also Means Going without Plastics. The current crop of Democratic Party presidential wannabees have drunk the Green New Deal (GND) Kool-Aid. Stop fracking! Stop oil and gas production on federal lands! Ban offshore oil and gas production! Most of these "rocket scientists" come from states that import their refined products for transportation fuels and heating oil. They do not want any of those stinking oil refineries in their backyards but please continue to import the gasoline and diesel from refineries in the Virgin Islands or from Venezuelan-owned refineries. So where do we get plastics if oil and gas production ceases?

Democrats' Campaign Promise: We'll Destroy America's Energy Sector, And Economy. Eight of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates say they want to ban fracking. Eleven others would limit the process or "regulate it better," says the Washington Post. Could these politicians possibly be that ignorant of how ruinous their prohibition lust would be in the real world? First, let's get it straight why the political left hates hydraulic fracturing. It's not because it's an environmental threat. They know it's clean process and has been both an ecological and economic boom, in no small part due to the increased production of natural gas, a cleaner alternative to coal for producing electricity. No, the left loathes fracking because it is so efficient in taking fossil fuel out of the ground.

67 protesters arrested for demonstration at coal power plant. Scores of climate change protesters were arrested outside a coal power plant in New Hampshire on Saturday [9/28/2019] as they staged a demonstration calling for the facility to be shut down. About 120 people gathered outside Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire, on Saturday afternoon, with 67 people being arrested, according to the Bow Police Department.



One thing to change: Anecdotes aren't data. People are terrified of nuclear power (the most scalable form of carbon-free energy) because of images of Three Mile Island (which killed no one), Fukushima (which killed no one; the deaths were caused by the tsunami and a panicked, unnecessary evacuation), and Chernobyl (which killed fewer people than are killed by coal every day). They imagine that fossil fuels can be replaced by solar energy, without doing the math on how many square miles would have to be tiled with solar panels to satisfy the world's vastly growing thirst for electricity. And they think that voluntary sacrifices, like unplugging laptop chargers, are a sensible way to deal with climate change. How do we change this destructive statistical illiteracy and disdain for data?

Kimberley Strassel: 2020 Dems [are] vowing to 'kill every coal job, every oil and gas job' with climate goals. Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel warned on Saturday that 2020 Democratic candidates' climate proposals could cause the loss of millions of jobs. "When you talk about banning fracking. When you talk about a carbon-free economy by 2030 or 2050, you are saying 'we are going to kill every coal job in the country, every oil and gas job, all of the shipping jobs that they do — we're talking about millions of positions," Strassel said during the "The Journal Editorial Report."

Seattle Might Ban New Homes and Buildings From Using Natural Gas. The Seattle Times reports that Seattle's city council is considering legislation which would ban all new homes and buildings within city limits from using natural gas, and mandating that these edifices must use electric heating and cooking. Councilmember Mike O'Brien will likely introduce the legislation next week. If passed, it is expected that the regulations will go in effect next summer. "We know that some people rely on natural gas at home and on the natural-gas industry for jobs, so we want to be thoughtful about how we transition," O'Brien said. "But in the meantime, let's not continue to make the problem worse."

The Editor says...

This politician says he doesn't want to "make the problem worse." What problem? He didn't say, because there is no problem to solve. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, if that's what he means. Mandating electric power instead of natural gas simply means that the gas will be burned at a central power plant instead of individual residences. Left-wing politicians are really good at offering solutions for which there is no problem.

Joe Biden in New Hampshire: "I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuel"; Idiot Leftists Clap Like Monkeys. It's a cult. Democrat Joe Biden stumped in New Hampshire: "I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuel." The liberal audience clapped like monkeys. As Zach Parkinson reported 80 percent of the households in the Granite State are heated by oil, gas, and propane. The others are burning something else.

Sierra Clubbed. Why do donors give money to the Sierra Club? Are they trying to strangle the American economy? The liberal green group is celebrating its "victory" of putting America's major coal producers out of business — to say nothing of the tens of thousands of miners placed in unemployment lines. Several thousand more mining jobs were lost last month. Now the Sierra Club wants to similarly bury the oil and gas industry. Here is how the Sierra Club spokeswoman, Lena Moffit, explains the strategy: "We have moved to a very clear and firm and vehement position of opposing gas. We oppose any new gas-fired power plants. We also have a policy opposing fracking."

Elizabeth Warren's Energy Plan Is Unplugged From Reality. Not only does she want to eliminate oil, natural gas, and coal as energy sources, she also wants to get rid of nuclear energy — which, in case you're wondering, emits no CO2. Warren says, "In my administration, we're not going to build any new nuclear power plants, and we are going to start weaning ourselves off nuclear energy and replacing it with renewable fuels. We're going to get it all done by 2035, but I hope we're getting it done faster than that. That's the plan." To understand how completely detached this idea is from reality, let's look at the data on energy production today, which are helpfully compiled by the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Democrats [are] struggling to face fact that their plans would all but end fossil fuels. Most Democratic presidential candidates running for president have rallied around a shared goal: Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. However, few candidates appear to appreciate the ambition of that target, or explicitly say that it would necessitate almost entirely ending the use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas. Fossil fuels — petroleum, natural gas, and coal — accounted for 80% of U.S. total energy consumption in 2018, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Without Mining There Is No 'Green Revolution'. The recent threats by Beijing to cut off American access to critical mineral imports have many Americans wondering why our politicians have allowed the United States to become so overly dependent on China for these valued resources in the first place. [...] The U.S. Geological Survey reports that we still have about 86% of key mineral resources such as copper and zinc remaining in the ground, waiting to be mined. These resources aren't on environmentally sensitive lands, such as national parks, but on the millions of acres of federal, state and private lands. The mining isn't happening because of extremely prohibitive environmental rules and a permitting process that can take five to 10 years to open a new mine. Green groups simply resist almost all new drilling.

The Solar Energy Racket. [Scroll down] It is useful to remember that 86% of CO2 emissions come from outside the United States, where they are increasing. But U.S. emissions have been decreasing due to substitution of natural gas for coal and due to energy conservation. The other justification for solar is that we will run out of fossil fuels. The sun won't run out of sunshine for around 10 billion years. There is no prospect for running out of fossil fuels anytime soon. Fracking has just unleashed a 100-year supply of natural gas and oil. The U.S. has coal for 500 years. The supply of nuclear fuel is, for practical purposes, unlimited. What we have is an alliance among hysterical environmental groups, profit-making solar developers, and politicians eager to make important friends. The environmental groups need a stream of impending catastrophes for which they propose impracticable or crackpot solutions. That's how they excite interest and stay in business.

The trillions of dollars wasted on global warming hysteria, properly deployed, could have improved and saved many lives. Energy costs are much higher in Britain, due to radical green opposition to the fracking of gassy shales. The anti-oil-pipeline campaign has cost ~$120 billion dollars in lost oil revenues and destroyed ~200,000 jobs in Alberta and across Canada. This is an enormous financial and job loss for Canada. The funds wasted on baseless global warming hysteria, anti-fossil-fuel fanaticism and destructive green energy schemes, properly deployed, could have saved or improved the lives of many millions of people.

"Green" Energy Policies Hurt the Environment, Another Case Study. Britain has a fracking industry — or could have one, anyway, if it weren't for the Greens' political clout. It finally became too much for Natascha Engel, Britain's "fracking czar," who quit with a blistering letter of resignation: [...] The United States is the only country to reduce significantly its CO2 emissions; we did it by substituting natural gas for coal in power generation. But Britain's Greens won't let that country develop its considerable natural gas reserves.

Beto O'Rourke Might Halt New Oil and Gas Drilling on Federal Land. Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke said Thursday [4/25/2019] he's willing to consider a moratorium on new leases to drill for oil and gas on federal lands as a way to help combat climate change.

The New Nihilism. Vastly expanded natural gas and oil production has ended the Persian Gulf stranglehold on US foreign policy. Cheap fuel has empowered the middle classes and helped to expand the economy as well as created trillions of dollars in national treasure. Yet "The New Green Deal", within a decade after its passing, would call for the end of the internal combustion engine, without ensuring that Americans have reasonable ground, air or sea transportation, affordable methods to heat and cool their homes, or the means to replace the sources of 83 percent of our generated electricity. Is the point to make power and fuel so expensive that few can use it — on the theory that the planet in 1840 was preferably cooler than it is now?

