Supreme Court ruling today. Looks like Congress is actually going to have to pass that ESG stuff as a law, not just have the EPA guys make it up as they go on the whims of the executive in charge.
SUPREME COURT CURBS EPA’S CLIMATE AUTHORITY IN BLOW TO BIDEN
TOP COURT SAYS EPA CAN’T SEEK SHIFT TO CLEANER SOURCES OF POWER
HIGH COURT LIMITS EPA AUTHORITY TO CUT POWER-PLANT EMISSIONS
The Obama-era EPA rules were “illustrative of an alarming trend whereby presidents turn to implied authority, typically in long-extant statutes, to achieve what Congress fails to do,” the libertarian Cato Institute said in a legal brief.
For half a century, the Clean Air Act has directed the EPA to regulate stationary sources of air pollution that endanger “public health or welfare.” The Obama-era Clean Power Plan extended that regulatory reach beyond the physical premises of a power plant to allow off-site methods to mitigate pollution.
The Left is melting down (again) because ruling has broader implications limiting one of their most effective ways to push their agenda. According to NPR:
The decision by the conservative court majority sets the stage for further limitations on the regulatory power of other agencies as well.
By a vote of 6 to 3, the court said that any time an agency does something big and new – in this case addressing climate change - the regulation is presumptively invalid, unless Congress has specifically authorized regulating in this sphere.
This decision is an enormous win for the reliability and affordability of the electric grid because it will give utility companies confidence that they can continue operating their existing coal and natural gas power plants, which are some of the most reliable and lowest-cost sources of electricity on the grid, without the looming threat of EPA regulations coming down the pike to close them down.
If we’re serious about tackling climate change, protecting the environment, and helping people climb out of energy poverty around the world, we need to stop chasing utopian energy. Instead, it’s time to be honest about all the costs and benefits of every energy source—wind, solar, natural gas, coal, oil, and nuclear.
Here are eight principles that can help us evaluate energy options that will give us the best chance to bring about successful energy reform that protects both people and the planet.
Security: Does an energy source enable a country to maintain its autonomy?
Reliability: Can people and businesses reliably access energy when they need it? A reliable energy system provides power 24/7/365.
Affordability: Is the energy source easily affordable for households and businesses? The cost of energy affects the cost of everything else. If energy is not affordable, businesses can’t make the products we want, and people will freeze to death in their own homes.
Versatility: How many different kinds of machines can the energy source power? We need energy to power machines that mine, drill, pave, fly, cut, pump, filter, transport, compact, excavate, grade, and lift.
Scalability: How many people can use the energy source across how many places? Wind, solar, and water resources are often located far away from where people live and work, making it difficult and expensive to transport the energy to where it is needed.
Emissions: What are the energy source’s effects on air pollution, GHG emissions, and water quality? Sources of emissions include mining, transportation, and electricity production.
Land use: What are the energy source’s effects on wildlife, habitat, farmland, viewsheds, and coastlines? For example, a typical 1,000-megawatt US nuclear power plant needs little more than 1 square mile to operate. Solar farms need 75 times more land to produce the same amount of energy. Wind farms need 360 times more.
Lifespan: How long will a source produce energy? Nuclear plants can operate for over 80 years and run for 100 years if they are well-maintained. By contrast, solar panels and wind turbines last only about 20 years.
Rare earths are so dangerous and polluting, we shouldn’t mine them here in the US. Instead, we should just buy them from China - just ask the Chinese agents protesting the US mining operations!
The latest is that pro-China agents started an online campaign where they pretended to be American environmentalists to prevent any mining from happening in the U.S. The CCP wants to keep it all in China! It would be a real problem if America started mining locally in accordance with American labor laws, instead of relying on China’s slave labor. From Bloomberg’s report on this: “The fake accounts claimed that the processing facility would spur irreversible environmental damage and radioactive contamination that could cause cancer and deformities in newborns.”
But…but… I thought “green” energy policy was going to provide plentiful wind and solar power so Europe did not need those nasty fossil fuels or nuclear power
“Let’s prepare for a total cut-off of Russian gas; Today that is the most likely option,” Le Maire told an audience at an economic conference in Aix-en-Provence.
He later additionally explained to reporters, “You also have to prepare load-shedding plans, we are doing it. It means looking in a very specific way at each company, each employment area; Which are the companies that should reduce their energy consumption and which are the ones that cannot .”
That’s one way to make sure “$$green$$” energy can supply what is needed (by limitation) to keep Europe’s economy afloat. This may make Germany look more like the PIGS. Sady, who will be left to pay the bills?
Oh, OK. Sorry. I misunderstood where you were headed with that.
Yes, of course Reuters is a mainstream source. We agree.
My reference was to sources that reach Americans who pay a whole lot less attention to goings on than we do. Some examples:
ABC, NBC, CBS, NY Times, WaPo, and other such liberal sources.
You can even throw in wildly liberal sources like PBS and NPR if you like. And of course the AP and even Reuters as well, I suppose. But not like the others.
Not obvious to me. The Texas grid problems have to do with their own coal and gas plant failures. For what obvious reasons would anyone not report this?
We do not agree on that. Texas is over dependent on wind and solar. That is the basis for their current dilemma.
Coming out of a power crisis just because the wind picks up, which happened a few days ago, is flat out ridiculous. Also I read clouds were messing with the Texas solar output. Again, that is ridiculous in a first world country. It is asinine.
Mainstream media cannot cover such stuff as it deserves to be covered because such events reflect poorly on the renewable power sources they champion. That’s how the mainstream media works. You doubt?
Just be fair and imagine for a moment the hullabaloo which would ensue if Don Trump Jr. were pulling the crap we now know Hunter is doing. You would never hear the end of it. But since it’s Hunter, they suppress news of such goings on. Same thing with renewables:
When renewables fail to make the grade, news thereof is likewise suppressed and subordinated. This is routine stuff for the mainstream media. I know. I watch 'em . . . not to learn the news, but to confirm all the stuff they either FAIL to report completely or give only short schrift.
The author of the article you linked disagrees with you:
There were similar allegations against the wind and solar industry last winter, but I think it has already been proven that the problem was caused by the gas plants freezing over and staying offline.
Those aren’t even related statements. Who cares that coal and gas (why are those lumped together, but wind and solar not?) is the largest generating capacity? The problem is that new investment has gone to wind and solar capacity, instead of methods that provide enough bang for the buck to keep up with increasing demand.
Those annoying “smart” thermostats are bad for the grid and achieve little of their promised savings.
But if everyone keeps their default setting, let’s say 6 a.m., the electric grid suffers synchronized demand spikes and that’s not smart for the system.
data indicates homeowners achieved energy savings of only 5% to 8%, far less than the devices’ potential of 25% to 30%, Lee said.
While the setpoint schedules are designed to achieve the energy-saving benefit, the peak demands are concentrated primarily when renewable energy is unavailable – aggravating the peak demand by nearly 50%, according to the paper.
“The smart thermostat data shows both an increase in frequency of high daily peak heating demand,” Lee said, “as well as an increase in the magnitude of the overall peak demand.”
I’m just going off the article shinobi provided above:
I took “forced outage” to mean “failure”. Perhaps “failure” means something else for a gas plant, but at the end of the day I don’t see the difference, since it failed to produce the desired output.
Huh? Are you telling me that if you heard a nuclear plant had a failure, you would have the same reaction as hearing that a nuclear plant had an outage?
