Red Tape Closes Pennsylvania Power Plants Before Replacements Ready

Power Plant

Despite the key positions states like Ohio and Pennsylvania hold to solve future energy problems, shifting the power grid from coal and natural gas to wind and solar isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.

A cadre of Pennsylvania legislators trekked to Columbus for a joint meeting of three House and Senate committees from the two states to be advised by energy officials on PJM, the regional power grid to which both belong.

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Commentary: The Delusions of Davos and Dubai Surrounding Wind and Solar Energy

Solar Energy

In the most recent “Conference of the Parties,” otherwise known as the United Nations extravaganza that convenes every few years for world leaders to discuss the climate crisis, several goals were publicly proclaimed. Notable were the goals to triple production of renewable energy by 2030 and triple production of nuclear energy by 2050. Against the backdrop of current global energy production by fuel type, and as quantified in Part One, against a goal of increasing total energy production from 600 exajoules in 2022 to at least 1,000 exajoules by 2050, where does COP 28’s goals put the world’s energy economy? How much will production of renewable energy have to increase?

To answer this question, it is necessary to recognize and account for the fact that most renewable energy takes the form of electricity, generated through wind, solar, or geothermal sources. And when measuring how much the base of renewables installed so far will contribute to the target of 1,000 exajoules of energy production per year in order to realize—best-case scenario—800 exajoules of energy services, the data reported in the Statistical Review of Global Energy is profoundly misleading.

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Commentary: Coal’s Life-Saving Role Ignored by Climate-Obsessed Media

Coal Mining

On a recent cold winter day, residents of Munich were surprised to see people skiing in the street. Yes, that is how much snow fell in the German city and other parts of Europe during the early winter of 2023-2024.  

Despite a disruption to both ground and air travel, the Germans survived the freezing weather with access to heating and basic utilities. But not everyone in our world is as fortunate as those living off reliable energy sources in Western economies.

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Republican AGs Push Back Against ‘Reckless’ Plan from Biden’s EPA That Could Further Hobble American Coal

by Nick Pope   Several state attorneys general are engaging in legal battles against President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine whether or not his administration will be able to impose its costly plan for implementing a regulation designed to further incapacitate the American coal industry. Multiple states have already achieved early success in their legal challenges against the EPA’s federal implementation plan (FIP) for meeting ambient ozone standards of the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the implementation of which could further restrict coal-fired power generation in 22 states, according to the FIP’s Federal Registry entry. Numerous state attorneys general are seeking to follow their own state implementation plans (SIPs) rather than the comparatively restrictive FIP the EPA wants to impose in order to have the states meet the ambient ozone standards. “President Biden doesn’t care if his radical agenda undermines our economy. His EPA’s reckless regulation will wreak havoc in the Commonwealth, forcing the shutdown of many of Kentucky’s coal-fired power plants—killing jobs and raising utility rates for Kentuckians—while further undermining American energy independence,” Republican Kentucky Attorney General David Cameron said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Kentucky’s challenge has so far resulted in a stay against the EPA’s disapproval of its SIP, a…

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Ohio Democratic Ex-Congressman Ryan Backs Liquid Natural Gas Hub in Philadelphia

Supporters of exporting liquid natural gas (LNG) from Philadelphia got unambivalent backing from Democratic former Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan at a state hearing at the city’s Navy Yard on Thursday.

The liberal ex-lawmaker who unsuccessfully opposed Republican J.D. Vance for the U.S. Senate from Ohio last year is now on the leadership team of the pro-natural-gas Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future. In that capacity, he appeared before the LNG Export Task Force to strongly urge the creation of an LNG terminal at the Port of Philadelphia. 

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Pennsylvania’s Largest Coal Plant Closure Shows Effect of Coming De Facto Carbon-Tax

In July, the Homer City Generation LP Plant, Pennsylvania’s biggest coal-fired energy creator, will be taken offline, meaning 129 well-paying jobs will disappear in Pennsylvania’s fifth-poorest county of Indiana. 