A nuisance lawsuit turns into a serious problem:

Colorado Supreme Court rules in favor of oil and gas regulators in Martinez environmental case. The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday [1/14/2019] overturned a lower court's decision that said the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was required to weigh the impact of oil and gas development on public health and the environment in deciding whether to approve new drilling permits and rules pertaining to the oil and gas industry in Colorado. Colorado Supreme Court Justice Richard Gabriel wrote the unanimous 7-0 decision that was released Monday [1/14/2019], which found that the COGCC "properly declined to engage in rulemaking to consider a rule" proposed in 2013 by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and a group of Boulder teenagers.

Ocasio-Cortez: 'There's no debate' that fossil fuel production should stop. Democratic House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied an audience of supporters in Washington Thursday evening [10/11/2018] with calls to implement single-payer health care and tuition-free college — along with an appeal to stop fossil fuel production entirely. Ocasio-Cortez, who is running to represent New York's 14th Congressional District, has made no secret of her opposition to fossil fuels. She's called for politicians to forsake donations from the industry and is pushing a "Green New Deal" plan which entails a shift to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.

Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy Possible? One definition of renewable energy is that it is naturally replenished on a human timescale. Solar energy and wind energy fit in nicely with that definition. Most fans of renewable energy explicitly reject renewable hydroelectricity if it involves damming a river. Most renewable energy-lovers are also dam-haters. They literally feel that fish are more important than people. [...] Even if hydro were allowed, there are not enough good sites to provide enough energy for the needs of the U.S.

Judge dismisses Chaco-area drilling lawsuit. Environmental activists are regrouping after a federal judge Monday tossed a lawsuit against the federal government regarding drilling permits in the San Juan Basin, including sites near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Despite an earlier ruling that signaled the claims had merit, United States District Court Judge James Browning issued an opinion and an amended order late Monday [4/23/2018] determining federal land managers did not violate historic preservation laws since they considered the effects of the wells on historical sites.

The Editor says...

In a way, the whole country is a historical site. I'm not opposed to drilling in "historical sites" that nobody has ever heard of. Moreover, a private land owner should be able to drill for oil anywhere on his property. In this case the issue appears to be energy production on federal land, which is so often controversial because the government controls too much land.

Vox's New "Genius" Idea: Cut Off Fossil Fuel Supplies. The Vox #fancystats eggheads are at it again with a proposal they're sure will save the environment: cut off the supplies of fossil fuels. David Roberts writes the Restricted Supply Side idea is a really good one and believes it could actually help (!?!?!?!?!) the economy. His particular notation is a study done by London School of Economics and Political Science professor Fergus Green (rather aptly named) and Richard Denniss at Australia Institute. What's interesting is the fact Green and Denniss don't 100% believe it's feasible, at the moment, and also admit to putting oil, coal, and gas in the same bucket when it comes to "the relative strengths of supply-side policies vary among fossil fuel-types." It doesn't mean the two aren't planning to try to convince environmentalists to add supply restrictionist policies to their framework. The key idea on making restricted supplies economically viable has to do with purposefully harming the consumer who uses the item.

Love those 30 year old coal and nuclear plants — nothing gives cheaper electricity. A US report shows how fantastically cheap and bountiful old coal and nuclear plants are. The LCOE or the Levelized Cost of Electricity includes the costs of the concrete, turbines, car parks and coal, plus the maintenance and salaries. It reveals that thirty year old, and even fifty year old coal plants, are the gift from past generations — enormous infrastructure, built and paid for, and ready to churn out bargain electrons. Or in crazy-land, ready to be blown up.

Subverting US Energy Policies: A Summary. Although there has been a lot of press coverage about Russian interference in our political process, they are actually attacking us in a much more effective way, with very little attention being paid to it. [...] There is significant evidence that our country's enemies (esp. Russia and China) are purposefully subverting our energy sector in a variety of ways. Of course they are being clandestine about this, in hopes that few citizens will notice. One of their most effective tactics is for them to support US organizations whose energy agenda is synonymous with theirs. For example, carefully consider these key energy questions. Who is it that wants:

• US nuclear energy facilities to close down?

• US fossil fuel reserves to stay in the ground (onshore and offshore)?

• the costs of fossil fuels to go up (e.g. with a carbon tax)?

• a high percentage of the US electric grid to be based on unreliable sources?

• the US to waste trillions of dollars on unreliable electricity?

• our national security weakened by wind energy interference with our military?

If you answered: "the Sierra Club and their allies," you'd be right. However the correct answer is also our communist opponents: Russia and China.

The Real Reason Barack Obama Was Touting The Saudi-Funded Global Warming/Climate Change Hysteria. The Saudis (as well as Russia and China) spent billions of dollars in media propaganda, university funding, political donations, United Nations funding etc. during Barack Obama's eight years in office to further push the global warming agenda. None of that effort had anything to do with global warming/climate change though. [...] It should also be noted that that same forces behind all the global warming/climate change propaganda are also the same ones funding the open borders and gun restrictions movement in America as well. There is no greater collusion of foreign influence upon this country's political process than that.

How Environmentalists Keep Heating Bills High. How can a nation with massive deposits of very cheap natural gas — such as the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia — be importing natural gas? One reason is that we don't have pipelines to inexpensively transport the natural gas to the Northeast. Environmentalists who hate oil and gas have spent years blocking this vital infrastructure — not just the Keystone Pipeline but also many other pipelines that should be transporting shale oil and gas efficiently across the country. It doesn't seem to bother the green groups that the biggest victims of anti-fossil fuel policies are low- and middle-income Americans.

Obama said we can't drill our way to energy independence. Actually, we did.. In 2012, no less an authority than Barack Obama told us that calling for increased production by increased drilling — "drill, baby, drill," he called it — was not a plan, but rather "a bumper sticker." Mr. Obama assured us, "You know, we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices," as if all the people who disagreed with him were simply refusing to admit that, deep down, they were wrong and he was right.

The Editor says...

"Drill, baby, drill" was a campaign slogan used by Sarah Palin, not Barack H. Obama.

California Will Block Oil And Coal Shipments, Risks Constitutional Battle. California officials plan on preventing the federal government from transporting oil and gas using existing pipelines in the state, according to a report Wednesday [2/7/2018] from The San Francisco Chronicle. Officials on the California Coastal Commission are urging the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to rescind plans allowing companies to drill for oil off the coast. They are still hoping for an exemption from the oil drilling plan, that Florida has received.

The Environmentalists' Human Shields. What was it that took humanity out of a life that was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short?" It was cheap power. It was the ability to heat your home AND cook your food, not having to choose between the two, on a modest income. Not filling your lungs with smoke from burning wood or animal waste. Not having to spend back-breaking hours chopping and carrying that wood. Not losing days from your work and years off your life through those poisonous inhalations and hard labor. Cheap power is what made modern life possible. It made everybody's life better, but especially the poor (which is the case for so many other life-changing achievements of capitalism). It is truly remarkable that "liberals" and "Progressives" champion the most regressive energy policies imaginable. Higher energy prices generally and electricity prices specifically mean deprivation, hunger, suffering and even death. And it means these things especially for the poor because the rich are, well, rich.

Green Power is Part Time Power. 24/7 electricity users such as hospitals, trains, factories, refineries, fuel and water pumps, cash registers, infrastructure and mines cannot operate on part-time electricity. Moreover, every part-time power producer (using sun, wind, batteries, hydro, gas or coal) consumes money full-time for operations, standby, maintenance and replacement. Each also has to fund its own specialised generators, transmission lines, access roads and workforce. Electricity becomes both unreliable and expensive, and consumers suffer. Using taxes, subsidies, dictates and mandates to replace a full-time power producer like coal with up to five part-time power producers only makes sense in the part-time minds that inhabit Greentopia.

8 Really Bad Laws That Went Into Effect Today. [#5] Fracking ban in Maryland: After a two year moratorium, Maryland this year passed a complete ban on fracking, which goes into effect today. The law is not based on sound science but on rank fearmongering. A 2015 study from Yale found that fracking does not contaminate drinking water, a popular bugaboo for fracking opponents. The Obama Environmental Protection Agency also found fracking had a negligible effect on drinking water. Other lies about fracking have also helped to motivate opposition to fracking — fracking does not make it possible to light your drinking water on fire. Fracking fluid can't seep into groundwater and poison your tap, Fracking doesn't increase air pollution. It doesn't cause cancer. And the natural gas freed by fracking is decidedly better than coal.

