Nuclear power will be the future. There is no doubt about it. Nuclear is the cleanest, greenest, cheapest, safest, energy source ever. There is no doubt about that, no matter what anyone says. Also, just look at the energy density of sugar, coal, petrol, and uranium. Sugar contains about 20 megajoules per kilogram, coal 25, petrol 50, but uranium is 76,000,000. What this tells you is that you can carry your lifetime supply of electricity in a shopping packet, if you’re carrying uranium.

Let us face it, coal is going to be a primary energy source of the world for years to come. Stopping coal use is like shooting yourself in both feet with a machine gun. As time passes, rather rapidly, there’s no doubt that coal will give way to nuclear, for purely economic reasons. Certainly nothing to do with the myth of anthropogenic CO₂ causing increased global warming. Meanwhile the Chinese are building new coal plants faster than the Western world is decommissioning theirs. The Chinese know what they are doing, and they are chasing their goal … of economic dominance.

Don’t burn banknotes

As coal gives way to nuclear power in the production of electricity, we should not stop using coal, but we should no longer burn it. Coal is composed of very valuable chemicals, so why burn them? Burning coal is something like burning banknotes instead of wood, to keep warm.

In South Africa we have the SASOL Company, which converts coal to petrol and diesel. About 1/3 of South Africa’s petrol and diesel comes from coal. The coal chemicals are also used to produce ladies’ cosmetics, aspirin, high-quality waxes, and more.

The ultimate answer is to use small nuclear reactors to drive the coal conversion plants.

The world’s consumption of electricity doubled over the past 25 years, and is set to double again in the next 25. In fact, it will double faster because more people are getting connected to electricity, and more and more electrical devices are coming into existence. So, forget about green extremist goals of reducing world energy consumption.

The most sensible route for doubling electricity consumption, on a world scale, is via nuclear. Electricity consumption is directly proportional to GDP, which in turn directly affects the take-home pay of citizens. Citizen wealth changes the nature of society.

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Another Revolution is coming

Cast your mind back to the Industrial Revolution, of around 1760 to 1840. Abundant coal was linked to the development of steam engines, and iron production. Energy and engines led to deeper mining, mass textile production, and a host of other advances. So, the Industrial Revolution burst onto the scene and changed the world. A large adoption of nuclear power, together with AI, electronics, and massive scientific development will also change the world.

But let us return to nuclear, and the relentless anti-nuclear campaigns waged by the slogan-chanting greenies. One of their themes is; ‘what about the nuclear waste?’

Nuclear waste is no problem. Really. If you want a good night’s sleep, you can take a sleeping pill. If you take the entire bottle of pills, you will sleep really well, and never wake up. But people don’t usually do stupid things like that. Yes, without doubt a lot of nuclear radiation will kill you, if you are stupid. But small amounts of nuclear radiation are perfectly safe. Large amounts of nuclear radiation are also safe, when handled by professionals in a professional manner.

Why do the public somehow think that the Army can handle artillery ammunition in a safe, professional way, but somehow professional nuclear engineers can’t handle radioactive materials?

Does the Glacier worry you?

The radiation of concern is called Gamma radiation. It ‘shines’ like a light. Gamma rays are exactly the same as light, radio waves, X-Rays, or microwaves in the kitchen microwave oven. But the Gammas carry more energy than X-Rays, and so they can cause harm. The kitchen microwaves are safely contained inside the ‘box’ which is the microwave oven. When a radioactive object is put into a lead box the Gammas are safely contained in the box, and you can safely sit next to it and eat your lunch.

For long-term storage you put the box underground, and leave it there. Note that by international convention, no nuclear waste is ever dumped or thrown away. It is stored, like the gold bars at Fort Knox. The principle is that you can move the radioactive material at any time in the future. So, worrying about a glacier advancing in 100,000 years’ time is silly. When you see the glacier coming you have decades to move all your boxes.

A highly useful property of all radioactive materials is that they constantly advertise their presence. It is like a cricket in his hole in the lawn. His chirping tells you where he is. With a Geiger counter, even a radioactive pinhead is easy to find in your lawn. It calls you. But a lump of Arsenic is extremely difficult to find, because it hides. There is arsenic in advanced solar panels, but nobody panics about that.

Insignificant volumes

One huge advantage of nuclear is that there is so little nuclear fuel, so the resulting spent fuel is extremely small, unlike coal ash. The spent fuel is called High Level Waste (HLW). It is the really dangerous material, if you walk up to it. Then there is Intermediate Level Waste (ILW), which is things like pumps, pipes, and so on, which had radioactive material flowing through them. Finally, there is Low Level Waste (LLW) which is paper towels, lab coats, and items which were used in a radiation designated area, and could conceivably have some radioactive dust on them. All of these categories are packaged into drums and safely stored underground.

Nuclear waste is better handled than any other waste in the world. This is a positive spin-off legacy from all the exaggerated scare stories which have been generated by the anti-nuke lobby.

Nuclear people worldwide are very proud of what they do, and how they do it, and they do it well.

The big scare which has always been splashed in news media is if something explodes, then some of the radioactive material can be reduced to dust and scattered into the atmosphere. It then acts like any other dust, and blows with the wind, and then settles out. But remember the crickets in the lawn. If it were not radioactive you would not know where the dust was. You would not even know it was there. But even the dust ‘chirps’ its presence, and so the ‘chirp’ can be used to scare the public. Note that during the infamous Fukushima incident, not one single person was killed or injured by nuclear radiation. Yet the popular news was full of scary stories of radiation spreading everywhere.

The nuclear waste repositories of the world are all perfectly able to safely store any radioactive material for centuries, just like Fort Knox stores its gold.

Dr. Kelvin Kemm is a South African nuclear physicist and has been a CFACT Senior Advisor for over two decades. He is Chairman of Stratek Holdings, a nuclear project management company, and is past Chairman of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa).

#Nuclear #NuclearWaste #Electricity #CFACT #KelvinKemm Coal

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“It is a classic notion on the left in general, and of environmentalist zealots in particular,” noted Thomas Sowell, “that no one can disagree with them unless they are either uniformed or dishonest.” A salient example of this came with comments to a social media post by Laura Clarke, CEO of Client Earth, who wrote:

Today’s news from New Zealand is a significant setback for climate accountability. The Government has passed legislation banning climate tort claims, removing a legal avenue that communities may use to seek accountability for climate harms and preventing courts from considering these cases.

This is particularly concerning given that climate change is already imposing significant costs on people, communities and public finances…. I am deeply disappointed by this decision. It sends the message that the interests of major polluters deserve greater protection than the rights of communities seeking to hold them accountable.

I commented: “But great news for investors, consumers, and economic gains. We cannot sue each other for using the best energies!”

Then came this reply from Betsy Rosenberg, self-described as

“She/Her … CODE GREEN HOST on YouTube channel @betsyrosenberginterviews, Environmental Journalist, Climate Commentator, Green Personality, Author, Writer, Video/Audio Content Creator. Belvedere Tiburon, California” [1]

She did not confess to being rude, arrogant, condescending, and insulting. And inaccurate. She is out of her league when it comes to substantive, scholarly debate about the physical science, politics, and economics of anthropogenic climate change. [2] Judge for yourself from this exchange.

Rosenberg: There’s no great news on a dying planet, even for those motivated by money and power🔥

Bradley: Money and power? That describes the Climate Industrial Complex and those who want to be the ‘experts’ to use government to plan for the rest of us. The planet is not ‘dying’ but thriving, helped by CO2 greening. Check your time-series data for each weather extreme to quell ‘climate anxiety’. Statism is the foe of human betterment, including the all pain-no gain of climate mitigation policies.

Rosenberg: Sounds like you are a proud member of DIC, the Denial Information Complex, and delusional to think CO2 is making our planet and extreme weather occurrences better. Go ask the thousands of Americans who have lost everything in these worsening “unprecedented” disasters🙄🔥

Bradley: Drop the emotionalism please. The ad hominem too. Please rely on time-series data and not ‘the latest’ in your mind. Hurricanes are a major threat where I live. Check out this year and last for a fact check. Should I conclude that ‘climate change’ reduces hurricanes? Well, maybe yes …

Rosenberg: “Excuse me I was mistaken. You are not merely a member of the Denial Industrial Complex but you are one of its founders!! If anyone is wondering what I mean just google Institute of Energy Research. Highly biased pro fossil-fuel, right wing…lies🔥

And as for my “emotionalism” it is nothing compared to the emotions of poor family members who lost their little girls in last year’s record flooding at Camp Mystic. I lived in Texas Hill Country (for the last 7 years) and the denial of climate science and our current reality due to the unchecked burning of fossil fuels for nearly 2 centuries is what contributed to the loss of more than 100 souls, including the 7-year-old camper who has never been found💔 By ignoring our new weather-on-steroids-world Texas officials—from Abbott and Cruz down to local officials—do not take proper precautions.

Given the history of flash floods on the Guadalupe River they should never have put kids in cabins right on the water! And if camp owners had been more climate aware they would have known its not their father’s flash floods and taken preventive action, like evacuating! This horrific tragedy should never have happened, yet only one example of the suffering and grief caused by extreme weather🔥”

Bradley: More emotion and ad hominem. No, IER is a classical liberal think tank that is fuel neutral. Consumers decide with government neutral. Do your homework!! Read the ‘About’ section on our website…

Bradley: No, the great flood of July 4, 2025 was the same as that in 1932, but the population and timing were different. This is physical science. On the loss of life, the investigations have/are establishing culpability that is human error, not ‘climate change.’

Bradley: Do you live in the Texas Hill Country or California? I live in Hunt, Texas and received the most damage next to the camps. So careful with your appeal to (your own) authority. Also, drop the politics. We are debating climate science and causality, but you have a ‘hate on’ toward critics of climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. Control your emotions please…

Rosenberg: I lived in Bee Cave, TX for 7 years and the denial of climate change by ALL Republicans is shameful and regressive. Wake up and smell the carbon! All you Koch-funded science deniers are being proven wrong more each day with the increasingly destructive “unprecedented” floods, fires, heat—exactly what was predicted as ppm’s are 432 and rising. You can call me an emotional alarmist all you want. Anyone who is paying attention—especially those with kids and grandkids— should be alarmed by whats happening AND very emotional given predictions of worst case scenarios coming true!🔥

Bradley: Still more emotionalism and ad hominem? Are your counter arguments to climate exaggeration and energy retrogression that weak? If you are a fan of wind, solar, and battery industrialization, or like exaggerating to try to get people’s attention, I am not impressed. Neither will be the open-minded.

Your excuse of emotionalism “given predictions of worst case scenarios coming true!” is peculiar given the IPCC’s recent rejection of RCP 8.5. Climate models are not science; CO2 science is.

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Final Comment

The exchange continued along the same lines: emotionalism and attacks in place of scholarly give-and-take.

I did leave her with these questions, which she has not found the time to answer.

1. Did you have a professor at Cal Berkley who was not a climate alarmist? A critic of government-forced wind/solar/battery” energy ‘transition’?

2. As “among the first trainees in Al Gore’s Climate Realty Project in early 2007,” did you hear one viewpoint on climate alarmism and energy forcing? Any ‘skeptics’ of alarm and wind/solar/batteries teaching the attendees?

3. Of your claimed 5,000 interviews, how many were done with critics of climate extremism? Are you open to have “Code Green” debates with climate optimists and intellectual defenders of consumer-driven, government neutral, energy policy?