This event, say free-market advocates and fossil-fuel supporters, should admonish Keystone State policymakers not to let the commonwealth let its abeyant membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) become active. The pact involving a dozen northeastern and mid-Atlantic states entails de facto taxation of carbon emissions. Even pre-implementation, industry experts explain, preparation for RGGI is killing otherwise viable power plants. 

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Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit Record High

Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of more than 36 billion tons in 2022, although emissions grew more slowly than anticipated, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported Thursday.

Emissions from coal surged by 1.6%, to a record breaking 15.5 billion tons, as Europe turned to coal after Russia slashed exports of natural gas following its invasion of Ukraine, the IEA reported. Growth in renewable energy sources mitigated more than half a billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, helping keep emissions growth below expectations, and accounted for roughly 90% of all new power generation.

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Commentary: The Left Sacrifices Natural Gas at the Altar of Climate Nirvana Leaving Good Americans Freeze to Death

The just-departed polar vortex confirmed that when Mother Nature is enraged, it’s wise to have options. Maddeningly, today’s “pro-choice” Democrats want Americans to have one energy choice.

Neo-totalitarian, Left-wing eco-extremists are banning new natural-gas access in scores of locales. If not reversed, this cruel, stupid, needless policy will kill Americans.

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Worldwide Coal Use Set to Hit an All-Time High Due to Energy Crisis

Global coal consumption will reach an all-time record by the end of 2022 as shortages of natural gas have driven up energy prices, forcing countries to burn more coal, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The international community is set to use over 8 billion tons of coal in 2022, representing a 1.2% increase in coal consumption compared to 2021, as countries began using coal as a cheaper alternative to natural gas after prices spikedfollowing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the IEA’s annual coal report which was released Friday. The agency predicts that coal consumption will hover around such levels until 2025 as although coal demand could fall in the West, it remains high in developing Asian nations like China and India.

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Worldwide Coal Usage Skyrockets Ahead of Major UN Climate Conference

The global energy crisis is causing coal use to soar ahead of the United Nations’ COP27 summit, where countries will renew pledges to phase out fossil fuels, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Numerous world leaders, including President Joe Biden, will attend Egypt’s COP27 to discuss plans to slash carbon emissions and promote green energy amid a raging energy crisis. Meanwhile, coal-fired electricity generation, particularly in Europe, is surging as Russian natural gas and renewable energy sources are in short supply, according to Bloomberg.

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Commentary: Expensive Energy Is a Core Feature, Not a Bug, of Biden’s Climate Agenda

“Every government intervention creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions,” observed the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. He was being generous by describing interventionism’s nasty side-effects as “unintended.” Some younger interventionists are naïve, and know not what they do, but the older, street-smart captains of progressive politics understand the harms their policies entail. For them, the adverse consequences are features, not bugs. The only downside is the risk of political retribution at the polls.

That’s the predicament in which the Biden administration now finds itself. It is also the theme of “Energy Inflation Was by Design,” a new report by supply-chain consultant Joseph Toomey.

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Top 10 Tough Votes Democrats Had to Take During Vote-a-Rama for Massive Spending Bill

During a “vote-a-rama” on their $739 billion reconciliation spending bill that has hundreds of billions for climate and health care programs, Democratic senators had to take a series of uncomfortable votes on hot-button issues — particularly tough for those representing swing states.

The bill, which also includes federal funding for 87,000 new IRS agents, passed on a party line vote 51-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.

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Whaley Energy Plan for Ohio Excludes Fossil Fuels

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nan Whaley this weekend took to Twitter to promote an energy plan for the Buckeye State that excludes fossil-fuel production in favor of renewables.

“Check out mine and [running mate Cheryl Stephens’s] energy plan…,” she wrote. “1. Reform the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) so consumer interests are at its core; 2. Spur innovation & create good-paying, union jobs in clean energy; 3. Build climate resilient communities.”

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Michigan Attorney General Nessel, Consumers Energy Agree Tentatively to End Coal Use

Attorney General Dana Nessel entered a proposed settlement with Consumers Energy Company to end its use of coal by 2025 — 15 years earlier than originally planned.