Now it's a War on Pipelines. For years, activists claimed the world was rapidly depleting its oil and natural gas supplies. The fracking revolution (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) obliterated that argument, by sending US oil and gas production to new heights. Indeed, record gas supplies and plummeting gas prices combined with the Obama EPA war on coal to shutter many coal-fired power plants. So the battle increasingly shifted to the far more emotional claim that continued reliance on fossil fuels (which provide over 80% of the US and global energy that powers modern civilization and living standards) will cause dangerous manmade global warming and climate change. This gave birth to the climate and renewable energy consortium and the "keep it in the ground" movement. No evidence to the contrary will budge them from their hysteria-laden talking points on looming climate cataclysms.

North Carolina Governor Opposes Offshore Drilling. Putting himself at odds with President Donald Trump, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced he does not want the federal government to allow oil and gas exploration or production off the state's coast. Cooper's position marks a reversal of policy from his predecessor, Gov. Pat McCrory, who favored oil and gas exploration off North Carolina's portion of the Outer Continental Shelf. "I can sum it up in four words: not off our coast," Cooper said at a July 20 Atlantic Beach, North Carolina press conference. "It is simply not worth the risk."

Dakota Access Pipeline Developer Sues Greenpeace Over 'Eco-Terrorist' Campaign. Energy Transfer Partners, the developer behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, has sued Greenpeace and several other groups for what it calls a 'campaigns of misinformation." ETP argues in the lawsuit filed Tuesday [8/22/2017] that environmental groups are running a racket designed to raise money by emotionalizing issues.

Lawmakers Cite Evidence Russia 'Colludes' With US Green Groups to Block Fracking. Forget about allegations of Russian interference in U.S. presidential elections for a moment, or even "collusion" between Russian officials and Trump campaign operatives. The real action is in the European and U.S. energy markets, according to a letter from two Texas congressmen to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that details what they call "a covert anti-fracking campaign" with "little or no paper trail." The Daily Signal obtained a copy of the June 29 letter to Mnuchin from Reps. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, both Republicans who chair energy-related House panels.

Why the Greens Hate Nuclear Power. Let's stretch our imaginations for a moment and assume that the left is right that global warming will bring apocalyptic warming by the end of the century and that the only way to save the planet from extinction is to stop using fossil fuels right now. That will be a spectacular disruption to world economic prosperity, because cheap fossil fuels account for about two-thirds of all electric power generation and at least 80 percent of transportation fuel. But if we did stop using fossil fuels, what would make the most sense as a mass-scale substitute to coal, natural gas and oil? What could reduce carbon emissions while also keeping energy affordable and reliable? If you answered "wind and solar power," you flunk.

Why I Spend So Much Time and Effort on Climate Skepticism. It is now clearer than ever that the alarmists have no intention of reaching a symbolic compromise that while unjustified might be livable by the rest of society. Rather, their apparent intention is to keep pushing the US and other developed countries into a fossil fuel-less society in which all energy used will come from wind and solar or a few other "renewables" but not including either hydro or nuclear. This is just what the Democratic Party included in its Party platform last year. And if their candidate had won, this is exactly what the US would now be trying to do. She even endorsed Al Gore's objectives just before the election, perhaps in hopes of added votes from "environmentalists." If this had happened, this is a recipe for a financial disaster and probably the end of the US as a global innovator and economic leader.

Apocalyptic Progressivism. During the 2008 campaign, gas prices at one point averaged over $4 a gallon. Then-candidate Obama reacted by pushing a green agenda — as if the cash-strapped but skeptical public could be pushed into alternative energy agendas. Obama mocked then-Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's prescient advice to "drill, baby, drill" — as if Palin's endorsement of new technologies such as fracking and horizontal drilling could never ensure consumers plentiful fuel. Instead, in September 2008, Steven Chu, who would go on to become Obama's secretary of energy, told the Wall Street Journal that, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

Australia's green delusions: A diesel in the shed. Today, after Aussies have enjoyed decades of abundant reliable cheap electricity from coal, green energy gambling has taken Australia back to the era that kept a diesel in the shed. Tasmania is the greenest state in Australia. It once had a vibrant economy that created mines, sawmills, farms, orchards, oil and metal refineries, dams, hydro-power, and railways. It is now a green no-go land. Greens have stopped new hydro developments, opposed mining, crippled the timber industry, prevented new wood chip developments, and will probably celebrate when the last refinery closes.

The Pigpen Left: Dead body found in DAPL protest debris. With the snows melting in icy North Dakota, the mounds of frozen garbage left by far-left Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters are finally being cleared. What should the police find in all those acres of debris? A dead body, not surprisingly, nestled among all the garbage-barge-like flotsam and jetsam such Occupy-inspired campout protests always leave in their wake. The body was of a California man who hung out at protests as an "activist" and who had been reported missing by his stepbrother last October. It was found in the Cannonball River, where it had been left among all the detritus of the protesters, apparently none of them particularly caring, yet all full of self-righteous virtuousness about saving the earth as their demonstration spun into chaos. That's right: they left a fellow protester's dead body behind in a river but piously lectured the people of the North Dakota about the horrors of the Dakota Access Pipeline polluting some lake.

Animal rescue finds dogs left behind amid tons of trash at Dakota Access protest camp. Along with tons of garbage left behind at the Dakota Access protest camp, at least eight dogs have been discovered since protesters departed last week under a federal evacuation order. The canines — two adults and six puppies — were picked up by volunteers with Furry Friends Rockin' Rescue after the last of the protesters exited the Oceti Sakowin camp, allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to join the massive cleanup effort.

Arson is certainly a way to go out with a bang, but aren't these the same people who said they were worried about pollution?

Dakota Access campsite goes up in flames: Protesters set fire to their tents as deadline to evacuate looms. Several protesters who camped out on federal land near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation were arrested Wednesday after the Army Corps of Engineers began to shut down the area. Those at the six-month-old camp had until 2pm local time (3pm EST) to get off the land before authorities went in to either give them a bus home or arrest them. About 100 protesters voluntarily left before the 2pm state deadline, but a total of 10 were taken into custody. [...] Demonstrators also torched their tents as the deadline to evacuate approached.

Sanitation Crews Search for Dead Bodies Amid Piles of Pipeline Protester Trash. Authorities in North Dakota are working to prevent an environmental catastrophe caused by the massive amounts of trash left behind by anti-oil pipeline protesters, local media report. State and tribal sanitation crews are rushing to remove piles of waste and debris left over from the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline before weather warms and the mountains of trash turn toxic. According to cleaning crews, they're worried they might even find dead bodies among the piles of refuse that now pollute areas where anti-pipeline protesters camped out for months.

The Environmental Left and Keystone XL. [Scroll down] With respect to climate change, Keystone XL would transport 830,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude oil, the total GHG emissions from which would be 147 [to] 159 million metric tons per year on a life-cycle basis. In the extreme case in which that oil does not displace any other crude oil production elsewhere in the world, the increase in GHG emissions would be about 0.4 percent of the world total. So: what would the resulting temperature effect be in the year 2100, using the National Center for Atmospheric Research climate model, under the highest IPCC assumption about the climate sensitivity of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations? Answer: about four ten-thousandths of a degree, a number rather inconsistent with apocalypse view of Keystone XL as a "carbon bomb that would cook the planet."

Dakota Access Pipeline protest leader charged with inciting a riot, 74 arrested. Dakota Access Pipeline protester Chase Iron Eyes was arrested this week and has been charged with inciting a riot, which is a felony. Iron Eyes allegedly led a group of several dozen protesters who set up a new camp on higher ground, out of the flood plain where the current camp sits. The only problem: The property the new camp was set up on is owned by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Dakota Access Pipeline protesters evicted over pollution concerns. A few days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed executive orders moving the approval process for the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines forward. A week later, the then acting secretary of the Army instructed federal officials to issue the easement necessary to build a controversial segment of the Dakota Access pipeline. Now, the Corps of Engineers has issued an eviction notice to the protesters who have plagued the construction of the pipeline ... because they are polluting the environment.

Dakota Access Pipeline: Easement Expected to Allow Project to Be Completed. The controversial Dakota Access pipeline will receive a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allow construction of the $3.7 billion project to be completed, according to North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp. The pipeline has been at the center of months of protests that has galvanized Native Americans and environmental activists. It would carry oil from North Dakota, through South Dakota and Iowa to be shipped out of Illinois. Members of Congress were notified of the decision earlier on Tuesday [1/31/2017], according to two sources with knowledge of the decision.