4. Are you happy with California’s energy prices re the consumer and ‘social justice’? And what has been the aggregate climate effect from California’s anti-fossil-fuel policies in terms of temperature reduction and avoided sea level rise?

Please, She/Her Rosenberg. Don’t assume, debate. Don’t pretend, engage. Check the emotions and politics at the door and open your mind. There is good news about climate (and energy) if you are suffering from ‘climate anxiety’. And do understand why the decades-old alarmist message is not resonating with the general public–and how your approach (above) adds to the skepticism.

[1] Her full bio reads:

GREEN BEAT BROADCAST PIONEER: Betsy Rosenberg is an award-winning CBS Radio News journalist and long time green advocate. She’s best known for creating programming featuring environmental and climate-focused interviews in the ‘90s. Over the years Rosenberg has hosted several radio Internet and video programs.

Her current series CODE GREEN can be found on her YouTube channel: http://youtube.com @betsyrosenberginterviews. Her notable green-themed media career began with her signature “TrashTalk” segments on KCBS Radio in San Francisco nearly three decades ago. In 2004, Betsy launched “EcoTalk”the nation’s first syndicated daily “green” talk show. It was broadcast on the Air America Radio network until 2007.

Betsy launched “The Green Front” featuring an interview format on VoiceAmerica.com and the Progressive Radio Network America after 2009. The successful interview format has led to Betsy conducting thousands of interviews with leading experts, politicians, activists, scientists, and innovators tackling the biggest environmental challenges of our time on all shades of green topics with a focus on amplifying solutions.

Betsy is also a public speaker on environmental issues. She is outspoken about the lack of mainstream media news coverage on climate change. She is among the first trainees in Al Gore’s Climate Realty Project in early 2007. She has also contributed chapters to three books, including Climate Abandoned.

And her pitch for Code Green:

For nearly 3 decades I’ve been been interviewing leading activists, innovators, and experts across all shades of green topics. After surpassing 5,000 interviews I considered hanging up my mic to write a book about this challenging journey as an environmental journalist and sustainability advocate.

A few key events occurred that changed my mind: I became a grandmother, Trump was re-elected and wasted no time before pulling US out of the Paris Accords—again—and turning the EPA into the Environmental Plundering Agency. What followed was a series of continuing misguided rollbacks, and seeing L.A. on fire in the wake of a trip to Antarctica where glaciers were in meltdown—there was too much dissonance to not speak up and face all these destructive impacts head on!

We are living in surreal times where daily life may still feel normal but the backdrop tells another story. News about growing climate instability and ecological breakdown is being silenced by the influence of special interests.

While the climate and other pressing environmental changes have for too long been marginalized by the public, politicians and press, we find ourselves in a new era where up is down, black is white, and none of it is green enough! Trust in traditional news media is lower than ever, thanks to well-funded DISinformation campaigns—especially on the climate front. This comes at a time when greater public understanding of our planetary pickle is critically important.

Being environmentally aware can feel like living between two realities. In one the sky IS falling as atmospheric levels rise and each new day brings more disturbing signals from nature. In the other, life rolls merrily along as if tomorrow will be the same.

But it won’t stay the same. Destructive weather is intensifying, birds and bees are vanishing, and jet streams that regulate climate and life on earth are faltering. Too many of our so-called leaders remain missing in action—beholden to fossil fuel and chemical industry donors, afraid to tell hard truths, or simply unwilling to lead. Even worse, all the reversal of environmental and health protections are undoing decades of hard fought progress.

Mainstream news outlets have failed in their duty to properly inform the public and only rarely address broader ecological collapse. If this silence continues scientists warn the consequences will arrive faster—and more furiously than most can imagine.

Still, there is some hope. Recent research shows that 37 million Americans (about 11%) want to help avoid climate collapse but don’t know how they can make a positive difference. This is a tipping point too important to miss and CODE GREEN’s mission is to reach, inform, inspire, and mobilize them!

That’s where independent green media comes in, and despite its potential to play a crucial role in turning the eco-tide, we are swimming upstream. But after 28 years on this self-appointed and self-funded beat, I know too much to walk away.

Having interviewed thousands of “solutionaries,” I’ve seen the brilliance, courage and creativity already forging a path forward. CODE GREEN is my next — and perhaps last—media production. Each week I’ll bring you curated guests and perspectives that matter most and can only come from decades of experience.

Given our ailing planet, broken politics, and lamestream media, we must become the ones we’ve been waiting for!

[2] Rosenberg admits to her limited knowledge of climate issues with such statements as “key terms like stale alarmism and romantic government? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The documented failure of alarmist climate predictions is part of the debate to question current, recycled alarmism. Second, “romantic government” is the fallacy of assuming that perfect government can correct imperfect markets (Public Choice economics).

#MasterResource #Bradley #ClimateMajorityProject #UN #IPCC #CO2

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While you’re here, please strike a blow for freedom by signing our petition!

For years, the CO₂ Coalition and independent scientists have warned that the U.S Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) rested on a foundation of sand. Its dramatic projections of catastrophe relied heavily on U.N.-sponsored Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) and its successor SSP5-8.5—both extreme predictions of carbon dioxide emissions that were treated as realistic.

As far back as 2017, scientists noted the far-fetched nature of the U.N. predictions. In August, the Trump administration proposed an amendment to NCA5 that acknowledges its emission forecasts are implausible and must not guide federal policymaking. This is a welcome restoration of scientific integrity.

The amendment, issued under the U.S. Global Change Research Program and aligned with Executive Order 14303, “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” states that results dependent on RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, or equivalent emission scenarios “should not be used as expected, baseline, business-as-usual, likely, central, or policy-relevant federal planning futures.”

Any NCA5 figure, table, or claim based on these “implausible” scenarios must carry an explicit caveat. Projections of damages, health effects, or ecosystem collapse cannot stand alone as policy premises without comparison to plausible alternatives and real-world observations.

This correction is long overdue. RCP8.5 was never designed to forecast the most likely future. It was constructed as an upper-bound for climate-model experiments—an exploratory tool of imaginary, extreme conditions. Its predictions of global warming defied observed trends in growth of coal consumption, technological development, and socioeconomic trajectories, according to multiple peer-reviewed analyses.

Treating extreme emission scenarios as ordinary distorted the entire national climate assessment. It inflated projected impacts, fueled exaggerated risk narratives, and justified costly regulatory interventions that ignored economics and human welfare. The amendment properly requires that such results be contextualized or set aside for decision-making.

Yet, this amendment, while necessary, is only a first step. NCA5’s deeper problems remain. It continues to lean on climate models that have systematically overestimated warming and failed basic observational tests. It elevates politically driven documents of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change over scientific data. Most critically, it omits the extraordinary benefits of rising atmospheric CO₂ and of the fossil fuels that produce it.

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Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is the essential plant food that makes life on Earth possible. Current concentrations, near 420 parts per million, remain far below levels that have prevailed for much of Earth’s history and are still low for optimal plant growth.

Decades of laboratory and field evidence demonstrate that elevated CO₂ increases photosynthetic rates, improves water-use efficiency, and boosts crop yields—wheat by 20% to 30% and soybeans by up to 46% under controlled conditions.

Satellite observations confirm global greening, with rising CO₂ responsible for most of the increase in leaf area across vast regions. Nitrogen fertilizers derived from fossil fuels support roughly half the world’s population.

Without affordable energy and the CO₂ fertilization effect, feeding 8 billion people becomes far more difficult.

Modest warming itself brings many benefits, including longer growing seasons in temperate zones, reduced cold-related mortality (which exceeds deaths from heat), and expanded habitable ranges. Trends of weather-driven disasters—hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires—do not match the alarmist storyline when examined against long-term records rather than model outputs.

The real catastrophe would come from policies that deliberately restrict reliable energy in pursuit of net zero. Such policies raise energy costs, harm the poor, slow development in the Global South, and risk food insecurity by limiting fertilizers and mechanization.

True gold-standard science demands that we begin with observations, test models against data, disclose assumptions transparently, and weigh risks and benefits. Future assessments must evaluate every emission scenario on empirical grounding, not institutional pedigree. They must acknowledge that humanity’s use of fossil fuels has lifted billions from poverty while restoring CO₂ to levels that enhance the biosphere.

Validating what rigorous scientists have documented for years, the proposed NCA5 amendment is progress. Now, policymakers should seize this moment to reassess the entire report against observations, restore balance by including the benefits of CO₂, and reject fearmongering that has driven policy for too long.

Energy abundance, a greener planet, and prosperity can be celebrated and advanced further through the application of science when ideology is set aside.

Originally published in Daily Wire on September 1, 2026.

Angela Wheeler is executive director of the CO₂ Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. She is a cum laude graduate of Emporia State University, Kansas, where she studied communication, with additional biology and pre-medicine coursework.

#NationalClimateAssessment #AngelaWheeler #NCA #Models #IPCC

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Subjects covered:

• More hysteria about European heatwaves

• More hysteria about wildfires

• Someone blaming the fall of Rome on climate

• More folly about geoengineering the climate

• A story about giant octopodes hunting dinosaurs that mangles science

• News that fire season in Africa is getting shorter

• The Economist getting albedo wrong,

• An installment in our #CanaryInAClimateWorld series on Richard Lindzen on the oversimplification of climate orthodoxy

• More research that says European heat can't be explained by CO2

• The impact of more atmospheric CO2 on ivy.

Enjoy!

#Europe #ForestFires #JohnRobson #ClimateDiscussionNexus #HeatWaves #GinatOctopods #RichardLindzen #GolbalWarming

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President Trump has cut much of the Biden administration’s funding for its green new deal agenda, except for about $600 billion in Congressionally approved spending—about one-third of the $1.6 trillion set aside by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for Biden’s pet projects.

President Trump and Congress have eliminated more than $540 billion in Biden-era tax subsidies for electric cars, wind and solar power, and other “clean” technology. Politico says about another $275 billion has been spent.

Out of nearly $1 trillion in grants, contracts, and other direct federal outlays provided by Biden’s climate and infrastructure laws, Politico found approximately $600 billion available to recipients or for federal agencies to award. Attempts by the Trump administration to cut around 6% of the $1 trillion — about $60 billion — have largely stalled in court challenges.

Impact of the Cuts

With the EV tax credit having expired at the end of September 2025 due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, EV sales in the United States fell 4% that year, despite spiking last summer before the credit went away. That compares to global EV sales, which increased more than 20% as other countries either reconstituted their EV subsidies or continued them.

With less consumer interest, automakers have canceled plans for electric vehicle factories that the Biden administration supported. In 2024, for example, the Biden Administration gave over $1 billion to General Motors and Stellantis to build electric vehicles, with GM receiving $500 million to convert its Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant to manufacture electric vehicles. In 2026, GM laid off 350 employees at two Lansing plants as part of a previously announced $1.25 billion investment for gas-powered Cadillac CT5 production.

Power companies have traded wind projects for natural gas plants — in some cases, after the Trump administration agreed to repay offshore wind developers $1 billion or more for leases they had purchased to stop development of expensive offshore wind facilities.

The Trump administration reached a nearly $1 billion agreement with French energy giant TotalEnergies to cancel its offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. As part of the agreement, the Interior Department would terminate the leases for TotalEnergies’ Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects, worth $928 million — lease sales that occurred during the Biden administration.