The proposed settlement with Consumers Energy is in its integrated resource planning case, (Case No. U-21090), which is subject to final approval from the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC).

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Committee Votes to End Pipeline Bans, Check Pennsylvania Governor’s Power on Carbon Tax

A bipartisan majority of a Pennsylvania House of Representatives panel Monday passed several measures to increase fossil-fuel development in and exportation from the Keystone State.

One resolution, sponsored by state Rep. Stan Saylor (R-Red Lion) would call upon Govs. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and Phil Murphy (D-NJ) to terminate their states’ bans on the building of new conduits that could carry natural gas extracted in Pennsylvania. Other legislation offered by state Sen. Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) would ensure that legislators must approve Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state pact to which Gov. Tom Wolf (D) has committed the state by executive order. Implementation of RGGI entails effectively imposing a tax on carbon emissions.

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Pennsylvania Senators Introduce Tax Breaks and Regulatory Reform for Energy Producers

Doug Mastriano and Scott Hutchinson

Pennsylvania State Senators Doug Mastriano (R-Chambersburg) and Scott Hutchinson (R-Oil City) last week proposed a measure to lighten the tax and regulatory burden for fossil-fuel producers.

Their legislation, entitled the PA Energy Independence Act, would immediately pause income taxation for natural-gas developers, reduce state gas-extraction fees by 200 percent and end Governor Tom Wolf’s (D) moratorium on new state-land leases for fossil-fuel drilling. It would also suspend the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which would amount to a tax on carbon emissions.

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Schweizer: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Other Wall Street Leaders Partner with Chinese Coal, Military Enterprises

The investigative journalist and author of Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win told The Star News Network the titans of capitalism on Wall Street are now the partners of the Chinese Communist Party.

“What China wants from Wall Street is access to Western capital with no questions asked, and unfortunately the biggest fans on Wall Street are prepared to give it to them,” said Peter Schweizer, who is the president and founder of the Government Accountability Institute and the host of The Drill Down podcast.

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Analysis: Many Environmentalists Oppose Nuclear Energy Despite Its Reliability, Carbon-Free Footprint

Expanding U.S. nuclear power — an energy source that many environmentalists and lawmakers oppose — could be the most reliable way to achieve a carbon-free electricity grid, according to experts.

Nuclear energy is considered a renewable energy source because it produces zero emissions through fission, the process of splitting uranium atoms, according to the Department of Energy. Currently, nuclear accounts for about 9% of total U.S. energy consumption, slightly less than all other renewable energy sources combined and coal, government data showed.

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China Ramps Up Coal Production Despite Its Climate Promises

The Chinese government ordered its domestic coal suppliers to ramp up production and rubber-stamped approvals for new mines as the country faces an energy crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.

China, like Europe and many other parts of Asia, has faced rapidly increasing energy costs over the last several months as its economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the WSJ. The rising cost of coal — which accounts for the vast majority of China’s energy supply — has been a main driver of the overall price increases.

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Commentary: The Biden-Harris Ticket’s Radicalism Would Cost Ohio Dearly

If Joe Biden and his new running mate Kamala Harris get their way, millions of high-paying American energy jobs will be eliminated and entire industries will be cut to the bone.

Ohio, like a number of other states across the country, has enjoyed tremendous benefits from the shale energy revolution. The shale boom was a crucial lifeline following the 2008 financial crisis, which cost Ohio more than 2 million jobs.

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States Try Again to Block Coal Sales That Trump Revived

A coalition of states, environmentalists and American Indians on Monday renewed its push to stop the Trump administration from selling coal from public lands after a previous effort to halt the lease sales was dismissed by a federal judge.

Joined by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and several environmental groups, Democratic attorneys general from California, New York, New Mexico and Washington state filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s coal program in U.S. District Court in Montana.