N.D. Sen.: Army Corps told to allow construction of pipeline. The Army Corps of Engineers was ordered to allow construction of the Dakota Access pipeline to proceed under a disputed Missouri River crossing, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said on Tuesday [1/31/2017], the latest twist in a months-long legal battle over the $3.8 billion project. The Standing Rock Sioux, whose opposition to the project attracted thousands of supporters from around the country to North Dakota, immediately vowed to again go to court to stop it.

North Dakota wants hired pipeline protesters to pay state income taxes. After spending more than $22 million on the Dakota Access pipeline protest, North Dakota wants to make sure any paid activists remember to submit their state income taxes. Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger said his office is keeping an eye out for tax forms from environmental groups that may have hired protesters to agitate against the 1,172-mile, four-state pipeline project. "It's something we're looking at. I can tell you I've had a number of conversations with legislators regarding this very issue," said Mr. Rauschenberger. "[We're] looking at the entities that have potential paid contractors here on their behalf doing work."

The Editor says...

What could be more heartwarming than to watch the tax-and-spend liberals go after the anti-capitalist liberals? The earth-worshiping hippies are about to learn that their liberal utopia comes at a higher price than they had anticipated.

Islamists Join Environmentalists At Standing Rock To Delegitimize America. In ironic ways, Standing Rock united America. Positioned as a moral issue that merged land rights with environmental activism, Standing Rock captured the collective imagination of America's varied activist groups. Since they are far better organized and more comfortable with "direct action" than conservatives are, Islamists seized the opportunity Standing Rock presented to elevate their platform. Once Standing Rock gained national attention, various chapters and supporters of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations joined the battle.

Green Weenie of the Week: Standing Rock Blockheads. This news story from Reuters requires no commentary to explain why the pretentious protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline near Standing Rock deserve a coveted Power Line Green Weenie Award.

Pipeline protests resume after Trump revives Keystone, Dakota projects. Holding hands, hundreds of protesters opposed to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines took to the streets of Washington Tuesday night [1/24/2017] for a fresh round of demonstrations after President Trump signed executive orders clearing the way for the controversial projects to move forward.

Malia Obama gets political at Sundance. Malia Obama got political at Sundance by attending an event in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Monday [1/23/2017]. "It was amazing to see Malia," activist and actress Shailene Woodley told Democracy Now. "To witness a human being and a woman coming into her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her ... because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she doesn't participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children."

The Editor says...

It is apparent that young Ms. Obama believes that the world will come to an end if the Dakota Access Pipeline is completed. This level of ignorance and superstition is almost unimaginable.

North Dakota tribe formally calls on pipeline protesters to disperse. A Sioux tribal council on Saturday [1/21/2017] formally asked hundreds of protesters to clear out of three camps near its North Dakota reservation used to stage months of sometimes violent protests against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Friday unanimously passed a resolution calling for the camps to be dismantled, it said on its Facebook page on Saturday. The tribe has been encouraging protesters to go home since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to an environmental review of the $3.8 billion project in December.

Dakota pipeline protester will defy grand jury to "keep his dignity". The Dakota Access Pipeline protests have largely faded into memory of late. This is largely because they're in North Dakota... and it's January. But that doesn't mean that all of the legal activity surrounding this mess is over by a long shot. One rather nasty incident which took place back when the weather was a bit more tolerable was the serious injury suffered by Sophia Wilansky, the 21 year old professional protester from New York.

Native Americans fight Texas pipeline using 'same model as Standing Rock'. Indigenous activists have set up camps in the Texas desert to fight a pipeline project there, the latest sign that the Standing Rock "water protector" movement is inspiring Native American-led environmental protests across the US. The Two Rivers camp, located south of Marfa near the border, has attracted dozens of demonstrators in its first week to protest the Trans-Pecos pipeline, a 148-mile project on track to transport fracked natural gas through the Big Bend region to Mexico.

Pipeline protesters arrested at Vikings stadium. Minneapolis police have arrested two Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters who unfurled a huge banner inside U.S. Bank Stadium during a Minnesota Vikings game. The man and woman were arrested Sunday afternoon after climbing into a catwalk just after the Vikings' season finale against the Chicago Bears ended around 3 p.m. [1/1/2017]

Report: Obama Will Permanently Block Arctic Drilling Before Trump Takes Office. The Obama administration will use a legal strategy crafted by environmental activists to remove sections of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans from future offshore drilling lease sales, according to two sources familiar with the plan told Bloomberg. For months, environmentalists have been urging President Barack Obama to use Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law governing offshore drilling, in a way it's never been used before — to block offshore drilling leases in the Atlantic Ocean and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.



Sometimes A Picture Speaks More Loudly Than Words. The Standing Rock Sioux, a tribe of about 10,000, are leading the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, which they claim could pollute the Missouri River, the tribe's main source of drinking water, and harm cultural lands and tribal burial grounds. The tribe is working with the environmental group Earthjustice and has filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers, claiming the government didn't properly consult them before approving the section of pipeline that runs near the reservation. Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, says it has followed state and federal rules, met with Native American tribes, and proposed different versions of the pipeline route. The pipeline is 92 percent complete, only the small portion near the reservation is being contested. The pipeline does not enter the Standing Rock reservation.

Trump's Energy Revolution Can't Come Soon Enough. In July, the Corps said it had approved 200 water crossings and easements for the 1,172-mile pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River. When it's finished, the $3.8 billion project will transport 450,000 barrels of oil a day from western North Dakota to Patoka, Ill. But then protests erupted, fueled by environmentalist and misguided Native Americans, who said the pipeline's crossing of Lake Oahe could pollute water of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. In September, President Obama egged the protestors on and said the Corps would look for alternative routes. On Sunday [12/4/2016], the Army Corps decided to overturn itself, and deny the Lake Oahe easement until it explores these alleged alternative routes.

Van Jones on Pipeline Protest: 'This Feels Like Selma! It Feels Like Montgomery!' Van Jones, a CNN commentator and former adviser to President Obama, on Monday compared the pipeline protest in Cannon Ball, North Dakota to the civil rights movement of the 1960s: "This feels like Selma! It feels like Montgomery! It feels like a time when a group that nobody paid attention to, black folks in the South, stood up and the world stood with them, so it's a very powerful, emotional moment, I think, for the tribal communities," Jones told CNN's "New Day."

Trump supports completion of Dakota Access Pipeline. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday [12/1/2016] said for the first time that he supports the completion of a pipeline project near a North Dakota Indian reservation, which has been the subject of months of protests by tribes and environmentalists. A communications briefing from Trump's transition team said despite media reports that Trump owns a stake in Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, Trump's support of the pipeline "has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americans."

Dakota Access pipeline protest erupts into 'ongoing riot'. Tension flared anew on the Dakota Access pipeline as protesters tried to push past a long-blocked bridge on a state highway, only to be turned back by a line of law enforcement using water cannon and what appeared to be tear gas.

Green Energy Companies Helped Bankroll Tribe Behind Dakota Protests. Two green energy companies contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the American Indian tribe spearheading a months-long demonstration against an oil pipeline in North Dakota. Standing Rock Sioux voted unanimously April 5 to accept two $150,000 donations from ConEdison Development and Fagen Inc., both of which have partnered up to build windmills in the North Dakota area, according to internal documents kept by the tribe. ConEdison Development acquired land near Standing Rock's reservation and began construction on a wind power facility last year. Fagen was a contractor on the project.

What a Trump Presidency Might Mean for Your Electric Bill. Solar and wind power, intermittent by nature, are nothing without the backup provided by natural gas — a fact lost on the Sierra Club, whose goal of moving "beyond natural gas" would move us beyond modernity and into a state of perpetual brownouts. Relatively cheap natural gas remains critical to the long-term success of renewable energy, and Trump has made clear his commitment to the infrastructure and political support necessary to ensure its procurement.

World War II memorial vandalized in apparent pipeline protest. Someone who was against the Dakota Access Pipeline apparently vandalized the World War II memorial in Washington, the National Park Service said Tuesday [11/8/2016]. Spokesman Mike Litterst said someone spray-painted the North Dakota section of the memorial. A photo provided by the park service showed the phrase "#NoDAPL" was written in paint. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has been fighting along with other tribes and environmental groups to stop the completion of the $3.8 billion pipeline, saying it would threaten the water supply for millions of people. Supporters say the pipeline is a safer way to move oil than trucks and trains.