In return, TotalEnergies would invest the value of those leases into oil and natural gas production in the United States, after which the United States would reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar for the amount it paid for the offshore wind leases. TotalEnergies plans to redirect the funds toward the Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas and the development of upstream conventional oil in the Gulf of Mexico and shale gas production.

The Trump administration made several similar deals, saving ratepayers from higher energy bills and reducing taxpayer expenditures on tax credits that operators would have received if the projects had gone forward.

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In just one year, the number of natural gas plants planning to come online by 2030 nearly tripled to about 66 gigawatts, equivalent to adding the combined generating capacity of Pennsylvania and Maryland, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Investments in clean energy manufacturing for factories making EV batteries, solar panels and other “clean” technologies fell 17% to $41 billion in 2025, according to tracking from the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Other projects continued because of demand or state renewable power mandates. For example, a 400-megawatt solar project in Pennsylvania and a 578-mile transmission line connecting Kansas to Missouri are both moving forward, despite losing a $90 million DOE grant and a $4.9 billion loan guarantee, respectively.

EPA canceled a $1 million grant to create a community and cultural center in the Town of Bluff, Utah. The award was initially made under the IRA’s $3 billion environmental justice block grant initiative. Court documents show the Trump administration canceled it after announcing that redressing social and economic disparities in environmental policy was no longer a priority. The grant illustrates the wide latitude the government felt it had in distributing large sums of taxpayer money under the justification of the environment or climate.

The Trump administration, however, is keeping some Biden-era funding. In April, the Energy Department published a list of more than 1,900 projects it planned to keep after a year-plus review of Biden-era awards. The list included reinstating some awards the department previously terminated — mainly for grid-related projects. The Energy Department retained or modified 86% of the projects it reviewed.

On the cancellation side, the Energy Department terminated a $500 million grant for a California company looking for “cleaner” ways to make cement, and another $500 million grant for an Indiana cement plant looking to install technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide.

It also canceled a $316 million grant for a company building a factory for manufacturing components for EV batteries in Kentucky—a company (Ascend Elements) that later declared bankruptcy. One company that was to make green hydrogen, which was awarded a $1.6 billion Energy Department loan guarantee days before Biden left office, subsequently suspended the work related to it.

Conclusion

The Trump administration has cut much of the Biden administration’s climate program funding. About one-third — $600 billion of the $1.6 trillion in Congressionally approved funds — is still available, according to Politico.

President Trump and Congress have eliminated more than $540 billion in Biden-era tax incentives for electric cars, wind and solar power, and other “clean” technology.

Biden’s climate and infrastructure laws provided nearly $1 trillion in grants, contracts, and other direct federal outlays, and the Trump administration has tried to cut about 6%—about $60 billion—of that, but court challenges have largely stalled those funds.

#IER #Trump #Biden #GreenNewDeal #Oil #NaturalGas #Spending #IRA #EVs

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While you’re here, please strike a blow for real justice by signing our petition!

Loyal readers of Energy Security and Freedom and, before that, Natural GasNOW, know that I am passionate about reining in NGO abuse of tax-exemption to do politics as if they were charities when, in fact, they are advancing very personal special interests. I have complained relentlessly that no in either industry or government has been willing to tackle the issue, but now Scott Bessent is doing so. Here’s his full speech, and below are his formal remarks (emphasis added):

We are here together because the resurgence of political terrorism, transnational in design and far-left in doctrine, is no longer the concern of any one nation. It demands a response that draws upon the distinct and combined strengths of every government represented here today.

Ours begins where every campaign of terror does: its financial lifeblood. And at President Trump’s direction, the United States Treasury is bringing the full weight of our authorities to defend the integrity of the U.S. and global financial systems.

More than twenty years ago, in the wake of 9/11, Treasury became the first finance ministry in the world to establish an office dedicated to disrupting the funding networks of terrorist organizations. Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, referred to as TFI, was created in recognition of the reality that America’s financial system is essential to its national security. TFI’s mandate to identify, disrupt, and disable illicit foreign funds that threaten our homeland has become one of the Treasury’s defining responsibilities. And today, we are extending that abiding mission to meet an evolving threat.

The resurgence of organized political terrorism has long occupied a blind spot. The international community has struggled to identify this danger, much less to defeat it. But as the threat of terrorism evolves, the institutions and tools that defend against it must adapt.

We once understood terrorism principally as an external menace. That is no longer the world we inhabit. Increasingly, we are confronting sophisticated, organized networks that cross borders to incite violence within them. Meanwhile, old ideological boundaries are now giving way to new operational alliances. The unified front between international Marxism and the radical Islamic movement need not share the same ultimate vision to share the same immediate enemy of free and self-governing societies.

That convergence should concern every government represented in this room. These terrorists understand an enduring truth: societies are rarely subverted from afar until they have first been weakened from within. So as it tears at the social fabric that allows our societies to function, left-wing terrorism is the visible manifestation of a much broader and more insidious effort to undermine the philosophies that built Western civilization and sustain all we hold dear.

Some of these activities are overt: bombings, assassinations, and organized violence in our streets. Others are quieter campaigns to suppress speech, intimidate political opposition, and sabotage our national institutions.

Of course, whatever form they take, none of these attacks sustain themselves. Violence requires money, channels through which funding can move, and institutions behind which it can hide. Increasingly, legitimate nonprofit and charitable structures are being exploited as a mechanism to conceal the movement of illicit funds to support political terrorism.

For Treasury, the application of our authorities to combat these networks represents the natural evolution of our mission. Through our Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and IRS-CI we have spent decades developing the world’s most sophisticated financial counterterrorism capabilities. And we are now mobilizing some of the same tools that we have deployed against terrorists abroad to confront this emerging threat here in the homeland. Like every form of illicit finance, these networks rely on the global financial system. It is our mandate to deny terrorist groups access to those channels.

Now, we think of nonprofits and charities as good, altruistic organizations. Most of them are. We think that they represent the very best of civil society. Many of them do.

But the very qualities that make these institutions worthy of the public’s trust can also make them appealing to those who endeavor to exploit it.

At President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance.

We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, which charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign-influence activity, and how those entrusted with stewardship of these organizations have instead enabled violence. Where the evidence leads, we will not hesitate to follow. And, of course, we will hold these organizations’ officers and directors accountable, just as financial institutions must know their clients; they must know their grantees.

That work is well underway. In the fall, the United States designated four far-left Antifa extremist groups abroad as foreign terrorist organizations, denying them access to the U.S. financial system and depriving them of resources they need to carry out attacks. Meanwhile, in this Administration alone, OFAC has also sanctioned seventeen sham charities and non-profit organizations for funding Hamas’s terrorist activities and operations.

As Treasury continues to map and disrupt the flow of funding that enables these entities to operate, no terror organization should delude itself into the belief that its financing lies beyond our reach. No facilitator should assume that anonymity confers impunity. And no jurisdiction should expect to enable or harbor these activities without consequence.

To be clear, in the fight against domestic terrorism, we must respect the constitutional rights of freedom of speech, association, and assembly of all Americans. As such, it is important to emphasize that Treasury will act based on suspected unlawful conduct by these terror organizations—not because of their beliefs or ideologies.

At Treasury, this work is mission critical. But we cannot do it alone. The threat is transnational. Our response must be no less so. Indeed, our cooperation must be as disciplined as the networks we seek to dismantle.

The global financial system is one of the great achievements of the modern world. And we must never allow it to become a sanctuary for those who seek to subvert it.

So, on behalf of the United States Treasury, let there be no uncertainty about the work before us and the resolve with which we will undertake it.

We will identify illicit funding, however artfully it is concealed. We will dismantle the networks that sustain political terrorism, however respectable their fronts. We will pursue those who enable political violence, however distant their jurisdictions. And we will deepen our collaboration with every nation represented in this room, for as long as this work requires.

That is our commitment. We ask that you make it yours, too.

The speech, of course, was tailored to dealing with NGO financing of political terrorism. But, I’m confident Bessent wasn’t just talking about funding of Hamas and similar entities. We know George Soros and his son Alex have been funding all sorts of nefarious activities, and other NGOs have funded radical environmentalism. We’ve documented that over and over and over again (e.g., Aileen Getty and Rory Kennedy).

It looks like Bessent is serious about all this. His remark about NGOs knowing their grantees indicates he knows exactly what’s taking place as one NGO funds another, which, in turn, funds yet another, sometimes down to 4-5 levels where the money lands in the hands of extremists playing with both politics and violence. He knows and he has grit. I’m hopeful.

#ScottBessent #NGOs #Trump #Treasury #TaxExemption #Abuse

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The Climate Majority Project (CMP) is predicated on a shaky premise:

Most people sense that the planet is in deep trouble and want to do something. Welcome to the climate majority.

Climate majority? Only from polls where responders can claim to worry without having to pay for climate action–and not be told that their collective actions will not affect local or global climate for decades, if ever. The pollsters might as well ask: “Do you want more or less extreme weather?” … “Do you want more or less safety?” The fix is in.

AMP is dedicated to “effective, coordinated climate action by a broad-based coalition of citizens; from grassroots initiatives to high-level policy.”

Through grassroots and policy level organising with communities, schools [“Climate Courage Schools”] and businesses [“Regulate Us. Better.”], we are working to turn that silent majority into a self-aware one — one that is able to slow climate breakdown and prepare for the impacts that are already underway.

Freak Out?

The CMP recently stated that “Most climate scientists are quietly freaking out,”

A 2021 anonymous poll by Nature found that the vast majority of climate scientists don’t believe humanity will limit warming to 1.5°C. In fact, 60% expected temperatures to rise beyond 3.0°C — levels that mean a high risk of triggering “hothouse Earth” conditions. So it comes with no surprise that 82% of those same scientists expected to see catastrophic impacts to our civilisation in their own lifetimes. Yet almost none were saying so publicly.

Enter a new term, scientific reticence, “when being too cautious puts us at risk.”

This kind of silence has a name. James Hansen — the godfather of climate science — calls it “scientific reticence”: scientists’ tendency to hold back from stating their conclusions in full. There’s also a communication problem baked into scientific culture: researchers are trained to lead with uncertainty, even when the evidence is overwhelming. A finding with 90–95% confidence is remarkably strong but will often be communicated with ifs and buts and doubt – every caveat chips away at the message, and the public often walks away hearing cool uncertainty rather than alarm.

“Other people are waiting on scientists to take bold action on climate,” the Climate Majority Project continues.

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That reticence has real consequences. Business leaders, policymakers, and civil servants often rely on scientific consensus to justify urgent action. When scientists won’t spell out how bad things truly are, it quietly removes the permission others feel they need to sound the alarm themselves.

Strange. The IPCC and mainstream media live off the “consensus” argument. And critics have responded that science is not consensus, and climate models are not science. Academic climate scientists are all-in with alarmism to demonstrate their importance as “experts” and to keep the government money flowing. Never mind Climategate or RCP 8.5. Just keep alarming and don’t dare get skeptical. The benefits of anthropogenic climate change? Don’t go there; let the skeptics do that and stick to the consensus meme.

Back to the upside down Climate Majority Project:

This matters more than it might seem. Research on climate communication consistently finds that powerful people respond strongly to direct, negative facts — more than to hopeful messaging. Frank, emotionally honest speech from scientists could itself become a tipping point, particularly when paired with visible public support for action.