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Commentary: Magical Thinking Meets the Inconvenient Realities of the ‘New Energy Economy’

by Mark P. Mills   A week doesn’t pass without a mayor, governor, policymaker or pundit joining the rush to demand, or predict, an energy future that is entirely based on wind/solar and batteries, freed from the “burden” of the hydrocarbons that have fueled societies for centuries. Regardless of one’s opinion about whether, or why, an energy “transformation” is called for, the physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future. Bill Gates has said that when it comes to understanding energy realities “we need to bring math to the problem.” He’s right. So, in my recent Manhattan Institute report, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,” I did just that. Herein, then, is a summary of some of the bottom-line realities from the underlying math. (See the full report for explanations, documentation, and citations.) Realities About the Scale of Energy Demand 1. Hydrocarbons supply over 80 percent of world energy: If all that were in the form of oil, the barrels would line up from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, and that entire line would grow by the…

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Trump’s EPA Finalizes Plan to Repeal And Replace Obama-Era Coal Plant Regulations

by  Michael Bastasch   The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its plan to repeal and replace an Obama-era regulation that critics said would cost thousands of coal industry jobs. EPA will repeal the Clean Power Plan, which the U.S. Supreme Court stayed and it never went into effect. EPA’s replacement plan, called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, asks states to improve coal plant efficiency. “ACE is an important step towards realigning EPA actions so they are consistent with the rule of law and the original mission of the agency,” Mandy Gunasekara, a former Trump EPA official who worked on ACE, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “While it’s well known that the political team believes this to be the case, it’s not as well known that there are many career officials who are equally relieved with returning to EPA’s traditional approach of regulating under this part of the Clean Air Act,” Gunasekara said. It’s a massive shift from the Obama administration’s effort to cut power plant greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. The Obama EPA required states to make deep cuts to power sector emissions, including by using more natural gas and renewables. “We think that goes beyond…

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Obama-Era Judge Slams the Brakes on Trump Order to Open Fed Lands to Coal Mining

by Tim Pearce   A federal judge in Montana delayed a Trump administration attempt to open up more federal lands to coal mining Friday, The New York Times reported. U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris ruled that the Trump administration illegally overturned a moratorium placed on coal mining on federal lands by former President Barack Obama. Obama instituted the policy in 2016 as part of his administration’s environmental agenda to cut coal usage. Morris’s decision states that former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not consider the full environmental effects of overturning the coal mining ban and ordered the Department of the Interior (DOI) to redo and expand environmental studies on the matter. The DOI is looking into the court decision before taking further action, The NYT reported. “Federal Defendants’ decision not to initiate the [National Environmental Policy Act] process proves arbitrary and capricious,” Morris, who was nominated to the federal bench by Obama in 2013, wrote in his decision. The next push to overturn Obama’s moratorium on selling coal mining leases for federal land will fall to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. Bernhardt took charge of the DOI as acting secretary after Zinke left the department in January. The Senate confirmed Bernhardt’s nomination on April 11. Trump…

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Coal Fund Raid Could Cost Ohioans Millions

In a rare display of unity, members of the coal lobby joined with environmental advocacy leaders to raise concerns following Gov. John Kasich’s (R-OH) decision to raid the state’s coal mining reclamation fund. In 2017, the state of Ohio was facing a heavy tax shortfall as a result of decreased tax revenues. In response, Kasich withdrew over $114 million dollars from 16 separate state agencies in order to fund more essential government functions. The Ohio coal mining reclamation fund was among these and lost more than $5 million. Currently, there are no plans or provisions in place to replace the funds. The fund is paid for by taxes collected from state coal mining companies, intended to reverse the damage done by mining over the past two centuries. For over 200 years, Ohio has been a major center of coal mining in America. Mining was essential to the development of Ohio’s economy. While surface mining can be done responsibly, the depleted land often requires significant investment to repair. Should this not occur, environmental damage can extend well past the intended areas. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’s Division of Mineral Resources, as of 1972, the problems included: 1,300 miles of streams polluted by…