Vote Republican to keep the lights on. The U.S. is now the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, despite President Obama's costly energy regulations. Hillary Clinton is campaigning for the presidency not by celebrating the shale extraction that has made us less dependent on energy from parts of the world hostile to America. Rather, she focuses on renewable energy, claiming that it can supply a third of electricity needs. Where Obama talked about an "all of the above" energy policy, Clinton focuses on "clean energy" with a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge aimed at expanding the role of renewables, such as wind and solar power. She has pledged to cut oil consumption by a third and generate enough from renewable sources to power every home in the country.



Some Standing Rock Sioux want pipeline activists to go home as violence escalates. The thousands of anti-pipeline protesters creating mayhem in rural North Dakota are wearing out their welcome with some members of the Standing Rock Sioux. Robert Fool Bear Sr., a tribal district chairman, said the outside activists camping out near Cannon Ball are creating headaches for the locals as the Dakota Access pipeline protest approaches three months. As far as Mr. Fool Bear is concerned, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II should tell them to pack their bags.

The Editor says...

I presume that the pipeline protesters set fire to this pile of trash and old tires as part of their tantrum. This is remarkable, because their alleged concern about the pipeline is that it might potentially someday leak and pollute the water table. In reality, these people are probably the worst polluters in the state this week. Hypocrites!

Company asks pipeline protesters to leave North Dakota land. The developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Tuesday [10/25/2016] that the dozens of protesters who have camped on company-owned land since the weekend are trespassing and that "lawless behavior will not be tolerated."

Sheriff warns of North Dakota pipeline protesters' criminal pasts as more arrests made. More demonstrators were arrested Saturday for infiltrating the Dakota Access pipeline construction site as law enforcement warned about a coterie of activists with lengthy criminal records inside the protest camps. The Morton County [N.D.] Sheriff's Department reported closing down Highway 1806 and arresting 83 people on rioting charges after about 300 protesters marched three miles into private property at a construction site for the pipeline project. Officers used pepper spray against some activists after they tried to break the police line, during which one protester grabbed a canister and sprayed an officer in the face.

Industry [says] Obama [is] unraveling [the] rule of law with Dakota Access stoppage. The Obama administration may be unraveling the very fabric of U.S. democracy by holding up the approval of the Dakota Access oil pipeline after a federal court said it could move ahead, a coalition of diverse industry groups said in a letter sent Thursday night [10/20/2016] to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other federal agency officials. [...] The Dakota Access pipeline has become a symbol for the environmentalist movement in recent weeks, where activists and some Democrats have galvanized opposition against the pipeline as an affront to tribal rights and as a way to combat climate change. But with the pipeline going through two federal courts for review, and both saying it can go forward, it would appear that politics is taking over where the law has left off, say observers.

Report: 'Keep It In The Ground' Policy Would Cost Billions, 380,000 Jobs. A recent report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, estimates if the United States adopts a "Keep It in the Ground" (KG) policy — advocated by major environmental groups wishing to end the development of fossil fuels on federal holdings — the U.S. economy and government revenues would suffer greatly. The report, titled What If ... Energy Production Was Banned on Federal Lands and Waters?, projects up to 25 percent of U.S. oil, gas, and coal production would be abruptly stopped if KG is implemented. Among the potential consequences of such a policy are federal and state governments would lose an estimated $11.3 billion per year in royalties and rental fees. The report also estimates the economy would lose 380,000 jobs, and the authors say as much as $70 billion per year of gross domestic product could be threatened.

Hillary's In League With Groups To Destroy Energy Independence. This week, Politico reported that Hillary Clinton is aligned with the same groups who are pushing to end the use of coal and shale energy in the United States. These policies will be destructive to states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado and severely impact energy rates and jobs across the country.

Green Pixie Dust Energy Policies. [The Democratic Party Platform] supports impeding or rejecting oil and gas leasing, drilling, fracking and pipelines, as well as gas-fired power plants — while accelerating and incentivizing wind and solar installations and transmission lines. It says America should "lead the fight against climate change," locally and globally. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton has said she would stringently regulate hydraulic fracturing, banning oil and gas extraction from public lands is a "done deal," and her party is "going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." (But it will re-train miners and fund their pensions with taxes and red ink.) In short, Democrats support a government mandated and regulated energy system that would require constant infusions of taxpayer and consumer subsidies via grants, loans, feed-in tariffs and crony-corporatist arrangements. It will oppose fossil fuels that provide reliable, affordable energy [...]

Only Canada lets 8377 "losers" and "paid harassers" delay a $36B energy project. After a three-year delay, Ottawa approves a $36 billion energy project in British Columbia. Natural gas will be produced through fracking, piped to the coast, liquefied — that's what LNG means, liquefied natural gas — then shipped to Asia.

The Obama Administration Temporarily Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the hundreds of Native protestors who have joined them in rural North Dakota won a huge but provisional victory in their quest to stop the Dakota Access pipeline, as the U.S. government announced late on Friday afternoon [9/9/2016] that it was voluntarily halting work on the project.

Activists, Feds Block Two Proposed LNG Export Terminals in Oregon. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied on March 11 an application for the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal proposed for Oregon's Jordan Cove. FERC's decision surprised many. The agency had approved the LNG terminal's environmental impact statement in December 2015, clearing the way for the project's long-awaited construction. Just one month prior to the Jordan Cove project's cancellation and after a decade of haggling with local officials and fighting with environmental activists, Oregon LNG, another LNG developer, informed local and state officials it was withdrawing its proposed $6 billion LNG terminal and pipeline, which had been planned to be built on the nearby Skipanon Peninsula. On April 15, The Daily Astorian reported a "coalition of residents, environmentalists and fishermen" had put significant pressure on government officials to deny the LNG proposals. According to the Astorian, the coalition "attacked the project as misguided and potentially dangerous."

Book review:

The Global War Against Fossil Fuels. The global war against fossil fuels is a war against progress, prosperity, and the poor. No one has ever explained this better than Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White do in Fueling Freedom.

The few, the loud, the anti-fossil fuel crowd. If you get your news from the mainstream media, you likely think the views expressed by the environmental activists represent the majority of Americans. After all, their highly visible protests against the Keystone pipeline — sit-ins in front of the White House, locking themselves to the White House fence and then being arrested for it, and parading down the National Mall carrying a huge inflated tube emblazoned with the words: "Just say no to Keystone" — were effective. Despite repeated polling that showed a majority of Americans supported the pipeline, with a small minority opposed, the loud theatrics of the anti-fossil fuel crowd eventually won out. After years of stall tactics, President Obama finally bowed to their demands and said no to the job-creating infrastructure project.

Feds Sued For Illegally Refusing To Sell Oil Leases. Western Energy Alliance (WEA), an industry-aligned interest group, sued the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Thursday [8/11/2016] for failing to hold quarterly oil and natural gas lease sales on public lands. Though the Mineral Leasing Act requires BLM to hold quarterly oil and natural gas lease sales in each state where lands are available and industry interest exists, the agency has cancelled lease sales and auctions during the Obama administration. Environmental groups have simultaneously organized to lobby the federal government to postpone the sales so as to discourage or delay drilling on the public range.

Germany waters down climate protection plan. Germany has abandoned plans to set out a timetable to exit coal-fired power production and scrapped C02 emissions reduction goals for individual sectors, according to the latest draft of an environment ministry document seen by Reuters on Wednesday [6/29/2016]. An earlier version of the draft document that was leaked in May had suggested that Germany should phase out coal-fired power production "well before 2050" as part of a package of measures to help Berlin achieve its climate goals.

Energiewoopsie, Or, What Happens When You Dump Nuclear Power. The greens have been aflutter for years about Germany's energiewende, or "energy revolution," partly because it involves a lot of their sacred windmills and solar panels and partly because it's a revolution man, so dig it! Better put the patchouli-infused hemp robes away for the moment, because Germany is backpedalling fast.

Al Gore's daughter arrested in Boston pipeline protest. Organizers say the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore was among 23 people arrested during a protest of a Boston pipeline under construction. The arrests happened Wednesday at the site of Spectra Energy's West Roxbury Lateral pipeline. Forty-two-year-old Karenna Gore was among demonstrators that tried to block construction activity on the site by lying in a trench.

Natural Gas Production Declines on Federal Lands. Natural gas production has declined on federal lands even while increasing on private property, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. Private lands produced 15,601 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2010. Production has grown by 55 percent on private lands, rising to 24,143 billion cubic feet in 2015, the latest year for which data is available. Natural gas production on federal lands has declined by 27 percent since 2010. Private lands also produce a greater share of the total natural gas produced in the United States. Privately held property produced 84 percent of the total natural gas produced in the entire United States in 2015, while federal lands produced only 16 percent of the total.