Again, this seems opposite of the real world. The “negative facts” is the neo-Malthusian narrative since Paul Ehrlich in the 1960s. Doom fatigue set in a long time ago. The latest iteration–the European heat waves this summer–is not demonstrative because it is localized.

Gotta fundraise. Can’t be too negative. There is hope….

There are signs the taboo is lifting. Hansen was among the first prominent scientists to say plainly that mainstream climate action has failed. Since then, a Guardian poll of scientists, Bill McGuire’s book Hothouse Earth, and a petition signed by 1,500 climate scientists have all declared the 1.5°C target effectively dead.

Greater scientific openness could be a catalyst — for coalition-building, for mobilisation, and for giving people permission to speak honestly about what the evidence actually shows. If you are a scientist, or know a scientist, forward this message along. One of the positive things about silent majorities is that sharing messages such as this one can actually make a difference.

The Climate (non)Majority Project ends:

If you know a scientist, share this with them. One of the hopeful things about silent majorities is that the more we become aware of all the others who share our concerns, the more we can build the feeling of being part of a movement large enough to make a difference.

Or do the opposite. Say “enough” to the United Nations/IPCC/COP process. Call off the CO2 fests. Shift from mitigation (fail) to adaptation. Demote government, promote realism and civil society. And practice social justice with the new imperative: First, do no harm. That starts and ends with energy prices–no climate premium, please.

#MasterResource #Bradley #ClimateMajorityProject #UN #IPCC #CO2

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What would Americans gain from eliminating every ton of carbon dioxide emitted from the use of fossil fuels in the United States? The answer, even accepting unfounded assumptions that make the so-called benefit look as large as possible, is nothing.

The global campaign against carbon dioxide (CO₂) rests on a promise that has never been audited. Governments around the world have instituted levies, cap-and-trade markets, fuel standards, and subsidies on the unexamined premise that national sacrifice – to the point of economic destruction – would avoid calamitous warming.

Washington signed on to the premise twice. The Obama administration delivered the Clean Power Plan and a Paris pledge to cut emissions more than 25% below 2005 levels. The Biden administration made a fiscal commitment that Congress put at $391 billion in the climate provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Add rules for tailpipes and power plant exhausts, appliance standards, and fuel mandates, and Americans are financing the largest reordering of an energy system in history.

You were told this would help the planet. Nobody said by how much.

Demolishing Economies of 50 States for Zero Gain

A report by Advancing American Freedom’s Kevin Dayaratna, “Fifty States, Virtually No Impact,” puts the question through computer models emulating alarmist climate simulations of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In an accommodation to the IPCC’s far-fetched apocalyptic claims, the analysis assumes the fantasy that cuts in greenhouse gas emissions began in 2020 and became permanent. Disputed technical assumptions of the IPCC were included as well.

Even so, Dayaratna found that the amount of global warming avoided by elimination of U.S. CO₂ emissions would be about 0.11 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 0.24 degrees Celsius by 2100. The report ranks the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia according to their theoretical warming potential, showing differences of tiny fractions of a degree. Of course, it is ludicrous to think that such small differentials could be predicted decades in advance when the weekend’s weather forecast often is wrong.

The report’s overarching message is that a state legislator voting for U.N.-style climate policies would impose catastrophic economic costs on constituents in exchange for a temperature reduction that cannot be observed or felt.

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Real Physics Exposes Pseudoscientific Absurdities

To add to the absurdity, every figure in the Dayaratna analysis assumes the U.N. IPCC’s warming analysis is sound. Strip away the pseudoscientific assumptions and the collapse of the case for favored climate programs compounds. Real-world physics tells a completely different story.

Greenhouse gases, including CO₂, exhibit diminishing returns in their warming effect as atmospheric concentrations rise. At current levels, the infrared absorption bands for CO₂ are already largely saturated, meaning additional molecules contribute progressively less to warming. Doubling CO₂ from today’s 420 parts per million translates to a trivial temperature increase of less than 1 degree Celsius.

Using more realistic assumptions, the amount of warming averted by 2050 would be 0.0084 degrees Celsius (instead of 0.11 degrees) if U.S. emissions were eliminated. Cutting out all global emissions would avoid only 0.070 degrees Celsius of warming, again assuming that any of this can be predicted at all.

Natural, Beneficial Warming

In 2025 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. William Happer, professor of physics emeritus at Princeton University, called the assertions of the IPCC “badly flawed science.” First, he said, greenhouse gases from the Industrial Revolution to the present have not caused catastrophic warming, extreme weather, or harm; saturation ensures their future impact will be even smaller. Second, most observed warming since 1750 reflects natural recovery from the Little Ice Age, with greenhouse gases contributing only a fraction.

The EPA, Happer said, should “inform the public of the real science that increasing carbon dioxide and other (greenhouse gas) emissions, and increasing the use of fossil fuels will benefit people worldwide with more food and cheap energy, with only a trivial effect on temperature and extreme weather.”

So, the return on trillions in subsidies, costs of regulatory compliance, higher electricity prices, and lost economic growth is hypothetical, minuscule temperature changes that mean nothing.

Policymakers should weigh their energy decisions accordingly, prioritizing affordable and reliable energy supplies over the vacuous gestures of an antihuman ideology.

Originally published at American Thinker, September 1, 2026.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.

Tags: #UnitedStates #CO2 #EPA #GreenEnergy #IPCC #UN #VijayJayaraj

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In January, I warned that the PJM power problem was no longer abstract, citing a then-recent capacity auction clearing 6,600 megawatts short of what the grid operator said it needed. I argued then, as many in the industry did, that the fix was new generation and that Pennsylvania, historically a net power producer, was positioned to supply it. But concerns around price caps, PJM’s queue process, regulation, and other costs had developers looking elsewhere.

PJM’s 2025 Reliability Resource Initiative (RRI) was designed to jumpstart new builds by helping ease the queue problems, and conceptually, it was promising. When PJM made its selections, Pennsylvania accounted for just 342 MW of proposed new gas capacity under RRI: far behind Ohio and Virginia, and barely ahead of New Jersey.

Seven months later, the signal has flipped. Developers are answering, and Pennsylvania is where a disproportionate share of them want to build.

PJM announced on Aug. 3 that 715 new generation projects, representing 201.5 gigawatts of nameplate capacity, qualified for study under Cycle 1 of its reformed interconnection process. That process was built to fix a queue that clogged for years with speculative projects that never got built. By PJM’s own accounting, the grid operator has processed 294 GW of projects since 2020 but cleared interconnection agreements for just 103 GW of it.

Counting the 26 GW that signed agreements and then pulled out anyway, roughly 74% of everything studied never made it through. This time, developers had to show up with real financial commitments and site control before being let into the study. Of 811 applications submitted by the April deadline, 715 passed that screen. The projects that cleared are also far larger: roughly 280 MW apiece against about 60 MW in the 2022 queue.

These projects still have to clear a multiphase study process, and a quick scan of the list makes clear they’ll be competing for the same existing and proposed infrastructure. Even so, the trend line is the right one.

What passed matters more than how many did. Natural gas led every fuel type by capacity: 147 projects, 99.8 GW, more than storage (314 projects, 60 GW) and nuclear (24 projects, 17.3 GW) combined. And Pennsylvania led every state in PJM’s footprint of 13 states and the District of Columbia, with 39.8 GW of proposed new generation. For someone who built a career in Pennsylvania energy, that’s a full reversal from January, and a world away from last year’s RRI numbers.

Now, Cycle 1 projects are years from producing a megawatt. The shortage is still a concern in the short term, and PJM is trying to fast-track its way through part of it. On July 31, it opened its Expedited Interconnection Track (EIT), which is a temporary, state-sponsored fast lane for large projects, 250 MW or more, that can be in service within three years and have a state authority backing their siting.

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PJM will take up to 10 of these a year through 2027, targeting signed interconnection agreements within 10 months instead of the usual multi-year grind. Functionally, it’s a more targeted descendant of RRI: identify the projects that matter most for reliability and clear a faster, more certain path for them, without PJM steering winners by technology or price.

The near-term math, meanwhile, has not improved. On July 14, PJM’s capacity auction for the 2028/2029 delivery year secured 138,318 megawatts of unforced capacity and cleared at the FERC-approved cap of $325 per megawatt-day, the third consecutive auction to hit its cap. It also came in 6,831 MW short of the region’s reliability requirement, a wider gap than the one I wrote about in January.

PJM’s answer is a one-time backstop: on July 31, it asked FERC to approve a Reliability Backstop Procurement targeting that shortfall, with buying set to begin Sept. 30, alongside an Interim Resource Adequacy Service that would let large loads connect ahead of new supply if they agree to curtail under defined conditions.

None of this means January’s shortfall is solved. A full queue is not steel in the ground, and PJM’s data shows a wide gap between signed agreements and plants that get built. But the grid was warning Pennsylvania in January, and seven months later developers are answering with more proposed gas capacity than any other state in the region. Whether they get built depends on whether Pennsylvania keeps its permitting, local siting, and infrastructure competitive, or lets the friction that limited its RRI participation reassert itself.

Author’s note on the withdrawal-rate math: PJM’s 74% counts the 191 GW that never reached an interconnection agreement plus the 26 GW that signed and then withdrew, for 217 GW of withdrawals against 294 GW studied since 2020. Figures from PJM Inside Lines, March 2026.

William desRosiers is a Texas-based energy and government affairs professional who built his career in Pennsylvania and has long supported energy, education, workforce, historic preservation, and community initiatives across the Commonwealth. The views expressed are his own.

#Pennsylvania #EnergyReliability #NaturalGas #desRosiers #Energy #EnergySecurity #MarcellusShale #PJM

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Snow tires, mud tires, all-terrain tires — gone? California’s new efficiency standard could wipe out most of the tires on the market by 2033.

Marc Morano from ClimateDepot.com joins Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to explain the rule, the backlash from tire makers, and why this fight could spread far beyond California.

[SADLER] What is an inefficient tire? An inefficient tire to me is one that a tire that doesn’t roll.

[MORANO] That’s right. And all tires roll. No, what this is is they’re considering tires that are inefficient, meaning not aerodynamic enough, not fuel-mileage conscious enough. Doesn’t meet their specific requirements for carbon dioxide reduction. Their goal is to remove the equivalent of almost half a million cars off the road, you know, equivalent in CO2 reductions. That’s what’s going on behind this energy efficiency.

So when they say a noncompliant tire, say you got one from the factory that was just sort of your boring middle-of-the-road tire and you want to upgrade. So you have an SUV you want to upgrade to maybe a mud tire or an aggressive all-terrain. Well, hey. That’s not very good with resistance. That’s going to cause a lot more resistance with the road, i.e. more traction in that case, or even people who live in the mountains want snow tires. All sorts of specialty tires are going to be impacted.

And the tire manufacturers themselves say 70% of the tires currently sold in California may not be legal to be sold by the time this is fully implemented. That’s how insane this is. So it’s climate-focused, climate-motivated, and it’s unelected bean counters in California coming after just the next thing. I mean, they’ve already come after the pizza ovens, the gas stoves, the dishwashers, the washing machines, the dryers, the ceiling fans, gas-powered cars. Why not add tires to that list?

