As many of us have been cautioning for years:  What happens when the wind farm or solar farm has outlived its usefulness? Rusting, broken towers cluttering the view. While my comment was directed at wind energy, the same is true for solar. When you hear how "cheap" alternative power is, that doesn't include the cost of cleanup.  We are going to have 'clean' energy facilities littering the countrysides forever. 

Please, please take the time to read this short article about the reality of solar energy installations .  You may have read last week that the Vatican became the first nation in the world to be entirely powered by solar energy. I suspect that its solar installation may suffer the same fate as Napa Valley College's. 

Some really good news from the legislature (Republican) and Kansas Governor Kelly (Democrat). From the Kansas Reflector : TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly signed legislation supported by more than 150 legislators that would triple to $15 million annual state investment in modernization and infrastructure repairs of airports in Kansas. On Thursday, Kelly put her signature to House Bill 2498 to broaden resources dedicated to improvements at 109 airfields. The Kansas Department of Transportation recommended lawmakers adjust the current $5 million state appropriation, which hadn’t been increased since 2013. A recent state assessment of airports in Kansas indicated runway pavement conditions were deteriorating. The budget could be used for that type of safety upgrade, automated weather observation systems, rehabilitation of existing aviation facilities or the planning and building of new infrastructure. “These airports are very important to our economy and to providing air ambulance access to ...

This graph compares the "all-in" costs of various types of energy. For example, because fossil fuel plants are usually built along existing transmission lines, there minor transmission costs. Because wind and solar are built in the middle of nowhere, transmission costs can be in the billions. We've frequently made the point that wind turbines have lifetimes of 20 years or less while nuclear plants have a lifetime of 75 years or more. That makes nuclear's clean energy dirt cheap.  We should not install a single additional wind turbine nor solar field. Nuclear and, where possible, hydro are the ways to go. 

Doug Sheridan gave me permission to reproduce his essay on where we stand in the whole global warming mess. Highly recommended.  Joseph Sternberg writes in the WSJ, it’s accurate to lambaste our political class for its many climate hypocrisies and idiocies. But as climate policy becomes more expensive and less coherent by the week, voters deserve more and more of the blame. However, whatever else voters say they want on climate, people really, really don’t want to redistribute the costs of mitigation toward those who emit more carbon—at least not if Johann Q. Publik thinks he might be the emitter in question. Surveys in several large European economies in August found at least two-thirds of respondents in each country were worried about climate change—and totally unwilling to pay any personal costs to mitigate it...  In—planting trees, subsidizing home insulation, taxing heavily emitting companies Out—banning internal-combustion cars, limiting meat and dairy consumption, incr...

Kalmus, 49, thinks civilization is on the path to break down, the Biden administration is clueless on climate, and that he might get fired from his job at NASA if he is arrested for a third time protesting what he views as downright madness: the continued use of fossil fuels. This is a reply to NBC's Christmas Eve story about climate modeler Peter Kalmus. I don't believe in politicizing Christmas, so I waited to reply. I completely agree "the Biden administration is clueless on climate," However, I see not only the administration, but also Dr. Kalmus and his ilk, as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. For example, when I went to his Twitter/X site to get some biographic info, I found I am blocked even though I don't recall ever having an interaction with him.  He is a climate extremist (he chains himself to buildings) who evidently doesn't wish to hear from others who have a different approach to solving the problem, even though he has no uni...

Wall Street Journal This is the 'big news' out of COP28 -- everyone is going to transition away from fossil fuels. COP28 is the (now estimated to be 100,000 people, giant carbon footprint) global warming meeting in Dubai.  But, didn't they make the same commitment at COP27, COP26, COP25.........???

In case you doubt that it is impossible to run the electric grid from wind + solar + batteries, this will dispel your doubts .  Yes: it is impossible, at any cost, provided we want to keep electrical energy at current reliability levels and given the current state-of-the-art.  There is also an outstanding  essay published by The Telegraph  yesterday pertaining to the magical thinking that permeates politicians' and Big Climate's goals pertaining to 'green' energy. A couple of excerpts: In recent weeks, some analysts have begun to predict that peak EV adoption could happen in the next 2-3 years and top out at just 10-12 per cent of the total vehicle fleet. Distressed automakers like Ford and GM have recently announced cancellations in some big investments in plant and equipment and year-long delays in new factory openings and new model introductions.  In addition, Panasonic is in the early phases of building an electric vehicle (EV) plant in northeast Kansas . ...

 An article highly recommended by Dr. Judith Curry. I completely agree with her. Excerpt: "The green economy isnt a capitalist economy, where companies compete with one another to produce the best product at the lowest price and countries attract businesses and talent based on their comparative advantages; instead, it is characterized by central planning and multinational firms shopping around for which jurisdiction can offer the biggest corporate handouts, forcing countries to compete over who’s willing to pony up the biggest bribes." The 'green' economy is loaded with favoritism and, based on circumstantial evidence, a fair amount of graft.  The article is in Canada's " National Post ." I also agree 100% with this quote: The idea that the green revolution would herald a glut of new green jobs has proven to be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, if not an outright lie. I urge you to read the article. 