U.S. "built the equivalent of ten Keystone pipelines" while stalling XL extension on "climate change" grounds. The United States has built the equivalent of ten Keystone XL pipelines while figuring out whether to approve the extension. They've surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil and gas production with horizontal drilling techniques which have made their once inaccessible resources accessible, putting them into competitor status. With the third largest oil reserves in the world, Canada has the potential to surpass the U.S. in production and exports but they're not being tapped because we're buying into the climate change and environmental fear mongering whipped up by a country that has surpassed the largest producer in the world.

Taxpayers Finance Anti-Pipeline Activists. An obscure program nestled deep in the bowels of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is funneling taxpayer money to environmental activists who oppose natural gas pipelines, according to an investigative report issued by InsideSources. In 2009, Congress created the Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) program in DOT's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to provide funding to nonprofits and local governments to act to "improve damage prevention, develop new technologies, or otherwise improve [the] pipeline safety" of natural gas and hazardous liquids pipelines. During the first five years of the program, over $6.4 million in TAG grants were awarded to 110 recipients. While much of the money has gone to organizations undertaking projects to improve pipeline safety, InsideSources uncovered several instances where TAG grantees had clear conflicts of interest and engaged in advocacy, in violation of the program's guidelines.

New Rules Expected to Curtail Gulf Oil Production. The Obama administration finalized new rules it says will improve drilling safety in the Gulf of Mexico, but some experts are saying the regulations will undermine safety. The Interior Department, which is responsible for licensing and regulating oil and gas production on the U.S. outer-continental shelf, unveiled the sweeping new regulations on April 14, 2016. The centerpiece of the new regulations is a plan to monitor the safety of offshore wells. Under the regulations, monitoring of well safety would shift from being located on-site — at the offshore drilling platform — to being stationed at onshore electronic observation centers.

Climate Weenies Held Protests Against Fossil Fuels. I've perused many, many articles on this, and not one reporter asked any of the protesters two simple questions:

• Did you take a fossil fueled vehicle to this protest?

• Have you given up your own use of fossil fuels in your own life? Warmists really do not like questions like that. They say they are immaterial, because "we all have to make sacrifices in our lives", meaning that Government must be empowered to force these changes. It also means that they know they are hypocrites, and unwilling to practice what they preach, so, they need to change the conversation.

Don't Let The Nuts Keep America's National Treasure Buried. Thanks to the technological miracle of "fracking," America now has the proven reserves to be the world's number one producer of oil, number one producer of natural gas, and number one producer of coal. Imagine what that would be like for America's own economy to include the world leading industries of all three of these crucial sources of energy. America would then be the Saudi Arabia of oil, the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and the Saudi Arabia of coal, all within just one economy. That would mean hundreds of thousands of good paying, blue collar jobs in those three industries alone.

Climate activists protest oil shipments at New York port hub. Climate activists from around the Northeast gathered Saturday at a key crude oil shipment hub on the Hudson River in upstate New York to denounce fossil fuels and promote an accelerated transition to renewable energy sources.

"Climate Hustle" demolishes climate alarmism. Without presenting it to the US Senate, as required by the Constitution, President Obama has signed the Paris climate treaty. He is already using it to further obligate the United States to slash its fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth[,] control our lives, livelihoods, living standards and liberties[,] and redistribute our wealth. Poor, minority and working class families will suffer most. China, India and other developing economies are under no such obligation, unless and until it is in their interest to do so. [...] That's why these countries have built over 1,000 coal-fired power plants and are planning to build 2,300 more — while unaccountable EPA bureaucrats are shutting down US coal-fired generators, and getting ready to block natural gas production and use.

Pipeline-killing Cuomo plainly doesn't care about New York jobs. Is Gov. Cuomo trying to kill the upstate economy — or is he just so desperate to suck up to enviro-nuts that he doesn't care what happens to that region? It's a fair question, after his decision to kill the Constitution Pipeline — a vital, 124-mile conduit meant to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York and beyond. The move "will have a direct and immediate negative impact on our state's economy," says Heather Briccetti, president of the Business Council.

Oregon manages to stop construction of huge LNG export terminal, costing thousands of jobs. Oregon is always at the forefront of saving the world and every other SJW agenda item these days, or so it seems. And when it comes to environmental extremists you'll find no lack of them along that stretch of the Pacific coast. They've scored another huge "victory" this month in the form of halting the proposed construction of a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal near the mouth of the Columbia River. The project had been in the works for years, but took on increased significance after the American energy boom of the past half decade. The world is hungry for LNG and it represents a major opportunity in terms of evening out our trade imbalance. But thanks to the dedicated efforts of green energy warriors and Oregon politicians, yet another refusal of a construction permit seems to have been the final straw for The Oregon LNG company and they've pulled the plug on the entire project.

Fighting Junk Science. The government's Environmental Protection Agency promotes junk science because it gives the bureaucracy mission and funding. The Sierra Club is little more than a junk science 5th column. The club has adopted global warming as its primary tool for frightening people into paying dues. The club's war on coal promotes numerous imaginary scares concerning the alleged toxicity of coal. The Sierra Club deserves much credit for destroying the nuclear power industry and promoting radiation hysteria to scare [...] everyone in the 1970s and 1980s. The Sierra Club would rank high in a list of subversive organizations that threaten the national welfare.

Gas pipeline opponents hope to influence NY presidential primary. Fracktivists, as anti-hydrofracking activists are called, hope to play a role in New York's presidential primary. They are asking Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as well as Republican candidates, to take a stand against the Constitution Pipeline and other natural gas pipelines, that if approved could criss-cross the state. More than 200 fracktivists held a rally Tuesday [4/5/2016] to oppose natural gas pipelines in New York, and to call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban them.

Obama to Energy Producers: Drop Dead. You know, I'm starting to think the Obama Administration really doesn't like old-fashioned hydrocarbon energy. And since when has the Federal government worried about "adverse effects on landowners"?? Well, at least the Obama Administration is going to carry through on allowing new offshore oil drilling. What's that? ["]Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling["]

Obama to kill off Arctic oil drilling. The Obama administration promised to protect Atlantic waters for future generations on Tuesday, raising expectations that waters off the US east coast and Alaska would be protected from oil and gas drilling. The expected decision reverses Barack Obama's move just last year to open up a vast swath of the Atlantic coast to drilling — and consolidates the president's efforts to protect the Arctic and fight climate change during his final months in the White House. The five-year drilling plan, which will be formally announced by the Interior Department, was expected to block immediate prospects of hunting for oil in the Arctic and much of the Atlantic, according to those familiar with the proposals.

'Keep it in the ground' at work in the real world. Going forward, we know what the new year of environmental activism looks like. They have told us. They have made it perfectly clear. They call it: "Keep it in the ground." The campaign is about all fossil fuels: oil, gas, and coal. Instead of an "all of the above" energy policy, when it comes to fossil fuels, they want "none of the above." A big part of the effort is focused on preventing the extraction of fossil fuels on public lands — which is supported by presidential candidates Senator Bernie Sanders and Secretary Hillary Clinton. The recent moratorium of leasing federal lands for coal mining, announced by Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell, is considered a great victory for "keep it in the ground."

America's Energy Outlook Is Bright — and Obama Hates It. [By 2040, oil and coal] will provide for 80% of the world's energy needs. Nuclear energy, projected to double by 2040, will provide most of the remaining 20%. Wind power will deliver a mere 2% of global energy. Solar even less. Fortunately, there are ample supplies of oil and gas to power the world economy well beyond 2040. The International Energy Agency estimates that recoverable oil and condensate resources now stand at 4.5 trillion barrels, replacing earlier "peak oil" estimates of one trillion barrels. By 2040, it is likely that recoverable oil will have risen again, perhaps by a factor of five and certainly enough to power the global energy through the end of the century. Recoverable natural gas resources are even greater. According to IEA, current gas resources are enough to supply the current level of global needs for another 200 years. And this estimate does not include vast reserves that will result from new exploration and advances in technology. With the U.S. now self-sufficient and exporting natural gas, the West's energy security is assured to a degree that has not existed in the past. That's good news for the American people and for the world, even if it is not news that Obama wants to hear.

Republicans furious over Obama move on coal leases. Congressional Republicans are slamming the Obama administration's decision to halt new coal mining leases on federal land. Administration officials said Friday [1/15/2016] they would hold off on new lease sales while overhauling the coal leasing program to account for climate change costs. Republicans, who have badgered Obama for energy and environment policies they say constitute a "war on coal," let loose on the decision Friday.