[SADLER] So what has been the response from the tire industry? Let’s say Goodyear, Bridgestone, Michelin, because it seems like they’re going to have to change their business model to deal with California. California has a huge economy; a lot of tires are sold in the state of California. What is the industry’s response, as well as the car dealerships and the car manufacturers, let’s say Ford?

[MORANO] Well, I can say no one likes this, and they’ve all been pushing hard against it. Dunlop Tire, Goodyear, they’re actually saying, as I said, 70% of the tires won’t be legal to be sold. And this is a huge business model problem. And California knows it. California dreaming is that they set environment, energy, climate policy for the rest of the country. And for years, they had that sort of terrorist role to be able to do that with the — starting with the California Air Resources Board — this is back now, and I think it was 2021 maybe, where they actually did the EV mandate and they started the slow gas-powered car ban.

And their goal was to force the auto manufacturers to follow, because California is such a big market. And then you add to that, you have other insane states that will likely follow, including Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York. A lot of these blue states will follow whatever. I live in Virginia and we have a law on the books that says whatever California does, Virginia will follow. So we had the California gas-powered car ban, EV mandate on our books just because we were blindly following California. It’s nuts.

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And so this is huge. The tire manufacturers see what’s coming. What it really means, at least in the short term, is people leaving California to cross state lines to buy tires. Just like they’re probably buying tobacco, fireworks, gas, stoves- who knows what else they have to buy in California. They’re going to have to cross over. Manufacturers are sounding a big warning on this, but this is California. Nothing usually deters them, except that the Trump administration was able to reverse the gas-powered car ban. And that took federal statutes. That took court cases. It took years. California is like — I want to say environmental terrorist, but they’re like an economic terrorist when it comes to this. They can do a lot of damage. Damage lasts for years. It takes a lot of years to overdo it.

[SADLER] When does this ban go into effect? I read it, it’s a two-phase ban. And is there any way to reverse it before it does go into effect?

[MORANO] Well, in terms of reversing, yes. This is five unelected board members of the California Energy Commission, and it was a unanimous vote. And so they have to have the efficiency standard in place by — for original equipment tire replacement — by 2033, and the automakers are saying that by that point, you know, especially the way these bureaucrats — not even the way something’s written or the initial ruling — it’s actually how it’s going to be interpreted, and then how it makes economic sense to react to it.

So even if a bureaucrat lays out, well, here’s all you have to do: follow these 14 steps and you can still sell that tire, a tire manufacturer is going to look at that and say, that’s insane, I’ll never do it, we’re just not going to sell that tire there. And that’s the reality of it. The unelected bureaucrats don’t ever see that part of it. They just say, well, I just follow these 18 point plan and they can do it. No, well, no company will do that if the 18-point plan is going to cost more and not be even remotely cost-effective. They’ll just say, not worth it, not going to happen. And that’s what’s going to end up happening to the California consumer.

This article originally appeared at The Washington Times.

#California #Climate #Tires #ClimateChange

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In yet another devastating development for the Rockefeller-backed campaign targeting the American energy industry, a federal judge ruled on Monday that the state of New York cannot force energy companies to pay a $75 billion retroactive fee for global greenhouse gas emissions under its so-called Climate Change Superfund Act.

Chief Judge Brenda Sannes of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted summary judgment to the coalition of 22 states and business groups challenging the 2024 law in West Virginia v. James, concluding that New York’s sweeping scheme is preempted by federal law and intrudes on the federal government’s authority over foreign affairs.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Act in December 2024, months after Vermont enacted the country’s first such law. It imposes strict liability, “without regard to fault,” on companies the state deems responsible for more than one billion tons of emissions from fossil fuel extraction and crude oil refining worldwide between 2000 and 2024.

The ruling delivers a striking blow to the Rockefeller-born effort to move the climate liability campaign from courtrooms into state legislatures after repeated legal setbacks, especially as those cases face an uncertain future at the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming term.

New Label, Same Legal Problem

At the center of Judge Sannes’ ruling is the Second Circuit’s 2021 rejection of New York City’s (first) climate lawsuit, yet state legislators in Albany passed a statute doing the same thing anyway.

Judge Sannes saw right through it:

“there is very little daylight left to distinguish the Climate Act from the common-law claims in City of New York.”

New York argued its Climate Change Superfund Act was different because the legislature – rather than a court applying common law – created the liability scheme, and because the Act seeks compensation for past emissions rather than directly ordering companies to reduce future emissions. The court rejected those distinctions:

“It makes no difference that the obligation to pay compensation stems from a past harm, because the activity that is subject to the compensation scheme—domestic greenhouse gas emissions—is ‘potentially subject to the exclusive federal regulatory scheme.’”

…“The Climate Act is not, as New York contends, an ‘exercise of traditional state responsibility,’ … and it therefore is not ‘presumptively competent to address issues that demand a unified federal standard.’”

As EID Climate warned when West Virginia sued, the Act is climate litigation rewritten as legislation, and the sponsors never hid it. Their October 2023 memo used Richard Heede’s activist attribution research to list the 38 companies that New York targeted, and lead sponsor State Sen. Liz Krueger bragged that after courts dismissed climate lawsuits, the legislature had “accepted the invitation.”

The court also noted that the Clean Air Act does not authorize New York’s scheme, and the foreign affairs doctrine independently bars any cost recovery demand against a foreign producer. Judge Sannes concluded that “the Climate Act is ‘simply beyond the limits of state law,’” and that “it is precisely because the Climate Act operates within an area of law ‘in which the federal interest is so dominant’ that it cannot be enforced.”

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What It Means for Vermont, the Copycats, and Ongoing Litigation

Vermont should pay attention. Its first-in-the-nation law faces suits from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, API, two dozen intervening states, and the U.S. Justice Department. Judge Mary Kay Lanthier heard arguments in Rutland on March 30 and has yet to rule. DOJ, suing under President Trump’s April 2025 executive order on state energy overreach, urged the court to “end Vermont’s lawless experiment.”

Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson argued that “Like New York, Vermont is usurping the federal government’s exclusive authority over nationwide and global greenhouse gas emissions.” DOJ now has a district court decision saying exactly that.

Statehouses are already heading for the exits: copycat superfund bills failed in eight of the 12 states that took them up in 2026, three more are stalled, and Maine only passed a study.

Some legislatures saw this coming. Massachusetts Rep. Steven Owens, who has sponsored a climate superfund bill multiples times, told Bloomberg Law in December that colleagues were hesitant to get ahead of the active litigation and that the state’s path forward was “to watch what’s happening with New York and Vermont.” Maine and Maryland settled for study bills, and New Jersey’s bill stalled before summer recess as Trenton watched the New York case. The lawmakers who waited now have their answer, and it is the opposite of what they were expecting.

The ground is shifting under the broader campaign as well. In March, Maryland’s highest court tossed three local governments’ climate lawsuits, holding that “no amount of creative pleading” could disguise an effort to use state law to regulate global conduct.

What It Means: New York Decision Looms Over Boulder

The New York law’s international reach, which ultimately proved fatal, closely parallels Boulder’s climate lawsuit now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Like the superfund law, Boulder’s public nuisance case seeks damages attributable to the production and sale of fossil fuels worldwide. Judge Sannes stated “it is with little difficulty” that the Superfund law intruded into the field of foreign affairs, writing it would “sow confusion,” interfere with the political branches, and complicate the federal government’s approach to international climate policy.

Those concerns apply just as directly to Boulder and similar climate suits, since allowing individual cities and states to impose retroactive climate assessments, whether framed as superfund taxes or damages over global emissions, would subject energy producers to the very liability New York deemed an intrusion on federal authority over foreign relations.

Bottom Line: This ruling cements New York’s status as the graveyard for the Rockefeller climate campaign. In 2019, the New York Attorney General lost its climate lawsuit, and was followed by New York City losing two separate climate cases in 2021and 2025.

Relabeling climate litigation as a “superfund” does not make it constitutional. New York wrote a statute to accomplish what the Second Circuit told New York City it could not do, and the statute met the same end. Every legislature weighing a copycat bill, and every court weighing Vermont’s law, now has a 63-page answer.

The court ordered a status report by September 14 on how the case proceeds. Attorney General Letitia James can appeal, to the same Second Circuit that wrote the precedent that doomed this law.

#EIDclimate #Climate #ClimateChange #KyleKohli #EnergyInDepth #ClimateLawfare #NGOs #NewYork #ClimateSuperfund #CourtRuling #FederalCourt

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Enjoy!

#BarryCrampton #EVs #UK #SafetyIssues #Risk #Mitigation

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The following post is borrowed from Californians for Energy and Water Abundance, a project of the California Policy Center.

The Statistical Review of World Energy is arguably the most authoritative and comprehensive source publicly available for national and global energy statistics. And a funny thing happened between the report issued in 2024 and the report issued in 2025. “Renewables” as a percent of total energy consumed in 2023 was quietly lowered from 9.3 in the U.S. and 8.2 worldwide to only 5.9 and 5.2 percent, respectively (each edition shows reports the most recent two years of data).

This is because in 2025, the energy economists who compile this data finally discontinued the practice of grossing up what “non-combustible” energy sources actually produced. The reporting used to reflect how much more energy input would have been required if that same energy were to come from less efficiently converted combustible fuel. Now at last, they just report how much energy these sources actually generated.

With the 2026 edition released and continuing this new and more accurate reporting method, the percentage of total raw energy consumed worldwide – not including the United States – in the form of oil, natural gas, and coal was 87 percent; in the U.S. it was 83 percent. There are plenty of gigantic nuances to this story, starting with how this compares to 25 years ago.

Back in 2000, when the Statistical Review normalized units of energy into “MTOE” (million tons of oil equivalents), fossil fuel represented 89 percent of U.S. raw energy inputs. In the rest of the world, not including the U.S., fossil fuel delivered 86 percent of raw energy inputs – i.e., its share of total energy is actually slightly greater today than it was 25 years ago.

If you consider absolute quantities of energy, now reported in exajoules, or EJs, there has been an astonishing expansion of fossil fuel use worldwide in the last quarter century. Oil production is up 50 percent from 110 EJs to 165 EJs. Natural gas is up 79 percent from 66 EJs to 118 EJs, and coal is up 127 percent from 69 EJs in 2000 to 157 EJs in 2025.

How does the growth in renewables – biomass, biofuel, geothermal, solar, and wind – compare?

In 2000, the role of renewables was so negligible they weren’t tracked. But by 2025 total production has risen to 5.9 EJs in the U.S., or 6.3 percent of all energy; In the rest of the world another 29.6 EJs were produced, representing 5.8 percent of all energy. But can renewables increase to the point where they will replace fossil fuel?

To answer this, set aside the fact that energy is perfectly correlated with prosperity, and that per capita GDP in the U.S. is 3.6 times greater than in the rest of the world, or that per capita energy consumption in the U.S. is 4.3 times greater than in the rest of the world.

After all, between 2000 and 2025, even though U.S. population grew from 282 million to 343 million, and U.S. GDP in inflation adjusted dollars nearly doubled from $13.9 trillion to over $24.1 trillion, total energy consumption actually dropped slightly, from 96 EJs to 88 EJs. Maybe the vast improvements in energy efficiency achieved in the U.S. since 2000 can continue, and be extended to everywhere else on earth. This is a huge assumption.

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So just to maintain global energy production at 600 EJs per year, can the 518 EJs of energy produced in 2025 from oil, natural gas, and coal be replaced by renewables, or, more broadly speaking, by all “non-combustibles” which would add nuclear and hydroelectric?