From Willis Eschenbach: He's correct. We have spent trillions and all we have done is increase our electric bills and destabilized the grid. 

If you've been on Twitter since the first of the year, you've probably seen numerous tweets from alternative energy advocates telling us not to worry: that affordable energy solutions for intermittent energy sources are available now. The latest fairytale: "All we need is new age batteries to capture the excess energy from wind on windy days and sunshine on calm days for use when conditions are calm and overcast."  My own independent research tells me just the opposite. What exists today at the individual home scale is expensive in any case. And, that type of storage is currently unavailable at grid-scale at any price.  So, when I saw yet another of these claims, I finally decided to force the issue so I could report back for my readers.  As expected, he didn't reply. Given the sudden proliferation of these claims, I've wondered what is going on. This is an educated guess, only: Given the collapse in the credibility of "cheap, reliable," wind power,...

From Jo Nova : China has committed to renewals for public relations reasons, only. They are building as many as two coal plants per week  to provide electricity for their population. They are not pretending that renewables are valuable in and of their own. Yes, we should decarbonizing energy but we should do it through nuclear and hydro, not unreliable wind and solar. 

Three weeks ago, a university professor was bragging about his new electric vehicle and how it had "no emissions." 'Fraid not. Of course, it doesn't include the children in slavery in China doing the dangerous mining of rare-earth minerals.  So, when we do whatever it is the global warming zealots wish to do (they have no plan other than installing windmills and solar panels), the end result will probably look something like this.

Turbines not  turning in calm winds on a >100° day in southwest Kansas. Winds are usually light during extreme heat and extreme cold.  Wind energy? For the sake of our nation and our energy security, it looks like -- finally -- the wind energy boom is over. The marketplace is working, even though it is up against huge government subsidies. The details are here . Giant wind energy companies are asking for yet more subsidies . So, when your year-over-year orders drop by 46% while costs rise by 25%, that can indeed be a problem. And, when you’re a maker of offshore turbines and your offshore turbine business unit doesn’t receive a single order during that same quarter, that’s an even bigger problem, isn’t it? Sure, it is, and I can easily sympathize with the fix Siemens Gamesa management finds itself in. What I can’t figure out, though, is why I should have any sympathy at all with the argument by this massive corporation that right fix here is more rents from the government, ...

Dr. Judith Curry is one of the world's most esteemed climate scientists. Earlier in her career, she believed global warming was an emergency. Over time, as data accumulated, she has come to believe that -- while it is a problem to be managed -- it is not an existential crisis.  Her column, published on her blog earlier today, on the topic of energy and climate. is excellent. I'm very pleased she gave me permission to reproduce it below.  The faux urgency of the climate crisis is giving us no time or space to build a secure energy future Posted on   December 27, 2022   by Judith Curry There is a growing realization that emissions and temperature targets are now detached from the issues of human well-being and the development of our 21st century world. JC note:   this is the text of my op-ed for SkyNews that was published several weeks ago For the past two centuries, fossil fuels have fueled humanity’s progress, improving standards of living and increasing the lif...

How can $3.8 trillion buy you nothing? Well, it hasn’t bought exactly nothing. It has bought you a bunch of useless crap while also doing exactly what it is intended to do: transfer great amounts of wealth to the friends and families of powerful people and transfer huge amounts of power into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats who are gaining control over every aspect of our lives.  The quote is contained in this excellent, brief, essay . Don't miss reading it!

We can add Texas and Kansas to this cartoon. While solar and wind are beneficial for specialized uses, they are both disasters when part of the grid. For grid purposes they make electricity service less reliable and more expensive. They also do almost nothing to actually cut greenhouse gas. Because they are so unreliable, utilities must run conventional generators in the background.  Want to decarbonize energy? Nuclear and hydro are the ways to go. 

"The 'Green New Deal' and similar net-zero initiatives, combined with increased reliance on an unreliable electric grid, are a national suicide pact."   More and more, the realization that this winter will be a catastrophe in Europe is dawning on people. This article is required reading .  When they found that 'green' energy was failing to provide the critical energy needed, they turned to Russia's natural gas. Russia has now cut that off for political reasons. As the cost of natural gas in Europe has quadrupled from last year's record level, wind turbines are killing people and birds while others are literally cutting down forests for firewood .  [ Germany's ]  Habeck says closing nuclear plants will protect the public from danger, but nuclear plants  remain the safest way  to produce electricity and  one study found  that German nuclear plant closures to date resulted in enough air pollution from coal-burning to shorten the lives of 1,100 Euro...

Wall Street Journal Headline, 2:10P Friday Germany, at one point, was the #1 nation in the world for 'green' energy. Now, they are in a desperate predicament because Russia plans to cut off their supply of natural gas .  So, Germany's choice is to give in to Putin's political demands or -- on a far worse scale than occurred last winter -- watch its citizens freeze to death.  German man sleeping on outdoor bench last winter.  Credit: DW Imagine if Germany had spent all of the money it spent on windmills and solar (in Germany?!) on nuclear and converting its coal plants to natural gas? They would have hugely cut their carbon footprint while becoming energy independent.  Are any politicians in the USA paying attention?