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Trump’s EPA Moves to Repeal Obama’s De Facto Ban on New Coal Plants

by Michael Bastasch   The Trump administration proposed rolling back Obama-era regulation that opponents called a de facto ban on building new coal-fired power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will raise carbon dioxide emissions limits for new coal-fired power plants and eliminate the Obama administration’s mandate that new facilities install carbon capture and storage equipment. “Consistent with President Trump’s executive order promoting energy independence, EPA’s proposal would rescind excessive burdens on America’s energy providers and level the playing field so that new energy technologies can be a part of America’s future,” EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. EPA’s plan to modify New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for power plants is part of the Trump administration efforts to unwind the Clean Power Plan — the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s global warming agenda. The Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Power Plan forced states to cut CO2 emissions at existing coal plants and made it extremely difficult to build new ones by mandating they install carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment. What the Obama EPA did was consider CCS the “best system of emission reduction” for new coal plants, despite criticism from power plant operators, unions and Republicans that…

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Insurers Are Refusing to Do Business With Coal Companies

by Jason Hopkins   A growing number of insurance firms around the world are either divesting from coal companies or refusing to do business with them altogether. Generali — the third largest insurer in Europe and the largest in Italy — announced it will no longer insure the production of coal facilities or mines. Additionally, Generali will no longer accept new clients that acquire as much as 30 percent of their revenue or energy production from coal. The Italian company, however, will keep doing business with its existing clients. Generali’s moves are just the latest in a growing trend by major insurance companies who are refusing to work with coal interests. International insurance giants Allianz, Swiss Re, Murich Re, AXA and Zurich have all opted to limit their insurance dealings with coal. Their decisions mostly come, not only pressure from environmental organizations, but also from governments increasingly antagonistic against fossil fuels. Fifteen European countries have pledged to completely phase out coal by the year 2030. “Generali’s move shows that coal is increasingly becoming uninsurable. The majority of global insurance companies with the expertise to lead in assessing and underwriting new power plants have now committed to end or limit insurance…

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Announces a Changed Standard for Carbon Limits, Demands ‘Urgent Action’

by Julie Kelly   A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers a timely reminder that much of the Left’s doomsday hysteria can be traced to the modern-day environmental movement. Like Democrats’ dire warnings that everything from tax cuts to net neutrality will result in mass casualties, the climate cabal’s Grim Reaper estimates are not just wrong and constantly changing—they defy reality. Ever since Donald Trump wisely scuttled the meaningless Paris Climate Accord last year, climate alarmists have been desperate to revive the public’s interest in this once-dominant political issue. As concern about climate change has waned, the activists who are determined to use it as leverage to exert more state control over our lives have downgraded the planet’s prognosis once again. The IPCC now warns that if the rise in global temperatures is not limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial estimates, millions of humans will suffer a horrific fate beginning in 2040. Most scientific agencies that track climate change insist the Earth’s temperature has already increased just shy of 1 degree C since the late 1800s and blame human activity for most of the rise. That means, according to the IPCC, we only have another…

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Commentary: President Trump Eyes American Energy Dominance

by Printus LeBlanc   Despite what the media is spewing, President Donald Trump is continuing his push to improve the American economy. The President made not just energy independence a priority of his campaign and now administration, but energy dominance. The President knows the U.S. has been blessed with vast quantities of energy, but the previous administration spent eight years trying to kill the energy industry and the hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs that go with it. President Trump and Secretary Zinke are taking steps to correct eight years of bureaucratic war waged against the petroleum extract industry. An independent study conducted by Rystad Energy released in 2016 estimates the U.S. now holds more recoverable oil than both Saudi Arabia and Russia. If the report is accurate, it would be worth an estimated $50 trillion. Even if the estimates are off by half, it is still $25 trillion just waiting for U.S. firms to pull out of the ground. Unfortunately, much of that is on federal lands. On June 29, while speaking at the Department of Energy, President Trump outlined six concrete steps his Administration is immediately taking to promote strength and innovation in America’s energy sector. The President’s sixth step…

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Underreported: What Happened When Government Tried to Fix a Coal Town in Kentucky

Tennessee Star

PAINTSVILLE, Ky.—When Ben Larrabee heard about a new government-funded job training program for the digital age that promised to turn “coal country” into “code country,” he stopped looking for other jobs. “The thing that got 800-plus people to apply and go through the process was that it promised jobs that would run from $30,000 to $40,000…

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