To do this, we can rule out biomass, biofuel, and hydroelectric. These sources of energy are already maxed and can only deliver incremental increases. Wind energy is a resource hog, a visual and auditory nuisance, and it wreaks havoc on the local environment. Even if it could grow exponentially, it would come at an awful cost.

Nuclear power, currently responsible for 5 percent of global energy, is a wild card, as is geothermal and its emerging descendant, enhanced geothermal. And there are other emerging technologies that may be game changers including advanced nuclear fission, artificial photosynthesis, space-based power, and fusion. But what about solar energy?

It’s important to take a good look at this, because California is relying on solar and battery installations as the foundation of its electrification, net-zero strategy. And in a state as wealthy and as sunny as California, solar can go a long way toward fulfilling those objectives. But it would be cavalier to extrapolate California’s prospects to the entire world. The statistics are unequivocal and daunting.

The growth in solar (photovoltaic) electricity has been exponential. Worldwide photovoltaic output – converting terawatt-hours to exajoules – increased from 1.76 EJs in 2024 to 2.32 in 2025. Photovoltaic energy output is eleven times greater today than it was only ten years ago. But do we have the resources to accommodate another few decades of exponential growth?

Equally pertinent, total global battery storage capacity despite 60 percent per year growth over the past ten years, is still as of 2025 only equal to 1.2 terawatt-hours (ref. page 65 in the 2026 Statistical Review, “Grid-scale battery energy storage systems”). In the context of world energy, that’s nothing. It takes 278 terawatt-hours to equal one exajoule. It’s worth reflecting on this fact.

It means that even if worldwide photovoltaic output increased by another two orders of magnitude, because it would take that much to even begin to make a replacement level contribution to global energy production, we would also have to increase our electricity storage capacity by at least four orders of magnitude from what it is today (current worldwide storage capacity times ten-thousand still only equals 45 exajoules). Notice those battery farms going in all over?

Imagine 10,000 of them where one of them now stands. That’s what it will take, at a minimum, if the world’s energy economy electrifies, and does so while relying on intermittent energy sources. Does the earth have the resources to sustain such growth, and what would be the environmental impact?

These are questions California’s policymakers must answer if they are to credibly advocate, much less mandate, a net-zero future. Policies designed to rapidly phase out fossil fuels are based on wishful thinking, and everyone familiar with basic energy statistics knows this. If California is to set an example to the world, it would be more productive if it sets an example the rest of the world is willing and able to follow.

Californians for Energy and Water Abundance, a project of California Policy Center, was launched to build a coalition committed to abundance-oriented policies in California. The coalition aims to promote these solutions to the public and policymakers, and develop sample legislation to unlock California’s energy and water potential to benefit all Californians.

Edward Ring is the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013. Ring is the author of several books, including The Abundance Choice – Our Fight for More Water in California (2022), and The Analyst’s Cookbook: Making the Case for Abundance Using Numbers(2026).

#California #Energy #Water #Abundance #Power #CaliforniaPowerCenter #NetZero

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The Biden Administration enacted hundreds of punitive actions against the domestic oil and gas industry. The Trump Administration has worked to reverse this overreach. The latest reversal concerns a Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to lower statewide bonding on oil and gas leases from $500,000 to $25,000.

In protest, the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) and other left-of-center environmental organizations claim that companies will be incited to abandon wells and stick taxpayers with the cleanup bill. EEN misleadingly argues that “asking companies to cover their own cleanup costs is not a regulatory burden….”

To clarify, the BLM is proposing to shift the state bonding minimums back to what they were prior to 2024, consistent with the White House’s intent to reduce regulatory barriers to energy production. The higher minimums imposed in 2024 have not taken effect yet, as the BLM had extended the phase-in date to June of 2027.

Analysis

While it is appropriate that taxpayers not be on the hook for any company’s liabilities, the EEN’s complaint here is misleading. Companies will still be liable for their own cleanup costs if the bonding requirements revert to the pre-2024 level. The oil or gas well operator remains responsible for plugging wells and restoring the surface under the Mineral Leasing Act. If the operator does not comply with reclamation requirements, the lease can be cancelled, and other punitive actions can be taken.

Additionally, as the BLM explained, the lower bond minimums do not mean that the operator is not being required to provide adequate protection for the taxpayers. The bureau can increase the bond amount on a case-by-case basis, as when companies are “at-risk.” It can also “impose more stringent interim and final reclamation requirements, implement additional bond reviews, and develop other measures to limit the risk to the U.S. taxpayer from a lessee failing to meet its reclamation obligations.”

Will the BLM actually take these actions? A 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report stated that the BLM had not been properly using its discretion to secure larger bonds where the risks justified doing so—a point which opponents of the lower bond minimums have emphasized.

But in 2024, the BLM addressed this problem with Instruction Memorandum IM2024-014, which strengthened the review process for setting bonds to help ensure that higher-risk operators pay accordingly. The BLM also indicated in its proposal this year that it is “contemplating re-instating nationwide bonds,” which the 2024 bond increase rule had eliminated.

Taking all of this into consideration, the fact that the proposed statewide minimum bonding requirements “fall far below the BLM’s own estimated cost of $35,000 to $200,000 to decommission wells” is not particularly relevant, though a superficial comparison with the lower bond minimum might cause alarm among those who do not investigate further.

The BLM can raise bonding requirements where necessary—especially since its IM2024-14 revisions—and has other means by which to induce compliance and protect Americans from the costs of unplugged and abandoned wells. The large majority of oil and gas well operators are responsible, and it makes no sense to treat them all as though they were reckless and financially unstable. Matching the bond requirement to the risk is better stewardship than a policy that ignores differences across firms and well characteristics.

Imposing high bonding requirements across the board does little to protect taxpayers or the environment and ties up capital in unproductive ways. In fact, as some states have ratcheted up financial assurance regulations, and as capital market trends have increased costs, some operators have been unable to cope. Ironically, this can make the well abandonment problem worse—a foretaste of what could come if higher federal minimums come into force.

A group of western oil and gas producers pointed out the unintended consequences: “Financial assurance pressures increase bankruptcy and/or premature well abandonment, orphaning legacy assets without adequate plugging and reclamation funding. Increased financial assurance requirements are intended to prevent orphaned wells, but the reverse is occurring; such requirements are increasing the number of wells being orphaned.” Lower bonding requirements should avoid these problems, and would particularly help smaller independent operators, who face even higher burdens if the 2024 rule phases in next year.

For consumers, the effect of higher bond minimums is to increase the expense of producing energy at a time when international conflict has already driven up prices significantly. Since lower-income Americans face comparatively higher budget strains from higher energy prices, and any increased burden on taxpayers (which should be minimal) would fall disproportionately on higher-income Americans who pay the vast majority of federal income taxes, it is even more difficult to understand objections from those who profess to care for the poor.

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Politics or Market Process

An underlying problem here is common to any government ownership and management—the problem of determining the best use of a resource through political means. How does a bureaucracy such as the Bureau of Land Management determine the best use of land and its mineral resources amid the pressures of interest groups and the noise of public comments?

Without a market process through which energy users, farmers and ranchers, wildlife lovers, industries, and home buyers reveal the strength of their preferences for different uses of land, governments will have no way to find that “best use,” or to discover the appropriate financial terms to impose on users of the land. Instead, disputes over bonding requirements, oil and gas leasing revenues, environmental conservation, and the like will be settled through fractious interest group politics and alarmist rhetoric. A better way is to privatize the mineral rights to public lands and the surface land as well, a subject for another day.

Editor’s Note: The Biden puppeteers, while attacking oil and gas with excessive bonding requirements, were, according to Perplexity, “reducing the financial and administrative barriers to putting large solar and wind facilities on BLM land—especially by slashing fees, improving application procedures, and expanding the mapped universe of lands available for solar consideration.”

Timothy D. Terrell (terrelltd@wofford.edu) is T.B. Stackhouse Professor of economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC, and is a senior fellow at the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and at the Mises Institute.

#Bonding #MasterResource #Biden #Trump #BLM #Wells #Oil #NaturalGas #Solar #Wind

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Drive from Buffalo into Genesee County and you will pass fields that have grown corn and soybeans for generations. Soon, thousands of those acres will be covered by steel and glass. New York State is forcing industrial-scale solar plants onto rural communities that never asked for them, and the people who live there are discovering just how little their voice counts when a governor decides differently.

The Mandate Behind the Mess

New York is tearing up rural communities, wiping out wildlife sanctuaries, and burying prime agricultural soil under solar installation in the name of green energy. The root of this campaign is New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) of 2019, which demands that renewable sources supply 70% of the state’s electricity, that greenhouse gas emissions fall 40% below 1990 levels, and that the state build at least 3,000 megawatts of storage.

The footprint of the 18 solar power plants is staggering. The Cider Solar Farm in Genesee County will cover 4,000 acres, and the Ridge View Solar Farm in Niagara County will take another 2,000. Both were pushed through over the strong objections of the people who farm.

Destroy Wildlife and Redact Key Information

What becomes of the animals living where these panels will sit? The Fort Edward project targets land inside a Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) grassland and bird sanctuary. DEC documents describe the area as critical for breeding grassland birds and wintering raptors.

The site hosts the short-eared owl, a bird so rare that the Grassland Bird Trust counts fewer than 50 breeding pairs in New York. The northern harrier, listed as threatened, hunts there. Fifteen species of reptiles and amphibians already of concern to biologists will lose their homes. These are key indicator species wildlife specialists monitor to judge ecosystem health.

You would expect a state that prides itself on environmental leadership to publish this information without hesitation. Instead, residents who filed Freedom of Information requests for an agency report on the Fort Edward site received a document so heavily blacked out that one local compared it to the redactions in the Epstein files. Why does a government agency need to hide a solar project’s effect on endangered owls?

Governor Kathy Hochul created the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission specifically to override the objections of the towns and counties in its path. Critics say the agency exists to cut through red tape, sideline environmental review, and neutralize local pushback so projects move forward regardless of what residents want. That is silencing the communities the state claims to be protecting.

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A Federal Reckoning Arrives

By 2026, even New York’s own climate agenda had begun to buckle under the weight of its contradictions, forcing Governor Hochul into a March recalibration of the CLCPA that acknowledged the complaints of rural communities.

Then came a rebuke from Washington. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, and Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler jointly challenged New York’s approval of solar projects on productive farmland, criticizing the state for not applying federal standards in evaluating its farmland.

And here is the contradiction that should embarrass every official who signed off on the policy. Hochul announced a moratorium of up to a year on new data centers that draw more than 50 megawatts, which typically occupy 15 to 40 acres. Meanwhile, New York has already parked solar complexes on approximately 11,000 acres of federally certified prime farmland and wildlife habitats.

Centuries ago, South American civilizations offered land, crops, and sometimes human lives to appease gods they believed controlled the climate. New York has updated the ritual for a modern audience. It has built altars of solar farms and appointed a priesthood of bureaucrats who redact the evidence of their policies’ destruction.

A government convinced it can control the climate by conquering the countryside is not practicing science. It is imposing an ideology on a citizenry that pays the tribute in property and quality of life.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.