Obama halts new federal coal mining. The Obama administration is halting major new leases to mine coal on federal land for about three years as it works to reform the controversial program. Obama officials want to hold off on the new sales while they figure out how to account for climate change caused when the coal mined on federal land is burned, which could include higher fees and royalties for the private companies that extract the coal.

Obama Brags About Low Energy Prices, Then Proposes To Raise Them. We did, in fact, "drill our way" to lower gas prices. Thanks to fracking, oil companies are now able to produce vast amounts of previously unrecoverable oil. In the past seven years, domestic oil production shot up a stunning 77%, according to the Energy Information Administration, making the U.S. the biggest oil producer in the world. That's why gas prices are low today. And why oil imports have dropped so sharply. And none of it had anything to do with Obama, who tried to hamper oil production whenever he could — blocking Keystone, restrictions on federal lands, EPA attempts to hinder fracking.

Hydroelectric power is handicapped by an outdated licensing process. "I was talking with someone in the nuclear industry the other day and he said, 'Gee, I didn't realize you people were having the same problems we have.' When it comes to getting through the permit process, we're not much different from nuclear." So says Jeff Leahey, deputy executive director of the National Hydropower Association, the Washington lobbying group that supports the hydroelectric industry. NHA finds this particularly frustrating since it is in the midst of a revival that involves retrofitting existing dams with hydropower.

Paris climate summit: If liberal journos get their wish it may be lights out for billions. The UN climate change conference (COP 21) is bringing thousands of environmental activists to still-shaken Paris to discuss what liberals consider a bigger threat than terrorism — climate change. Heads of state are attempting, yet again, to reach a legally binding agreement for carbon dioxide emissions, even though satellite temperature records still show a pause in the warming trend. That pause began more than 18 years ago in 1997. The conference has no bigger supporters than the liberal media. Journalists have worked together with environmentalists to attack nearly every energy source we use. News outlets have targeted energy that provides more than 90 percent of U.S. power — oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and even hydroelectric.

The Environmentalist Crusade Against Progress and Technology Aims at Making Man's Life a Hell on Earth. Energy lights our homes and cities, keeps us cool in summer and warm in winter, moves our cars, ships, trains and airplanes, powers our industries and factories, and creates all the material goods on which our lives depend. The whole of our civilization depends upon the production and use of energy. But there is not a single viable energy source that Environmentalism does not attack. [...] It is important to note that environmentalists offer no alternative solutions to our needs of energy. All of their efforts aim instead at banning, stopping, restricting and reversing all progress. There is not a single industry or technology that Environmentalism does not attack, directly or indirectly.

Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not "Green". A multi-billion-dollar government crusade to promote renewable energy for electricity generation, now in its third decade, has resulted in major economic costs and unintended environmental consequences. Even improved new generation renewable capacity is, on average, twice as expensive as new capacity from the most economical fossil-fuel alternative and triple the cost of surplus electricity. Solar power for bulk generation is substantially more uneconomic than the average; biomass, hydroelectric power, and geothermal projects are less uneconomic. Wind power is the closest to the double-triple rule. The uncompetitiveness of renewable generation explains the emphasis pro-renewable energy lobbyists on both the state and federal levels put on quota requirements, as well as continued or expanded subsidies. Yet every major renewable energy source has drawn criticism from leading environmental groups: hydro for river habitat destruction, wind for avian mortality, solar for desert overdevelopment, biomass for air emissions, and geothermal for depletion and toxic discharges.

The 7 Keys To Trapping As Many Americans As Possible In Poverty. You want to make as many Americans poor as possible? Then start by... [#7] Ratcheting Up Their Expenses: [...] Have the Federal Reserve print money non-stop, which drives up inflation. Over time, that reduces the purchasing power of the middle class as the cost of everything seems to creep up. It's also important to go after cheap sources of energy like oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power. Not only does that drive up the cost the middle class pays across the board for products, it also hits people directly when they heat and cool their homes.

Environmental Activist Visits North Dakota, Makes Things Up. Winona LaDuke is a political activist who, among other things, is the head of Honor the Earth. That's the principle opposition group to the Sandpiper pipeline which would from Tioga, North Dakota, through Minnesota and down to Wisconsin. LaDuke is also something of a fabulist, writing an op/ed about a recent visit to Williston which might leave some thinking that she's living in an alternate version of reality.

Obama: Nihilist or Just Incompetent? Obama once bragged of sky-high electricity costs to come — echoed by Steven Chu's dream of European-level gas prices. Obama mocked "drill, baby, drill" and claimed it was no solution to the energy crisis, as he tabled Keystone and put millions of acres of federal lands de facto off the market for energy exploration. He tried to "bankrupt" the coal industry. The EPA became a rogue agency. Almost all his crony-capitalist Solyndra-like projects failed. And? Gasoline and natural gas prices have plunged, thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling.

Famous British Actress Recites Bizarre Poem On TV: Fossil Fuel Workers Are Basically Nazis. Award-winning actress Emma Thompson recited a bizarre poem for news cameras Wednesday warning [9/2/2015] of an apocalyptic world of "liquefied slaughter" and melting ice caps all thanks to greedy fossil fuel companies. Attending a protest against Shell's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, Thompson indulged Sky News reporters with a poem written all by her lonesome, lamenting the immense selfishness of those using oil to fuel their cars and heat their homes.

Gov. Jerry Brown takes aim at oil companies over 'highly destructive' product. Gov. Jerry Brown, who is in the middle of a political battle over climate-change legislation, took aim at oil companies Monday, saying they sell a "highly destructive" product. "The oil industry is in deep trouble," the governor told reporters Monday at a news conference on the shores of Lake Tahoe, where he was attending an annual meeting about the area's environment. Oil companies "have a product that is highly destructive, while highly valuable at the same time. And we're trying to work out the right policies," he said.

The Editor says...

How do you suppose the governor got to Lake Tahoe? Not by bicycle, one can surmise. More likely by way of gas-guzzling limo or gas-guzzling jet. Maybe both.

Obama Hatches A Vast, Left-Wing, Green Conspiracy. California Gov. Jerry Brown rips oil companies for their "highly destructive product," while President Obama calls the Koch brothers un-American. [...] Obama apparently sees nothing wrong with burning 25,000 gallons of fuel jetting to Las Vegas to attend Sen. Harry Reid's conference to push uneconomical "green" alternatives to fossil fuels while demonizing those who disagree with him. Par for the course. Obama has set a goal of slashing CO2 emissions 26% by 2025, proposing that alternative energy sources such as solar and wind will serve as replacements — a key part of his much broader plan to "fundamentally transform" America. The problem, contrary to Brown's foolish remarks, is that fossil fuels are anything but "destructive." They are in fact the very source of our industrial economy — and our high standard of living.

Environmental groups raise concerns over Florida's new hunt for oil. Renewed hunts for oil in sensitive Florida ecosystems have environmental groups raising questions about the state's regulation of the oil and gas industry.

Environmentalist: Clean Power Plan Is 'A Great Start,' But 'I Think We Can Do More'. First coal, then natural gas? Apparently so. A spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund defended the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan on Wednesday [8/5/2015], saying the benefits of carbon-reduction are "important" and "real" — and hinting that they are just a start: methane emissions from natural gas may be targeted next. "I think we can do more," EDF's Jeremy Symons told CSPAN's morning call-in show. "I think once we get on this path, we will find that we can do more faster. But it's a great start." Under the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, each state must decide how to rearrange their energy mix to achieve EPA-mandated, pollution-reduction targets. Basically, the plan will force states to abandon coal as an energy source in favor of the wind and solar industries, which are not as cost-effective or desirable in a free market.

Which is worse, Obama's plan to shut down coal plants, or McConnell's 'plan' to fight it? President Obama is about to release a plan to fight imaginary global warming by shutting down many coal fired power plants. Coal fired power plants produce a lot of carbon dioxide, which is a key element in the imaginary theory that CO2 causes global warming. I say imaginary because (1) there hasn't been any global warming in 18 years, (2) man-made CO2 accounts for only about 3% of global CO2, which is mostly natural, and (3) CO2 is a tiny percentage of the upper atmosphere, and is not present in enough volume to be substantially trapping heat. But Obama's plan to shut power plants is very real.

Obama to Require Steeper Emissions Cuts From Power Plants. President Barack Obama will impose even steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants than previously expected, senior administration officials said Sunday [8/2/2015], in what the president called the most significant step the U.S. has ever taken to fight global warming.

