Article Archive

Last June, the Biden administration was so concerned about China’s use of Uyghur Muslim slave labor to produce the polysilicon needed for solar panels that it imposed bans on imports of that product from some Chinese manufacturers.

If you think the world is moving beyond coal, think again. The post-Covid economic rebound and surging electricity demand have resulted in big increases in coal prices and coal demand. Since January, the Newcastle benchmark price for coal has doubled.

Rural Americans keep rejecting wind projects. On May 5, commissioners in Crawford County, Ohio voted 2-1 in favor of a measure that prohibits the construction of wind projects in the county. The move halts a 300-megawatt project being promoted by Apex Clean Energy called Honey Creek Wind.

Last week, Californians got a rare bit of good news on the energy front: Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would work to prevent the closure of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the state’s last nuclear power plant. Yet regardless of what happens with Diablo Canyon, electricity prices in California are going even higher, despite being already among the highest in the country.

Maybe there’s hope for California after all. Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to intervene to save the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant from premature closure, which is slated to begin in 2024.

The rejections of large-scale wind projects continue. On Tuesday, county commissioners in Otoe County, Nebraska voted to impose a one-year moratorium on applications for wind projects. The vote in Otoe County is the fifth rejection in 2022.

I’m old enough to remember when environmentalists cared about protecting our birds, bats, and whales. Alas, concern about protecting our wildlife has been lost amid the headlong rush to cover the countryside with oceans of solar panels and forests of wind turbines in the hope that they will save us from climate change.

The world’s biggest producer of renewable energy, the Florida-based NextEra Energy, has killed at least 150 Bald and Golden Eagles at its wind projects in eight different states since 2012. ESI Energy Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of NextEra, pled guilty to three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) last week and was sentenced to probation and $8 million in fines and restitution; it must also implement a plan to protect eagles which could cost another $27 million.

You won’t read about this in the New York Times or the Washington Post. And you surely won’t see it reported by National Public Radio. But the rejections of big renewable projects are continuing all across the country and it appears that rejections of Big Solar projects are exceeding the Big Wind rejections.

China is beating the pants off the United States in the race to deploy next-generation nuclear reactors. Wait. That’s not quite true. To have a race, the competitors have to be assembled at a starting line. The hard truth for the U.S. nuclear sector is that bureaucratic inertia is preventing it from even approaching the starting line.

Imagine for a moment what might happen if an oil company – say, Exxon Mobil or Chevron – announced plans to put dozens of offshore drilling platforms on the Eastern Seaboard, smack in the middle of where endangered North Atlantic right whales congregate.

Last month in these pages, I published an essay written by Jessica Petersen, a sixth-generation farmer from Benton County, Iowa, about her family’s fight against Big Solar projects that have been proposed for her area. In that piece, Petersen explained why Iowa farmers and rural landowners are pushing back against the encroachment of large renewable projects.

It has been a chaotic year in the energy sector. And with just a few hours left in 2021, I put together my list of the most important energy developments of the year. It’s a personal list and not meant to be comprehensive. So without further ado, my top seven stories of the year.

It has been a chaotic year in the energy sector. And with just a few hours left in 2021, I put together my list of the most important energy developments of the year. It’s a personal list and not meant to be comprehensive. So without further ado, my top seven stories of the year.