#NewYork #Jayaraj #CO2Coalition #Solar #GreenEnergy #CO2 #Oil #CLCPA

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There is a pipeline that runs from the San Francisco Bay Area in Concord to Reno called the Kinder Morgan SFPP North Line. It supplies Sacramento, Travis Air Force Base, and Beale Air Force Base. Also, the CALNEVA pipeline, also operated by Kinder Morgan, runs from Colton, California, to Las Vegas and supplies 90% of Southern Nevada’s fuel, including jet fuel for Nellis Air Force Base.

• Those two pipelines let California refineries send transportation fuels to Arizona and Nevada.

• California refineries supply 45% of Arizona’s and 88% of Nevada’s transportation fuel demands for their airports, cars, and trucks, so any disruption in California impacts all three states.

California refineries have always produced California’s humongous transportation fuel requirements. This is why there have never been any pipelines run over the majestic Sierra Mountains from the other refineries in the Midwest.

The California “energy island” economy, which is 8 percent of California’s GDP, runs on transportation via planes, ships, trucks, construction equipment, and vehicles. It is important to note that the other 92% of California’s economy would be impossible to achieve without the transportation fuels that the refineries produce. In the 1980s, California had more than 40 operating refineries.

Today, with the recent closures of the Phillips and Valero refineries, the huge demands for transportation fuels by the 4^th largest economy in the world Cannot be met from the remaining 7 refineries still operating in the state.

The shutdown of Phillips in Wilmington and Valero was a direct result of egregious regulatory policies and fines that were levied against both refineries. Valero in Benicia took a $1.1 billion loss to shut down and leave, despite the state offering over $200 million to keep it open. One would think that California would take a step back and review its policies that drove Phillips and Valero out. But instead of reconsidering their policies, the Air Board doubled down.

They proposed new amendments to the state’s Cap and Invest (theft and invest) policies, which would have increased Chevron’s fees by a projected $500 million and those of PBF by an estimated $340 million. And with these new amendments, the foreign suppliers with gross polluting refineries would not have to pay these fees. At this point, Chevron, Marathon, and PBF reached their limits. In early 2026, they dispatched a series of desperate joint warnings to regulators, making it clear that California is on the verge of losing its entire refining industry:

As more refinery closures are anticipated in the coming years, more of the demands of 58 million gallons of transportation fuel daily will be dependent on Asian refineries to meet these daily supply chain demands to keep the 4^th largest economy humming:

• 11 million gallons/day for jet fuel for the States’ 40 military and 9 international airports.

• 10 million gallons/day for diesel for the States’ trucking and construction industries.

• 37 million gallons/day for gasoline for the States’ more than 36 million vehicles.

The refineries located in foreign countries, such as those in Asia, are not accountable to the California Air Resources Board and thus do not have the same stringent emission standards as clean-running refineries in California. In fact, some of those overseas refineries would be classified as “gross polluters in California. Once the transportation fuels have been produced, they must be transported across the Pacific Ocean in gross polluting tankers, some taking as long as 45 days to transit the ocean.

California’s Governor, Legislature, Senators, and Representatives are not supporting the retention of the 7 remaining refineries. The current manufacturing shortages of transportation fuels due to the closure of the Phillips and Valero refineries will become humongous, catastrophic shortages of historical proportions.

They will also affect Nevada, Arizona, and if three of the busiest ports at Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland are shut down due to a lack of bunker fuel to refuel the merchant ships and diesel fuel to operate the port equipment, those West Coast transportation fuel shortages will reach well into the center of the nation.

In addition, California is not proactively supporting the reanimating of the closed Valero Refinery in Benicia or the closed Phillips Refinery in Wilmington, to reinstate the loss in the supply chain for the transportation fuels demanded by the State.

With more in-state refinery closures imminent, Asian refineries will be gaining control of the supply chain of the jet fuel demanded by the military and international airports in California, as well as the diesel fuel for the trucking and construction equipment in the State, and for the gasoline demands of the state’s 36 million vehicles.

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While the State is facing shortages of transportation fuels never before experienced in California, the State continues to spend billions to build more wind and solar that are not reducing the number of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants that maintain the continuous electricity demanded by our infrastructure and economy.

California state leaders are clueless that the word energy is comprised of 3 topics:

1. Transportation fuels

2. Products

3. Electricity

Net Zero Green Energy Ideologists are oblivious to the reality that “Energy Transition” is only an “Electricity Transition.”

We’re constantly told that wind and solar power are low-cost, clean, and sustainable, but Net Zero ideologists never engage in conversations about the monstrous garbage heaps these “alternative, green” electricity systems are leaving behind. To cite just one example, existing US wind turbines alone will leave behind some 145,000,000 tons of concrete and rebar and 5,500,000 tons of blades that, laid end-to-end, would stretch 9,100 miles.

Wind Turbines and Solar Panels have limited capabilities:

1. Cannot produce the transportation fuels required by airplanes, trucks, merchant and cruise ships, construction equipment, and vehicles.

2. Cannot make any of the more than 6,000 products made from fossil fuels for today’s materialistic society and economies around the world.

3. Only generates electricity under favorable weather conditions.

With their consistent over-regulation of the cleanest refineries in the world, which are currently located in California, the State promotes an increase in emissions from the Asian refineries and transporting ships demanded by the California economy. In addition, California is promoting the State to be a national security risk for America by promoting those Asian refineries to have control of the transportation fuels that are the basis of the 4th largest economy in the world located in California.

If the State of California continues its mission to run the state’s economy with transportation fuels imported from Asia, we strongly encourage President Trump to immediately invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950, which is a United States federal law that gives the President emergency powers to control domestic industries and private businesses. It ensures the nation has enough industrial resources and supplies for national defense, energy infrastructure, and major emergencies.

Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.

Click this Link to Sign up for Energy Literacy from Ronald Stein.

Mike Ariza is a US Navy veteran with over twenty years of experience in the refining industry. His refining experience extends from the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California, the Flying J refinery in Bakersfield, and the Valero Refinery in Benicia. Mike held the positions of number one control board Operator at Flying J and Senior Refinery Control Board Supervisor at Valero. He was an instructor of both operator field and control board classes. Among his peers, he is often referred to as one of the top ten control board operators in the country.

#Newsom #Stein #MikeAriza #JetFuel #Transportation #Products #CrudeOil #Refineries #Climate #Ports #EnergyDependence #Trump #DefenseProductionAct

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Amanda Levin, NRDC’s director of policy analysis, said during a Tuesday press call that the group’s modeling still anticipates “significant growth in renewables under this administration. But we don’t go nearly as far, and we lose more than half of everything that we expected to be able to build with the combination of market forces and proactive policy.”

Both Levin and the Global Energy Monitor report noted that due to order backlogs for gas turbines for combined-cycle plants, developers who need to bring firm power online quickly are turning to alternatives like simple-cycle or reciprocating engine plants, which “are less efficient than combined-cycle plants and carry higher emissions per unit of electricity generated,” Global Energy Monitor said.

Levin said this trend supports the NRDC’s position that the Environmental Protection Agency’s gas power plant emissions rule should not be repealed, though the Trump administration has announced its intention to do so.

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The trend “highlights actually the value of these types of standards … which is that the market is not acting in a perfectly rational economic way,” she said. “These types of regulations could prevent this type of highly polluting type of power generation by requiring us to think about how we are building out this gas that we’re trying to build over the next few years to meet this growing load.”

The NRDC’s report also forecast an increase in power costs due to a need to “rely more heavily on the existing, higher-cost legacy fossil fuel system” in absence of new renewables generation. The power sector will spend $5 billion to $15 billion more on fossil fuels, the NRDC said, while claiming $45 billion less in IRA tax incentives, relative to the group’s January 2025 Snapshot case.

“By 2035, average household electricity rates are projected to increase by an additional 4.2% to 5.5% nationwide, relative to the January 2025 Snapshot case,” the NRDC’s report said.

Notice how the arguments simply come down to how much money the grifters are losing, how the free market can’t deliver for them, and how policies (read subsidies) are the mother’s milk of renewables. Also, isn’t it interesting how future electric rate unaffordability is simply mentioned without the slightest reconciliation with the facts of the subsidies required, the unreliability of renewables, and the fact all green energy must be duplicated with baseload energy — the very things that raise electricity costs? And, notice how the NRDC is invested in China.

Hat Tip: R.Nolan

#UtilityDive #Renewables #NRDC #Money #Power #Rockefeller

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The “climate crisis” headlines forced down the throats of the American people only began to emerge when socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and unhinged leftist Sen. Ed Markey introduced the Green New Deal in early 2019. That was the moment when global-warming headlines spiked and the NGO complex ramped up activist networks through protests and an informational war in the press, tricking the public into supporting climate bills intended to solve a made-up crisis.

By March 2019, those climate-crisis headlines had intensified as Democrats desperately tried but failed to pass the Green New Deal.

Then, in 2022, those same headlines spiked again as Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer unexpectedly announced the Inflation Reduction Act, reviving much of the climate agenda.

It was all a lie.

By August 2022, the IRA had passed and President Biden had signed it into law, flooding the Democratic Party’s pet projects with $369 billion.

But those headlines subsequently peaked in late 2022. Democrats moved on after securing their massive funding package, and climate was no longer the party’s main focus. This suggests that the earlier propaganda push was merely an informational war against taxpayers designed to hustle them.

Climate-crisis headlines remain out of fashion in 2026 as Democrats pivot toward socialism, thirdworldism, protect criminal illegal aliens, and quadruple down on all things woke.

Even AP’s new reporting makes the case for the retreat clear: Climate ranks poorly among voters’ priorities, suggesting that the public has increasingly rejected the party’s climate-grift narrative as bullshit.

The retreat in climate propaganda has become so pronounced that researchers have coined the term “climate hushing.” The Democratic-aligned Searchlight Institute has urged candidates this election season to stop emphasizing climate change because it ranks poorly among voters’ priorities.

The shift in talking points is playing out in Massachusetts, where Markey, a leading sponsor of the Green New Deal, is placing less emphasis on climate policy as he faces a primary challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton.

All of this demonstrates that the entire climate-crisis propaganda campaign was about pushing legislation through Congress to fund NGOs and climate projects, not actually about the climate.

There is no question Durden has it correct. There’s never been widespread acceptance of the media’s politically inspired ‘climate crisis’ narrative. It has been pushed out by an unholy alliance of grifters and ideologues seeking the same things that have always motivated the envious side of our human nature — money and power.

Hat Tip: D. Snutes

#TylerDurden #Climate #ClimateCrisis #Media #ClimateCult #Grifters #Money #Power #ZeroHedge

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South Carolina’s utility regulators voted unanimously yesterday to let a $2.8 billion artificial intelligence data center in Spartanburg County build and run its own 457-megawatt natural gas power plant without asking the state’s permission first. The decision is a big win for the “behind-the-meter” model — where a data center brings its own generation instead of leaning on the grid — and it’s a model that is going to burn a lot of molecules. Possibly some of ours.

What’s Being Built

The project is called MOC-1. The developer is Valara Holdings, a subsidiary of an American investment firm called NorthMark Strategies. They bought the old Kohler Co. plumbing-fixture plant at 4000 South Pine Street in Spartanburg and are converting roughly 900,000 square feet of it into what the company calls a high-performance computing center — AI training, machine learning, data analytics. Construction runs through 2028.