Protesters in Portland dangle from bridge in a bid to block Shell icebreaker. Trying to delay Shell's Arctic icebreaker in Portland, 13 protesters are dangling from the St. Johns Bridge, spanning the Willamette River in North Portland. The protesters rappelled from the bridge deck at about 2:30 a.m. [7/29/2015] as a group of about 50 kayakers looked on, said Michael Foster, a kayaker from Seattle and veteran of earlier protests against Shell that took place in Washington state. Foster said the protesters are now suspended in hammocks and bivouacs, the same gear used for rock climbing. The dangling activists have enough supplies to hang for two days and plan to re-supply, Foster said.

The problem with enviros. When President Barack Obama recently approved Shell's request to drill in the Arctic, anti-fossil-fuel activists lobbied the Port of Seattle to deny docking rights to the oil giant's Alaska-bound rig. That effort failed. Then activists persuaded Washington State's King County to refuse the company a wastewater-discharge permit — an inconvenience that did nothing to stop Shell's progress. Turning finally to old-fashioned protest, environmentalists in kayaks tried, unsuccessfully, to obstruct the rig en route to Alaska. The Shell battle highlights a new tactic among environmental activists: Unhappy with policies made in Washington, they're trying to use local regulations to set national policy.

Court rules against Obama administration in EPA case. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday [6/29/2015] that the Obama administration failed to consider costs when deciding to regulate mercury pollution from power plants.

The Difficulties Of Powering The Modern World With Renewables. In 2013 renewables supplied the world with 21.7% of its electricity, according to BP. Take out hydro and they supplied the world with only 5.3% of its electricity. Then take out "other" renewables such as biomass and geothermal and the percentage falls to 3.3%. Why take out hydro and "others"? Because their growth potential is limited by resource availability — too few good hydro sites, too few high-temperature geothermal fields, not enough wood to make biomass pellets etc. — and for these reasons they may never make a significant contribution to future global energy needs.

WH Science Adviser: 'Cars, Trucks and Planes Are Going to Have to Run on Electricity, Biofuels or Hydrogen'. John Holdren, President Barack Obama's top science and technology advisor, said at a White House summit on clean energy on Tuesday [6/16/2015] that a "global low-carbon economy" by the year 2050 means that "cars, trucks and planes" will be powered by "electricity, biofuels or hydrogen." "As we all know, a global low-carbon economy in 2050 is going to have to meet the energy needs of 9 or 10 billion people using technologies that will have to be more advanced than the technologies that are in place today," he said. "Buildings, agriculture, machines must be dramatically more energy-efficient."

The Editor says...

Utopia comes at a very high cost. Why not just stick with what works? The left's idea of utopia also includes complete government control of everything.

Canada: Never mind. We'll just ship our energy to China. [Scroll down] Meanwhile, back at home, the feds keep pounding on ExxonMobil for the biggest fines they can manage, yet another Democrat is taking a run at shutting down fracking through a misinterpretation of the Clean Water Act and our restrictions on exports have led to our companies saturating the market to the point where we're now laying off oil field workers.

Environmentalists Fight Huge Solar Plant On Behalf of 100 Sheep. The Natural Resources Defense Council said it had "significant concerns" about the project. So what are we talking about here? A new CO2-spewing coal plant? Something that runs on "extraordinarily dirty" oil from the Canadian tar sands? Nope. These environmentalist groups are celebrating the likely demise of a solar power plant slated to be built in the Mojave Desert. Bechtel Corp. says its 350 megawatt Soda Mountain Solar Project would generate enough power to light 170,000 homes in California, and the site chosen is ideal because of its "excellent solar resources, its location in an existing utility corridor and due to the low density of sensitive plant and animal species."

Obama admin gives final OK to Md. natural gas facility; environmentalists sue. The Obama administration on Thursday granted final approval to a $3.8 billion natural gas export facility in Calvert County, Maryland — the first gas export site on the East Coast — but environmentalists sued within hours to stop the project. After an extensive review that spanned multiple federal agencies, the Energy Department gave the green light to the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal. The move allows the project's operator, Virginia-based energy giant Dominion Resources Inc., to ship fuel to countries with which the U.S. does not have free trade agreements. The site, expected to come online by late 2017, is now authorized to export up to 0.77 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas per day for the next 20 years.

Environmentalism and Envy. Environmentalists hate dams. Dams provide lakes, prevent floods, store water for future use, and generate electricity. Some dams are engineering triumphs that are beautiful and magnificent symbols of human achievement. What's to hate? Dams improve upon nature. But, that's the problem. Dams, with all their benefits, mock the moral superiority that nature is supposed to have over the works of man. Somehow the generation of CO2-free electricity by dams is not considered worthy. The legal definition of renewable electricity in California specifically excludes electricity generated by big hydroelectric projects. Similarly, the Kyoto treaty to prevent global warming does not give credit to CO2-free nuclear energy. Logical consistency is not an environmental movement strong point.

Nevada's Caesar. In the summer of 2007, Nevada Power, the state's utility monopoly, was ramping up plans to build a $5 billion coal plant in the rural community of Ely. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, coming down with the green fever that would animate him for the rest of his career, was not pleased. The Ely Energy Center, Reid asserted to me during an August television interview, "will never be built." A month later, Nevada Power CEO Michael Yackira came on the program and pushed back against Reid's anti-coal crusade.

Fossil Fuels Will Save the World (Really). The environmental movement has advanced three arguments in recent years for giving up fossil fuels: (1) that we will soon run out of them anyway; (2) that alternative sources of energy will price them out of the marketplace; and (3) that we cannot afford the climate consequences of burning them. These days, not one of the three arguments is looking very healthy. In fact, a more realistic assessment of our energy and environmental situation suggests that, for decades to come, we will continue to rely overwhelmingly on the fossil fuels that have contributed so dramatically to the world's prosperity and progress.

King Barry. Obama is a lawless leader, choosing to rule by memorandum, regulation and executive order — he is not a president; he is a king. [...] The EPA is now putting the finishing touches on the plan to save the world from global warming by tripling Americans' electric bills and throttling business by raising the cost of energy. Barry does not like coal and the EPA, ever obsequious to Barry's wants, wants to shut down all coal-powered electrical generation in America. Coal-fired plants produce almost 40% of the nation's electricity, and Barry... er, I meant the EPA, wants to shut them down. Not to worry, the plan is to replace all that electricity with... well, nothing. (Fracking? The same crowd has plans for that too.)

Obama's Keystone Veto Is a Victory for the Lunatic Left. President Obama's veto of the Keystone XL pipeline is difficult to understand unless you are aware of the wider context, which is the Left's war on the energy infrastructure of the United States. It isn't just Keystone. The Left is working to block every piece of energy infrastructure of any consequence everywhere in the country, in the hopes that doing so will hobble the oil and gas industries and usher in a new age in which the American economy runs on solar panels and happy thoughts.

Udall Votes Against Special Interest Bill for Keystone Pipeline. Today [1/29/2015], U.S. Senator Tom Udall voted against a bill mandating approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, saying it was an unprecedented act for Congress to require the administration to approve a pipeline for a private, foreign corporation. The vote came shortly after Udall offered an amendment to create a national Renewable Electricity Standard, which would require utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. His amendment received bipartisan support from almost half the Senate, demonstrating significant support for a forward-looking energy policy.

The Editor says...

In an ostensibly free country, the government should not have the power to tell a company how to run its business. In this case, an elected representative is proposing a law that would require electric utilities to generate a substantial portion of their product from "renewable sources." If the government can do this, they could just as easily tell bakeries what to put in their bread, or require automobile manufacturers to build some fraction of their cars out of titanium.

Greens clueless on energy. In short, if campaigners get their wish and fossil fuels are phased out by 2040, the world will face an energy gap of at least 9.2 billion tonnes of oil equivalent. That is the equivalent of 147 countries with no energy.

Climate scientists beg governments to leave buried fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Vast underground reserves of oil, gas and coal should be classified as off limits if the world stands any chance of averting dangerous climate change, a major study of global fossil-fuel deposits has found. Scientists calculated that a third of global oil reserves, half of gas reserves and more than 80 percent of coal reserves should remain in the ground as "unburnable" to avoid exceeding the 2[°]C "safe" threshold for global warming.

The Editor says...

Apparently these propagandists have decided that any temperature increase greater than two degrees would make life unbearable, but a world without petroleum and coal would be wonderful.

The Pipeline and the Damage Done. [Scroll down] The point is the oil won't remain un