Here’s the part that matters to us. The whole thing is powered on-site by natural gas. Per permit applications filed with the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services, the facility is approved for or seeking:

• 24 permanent Cummins reciprocating gensets at 2,103 kW each (50.5 MW)

• 21 temporary 1,500 kW gensets (31.5 MW) — bridge power only, six-month limit, can’t run alongside the permanent units

• 5 Baker Hughes combustion turbines at 17 MW each (85 MW)

• 6 General Electric combustion turbines at 54 MW each (324 MW)

Add the permanent gensets to the eleven turbines, and you get 459.5 MW — which is where the “more than 450 MW” and “457 MW” figures floating around in press coverage come from. That is a real power plant. It would rank among the larger gas-fired generating stations in South Carolina, and it exists to run one building full of chips.

The Fight

A group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Spartanburg County, joined by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and represented by the radical Southern Environmental Law Center, asked the Public Service Commission to force Valara to get a siting certificate. Their argument: South Carolina law says any “major utility facility” over 75 MW has to go through PSC siting and environmental review, and 457 MW clears that bar by a country mile.

Valara’s argument: we’re not a utility. State code says a generating facility becomes a “utility” when it sells power to the public. These units are islanded — they will never export an electron to the grid, so they can’t hurt system reliability or anyone’s rates.

The PSC unanimously bought Valara’s reading and dismissed the petition. It also ruled that only the Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) — the state’s utility watchdog — can haul a private company in front of regulators to enforce the siting law. Which is notable, because the ORS had sided with the residents. Commissioner David Britt, who represents Spartanburg, sat the vote out and wasn’t in the room. A final written order is still coming.

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Will Marcellus-Utica Molecules Feed It? Probably. Eventually. Partly.

Now the question every MDN reader is asking. Let’s walk the pipe.

Spartanburg is not sitting on a gas field. Every cubic foot burned there arrives by pipeline. The Post and Courier reported last August that the Kohler site already has a direct natural gas connection and that NorthMark was working with Transco and the City of Union — which runs its own municipal gas system — to source supply.

Transco is Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line, the biggest interstate line in the country, and the Upstate of South Carolina sits in Transco’s premium Zone 5. Historically, Transco moved Gulf Coast gas northbound. That has flipped. Appalachian gas now pushes south through Compressor Station 165 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia — some of it delivered by Mountain Valley Pipeline out of West Virginia and southwest PA, and some of it Northeast Pennsylvania gas that, in the shoulder months when nobody up north needs heat, goes looking for a home and runs south.

Station 165 has been a notorious bottleneck. Williams is fixing that with the Southeast Supply Enhancement (SESE) project — 1.6 Bcf/d of added southbound capacity, in service in the second half of 2027, with early North Carolina service possible sooner. And here’s the detail that ought to get your attention: SESE includes a compressor station reversal at Station 135 in Anderson County, South Carolina — on the same Transco mainline corridor that runs through the Upstate.

So: is Appalachian gas going to burn in Spartanburg? The honest answer is that we don’t have a confirmed supply contract, a named shipper, or a disclosed molecule source. Nobody has published one. But the physical plumbing says southbound Transco Zone 5 gas is increasingly Appalachian gas, and Spartanburg sits downstream of the bottleneck Williams is spending a fortune to unclog.

How much? At full tilt, 450–457 MW of simple-cycle turbines and recip engines burns roughly 85 to 110 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) — call it 32 to 40 Bcf a year. Against Appalachian production of roughly 36 Bcf/d, that’s about a quarter of one percent. Not a needle-mover by itself.

But that’s the wrong way to look at it. This is one facility. South Carolina alone has something like ten counties that have slapped moratoriums on data centers or are considering them, which tells you how many more are in the queue.

MDN’s Take

The PSC got the law right, and the neighbors got the process complaint right. Both things are true.

On the law: if you generate power exclusively for yourself and never touch the grid, you are not a public utility. That’s not a loophole, that’s the plain meaning of the statute. Behind-the-meter generation is genuinely the best available answer to the “data centers are raising my electric bill” problem — because a plant that never sells to the public also never lands in a rate base.

Every AI campus that brings its own gas turbines is one that isn’t forcing a utility to build capacity that residential ratepayers cosign. The SELC attorney complained the ruling amounts to a calling card inviting out-of-state companies to come build whatever power plant they want. Ma’am, that’s the pitch. That’s economic development. South Carolina just told the world it’s open for business, and Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia should be taking notes.

And yet.

We are not going to pretend the developer covered itself in glory here. This project was first pitched to Spartanburg County Council in February 2025 as an unnamed “Project Moc-1,” and a councilman publicly assured people it was not a data center and would not use more power than the old Kohler plant did.

Then it became a data center. Then, three months after getting an air permit for a relatively modest 50 MW, Valara came back asking for another 400 MW — a revision the public didn’t learn about until a newspaper found it. The county processed a 900,000-square-foot campus as two separate “minor” land developments, which conveniently kept the public out of it.

That’s not a smear from Big Green. That’s the docket.

Here’s why we care, and it isn’t sympathy for the Southern Environmental Law Center. Natural gas is going to win the data center power race on the merits — it’s dispatchable, it’s abundant, and wind and solar cannot run a GPU cluster at 3 a.m. in February. Gas doesn’t need to sneak in the back door.

When developers low-ball the scope and then quintuple it after the tax breaks are signed, they hand the anti-fossil-fuel crowd exactly the story it wants: they lied to you. And that story travels. It travels to Spartanburg County Council, to township supervisors in Washington County, PA, and to county commissioners in Ohio who are about to vote on the next compressor station.

Tell people what you’re building. Build it. It’s a better plan.

One more note for the supply chain crowd: the equipment list on this project — eleven combustion turbines from Baker Hughes and GE, plus 45 reciprocating gensets from Cummins — is a nice reminder that the AI buildout isn’t just a gas demand story. It’s a rotating-equipment story too, and the order books are filling up.

#DataCenters #MDN #ElectricRates #Electricity #Grid #SouthCarolina #Spartanburg #Valara #JimWillis

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No, Miss Thunberg and the politicians, bureaucrats and activists who turn your diatribes into policies:

How dare YOU employ bogus scares based on computer models that can’t even recreate past climates, much less predict future climate and weather? How dare you turn every temperature and weather event, flood, drought and forest fire into assertions that wildlife, humanity and planet face imminent demise?

How dare YOU claim plant-fertilizing, planet-greening, life-sustaining carbon dioxide from fuels, manufacturing and agriculture somehow endangers our human health and welfare?

How dare YOU demand that we shut down the energy systems that make our lives, health and living standards possible? That
we must be deprived of modern comforts, aspirations and loved ones, because you force us to eliminate energy systems that work – and replace them with expensive weather-dependent substitutes that bring blackouts, poverty, disease, deprivation, joblessness and shortened lives?

How dare YOU tell the poorest people on Earth that they must renounce their God-given right to modern technologies, health and living standards – and sacrifice their landscapes and wildlife with wind turbines, solar panels and renewable energy trash on your altar of climate fanaticism?

How dare YOU demand that we abandon free enterprise democratic capitalism that has brought health and prosperity to billions – and replace it with socialist-communist-totalitarian governments that have immiserated billions, and starved and murdered over 100,000,000 people?

Shortly after the October 7, 2023 barbarities, Doom Pixie shifted her focus to promoting Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist dreams of eradicating Israel and Israelis “from the river to the sea.” Perhaps her audiences had tired of her climate rants, perhaps because they realize the “crisis” is wildly overblown, the world will need oil and gas for decades to come, and mining, manufacturing and installing wind, solar and battery power is environmentally horrific. Or maybe vilifying Israel simply pays better.

But her climate harangues continue – and her acolytes still glory in imposing diktats that raise costs and cost lives, while doing nothing to stabilize Earth’s frequently and perpetually fluctuating climate.

Indeed, I am eternally astonished at how often I think their callous insanity and depravity couldn’t possibly sink any lower … and I’m proven wrong.

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California policies have forced oil drilling and production, refineries, coal, gas and nuclear power plants, and even hydroelectric plants to shut down. Big surprise: it now has the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the continental USA. Kind bureaucrats now say they will shave a few cents off per gallon –

By mandating improved “tire efficiency,” so tires glide along roads with less resistance. All-season 65,000-mile US tires must now be replaced with 27,000-mile Euro tires. That will at least double tire costs over a vehicle’s lifetime. Far worse, it will bring more accidents, injuries and deaths, because the new tires require longer stopping distances, especially under wet conditions.

California, Connecticut and New York also lead the US on Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and Net Zero policies – with Virginia’s “moderate” governor and legislators working feverishly to catch up, thereby driving household, school, hospital, business, factory and data center electricity and operating costs ever higher. You need heating, air conditioning, cooking, lighting and computing? Too bad.

Under those same climate-centric policies, Britain’s per capita primary energy consumption has plummeted since 2005. Its wealth and living standards have done likewise. Meanwhile, its electricity prices are among the world’s highest, thanks to wind and solar replacing coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants. Jobs and entire industries have disappeared, and residents have been forced to remove air conditioning units if they actually use them during heatwaves.

The jobs, energy cost and industrial situation is just as bleak in Germany, where “bathroom ministers” now inform homeowners they cannot have a shower and bathtub in the same bathroom.

As absurd as all this is, nothing compares to the totalitarian imperialism of UN, European, World Bank, World Economic Forum, Obama-Biden and other “climate crisis,” “energy transition” and “traditional agriculture” ministries. For decades, they have imposed their “moral” and “ethical” principles on poor countries, to keep them from developing “excessively.” Until recently, they’ve gotten away with it.

Obama science advisor John Holdren insisted that the United States and other industrialized nations must “de-develop” – and then tell underdeveloped countries what “ecologically feasible development” they will be permitted to reach.

For decades this meant no grants or loans for coal, gas or even nuclear power plants – because impoverished countries were expected to “leapfrog dirty fossil fuels” and go directly to “clean, renewable, sustainable” wind and solar.

That’s why, even today, the average Sub-Sahara African has electricity 20 minutes a day, 141 minutes a week, 123 hours per year (out of 8,760) – sporadically, at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes or hours at a time. Homes, shops, and even schools and hospitals are severely energy-deprived, and access to clean water is a luxury.

Eco-imperialist, neo-colonialist policies have also dictated agricultural and health policies. Farmers were told for years that they must not use pesticides, herbicides or biotech seeds – especially if they want to sell their produce in European markets. They should even forego tractors and be content with ox-pulled plows and “traditional,” “ecological” subsistence farming.

Even malaria control must be done without pesticides, with often counterfeit and substandard drugs, and with hospitals that lack clean water, adequate electricity and even window screens.

Thankfully, President Trump has restored regulatory sanity and American energy dominance – and ended the use of foreign aid as a weapon to browbeat poor countries into accepting these lethal policies.

That compassionate approach – and the refusal of China, India and other emerging powerhouse economies to buy into the insanity – has further encouraged still poor developing countries to reject eco-imperialism and neo-colonialism. They now tell the world they want, demand and expect rapid, dramatic transformations in living standards, nutrition and health, through modern energy, industrial, agricultural and healthcare infrastructure. As their sacred right.

The world is changing, at least in many states and countries. It’s about time. But there is still much left to be done – beginning with electing American, European, Asian and African leaders who understand and champion these realities.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

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#Trump #GretaThunberg #Driessen #CFact #HowDareYou #GreenPolicies #Climate #PoorCountries #ForeignAid #AmericanEnergy Dominance

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