New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo maintains that in 20 years’ time the Empire State will get 100% of its electricity from “carbon-free” sources–like wind and solar. In fact, Cuomo says he’s waved his magic wand and 50% of NY’s electricity will come from so-called renewables in just 10 years, by 2030. It’s a pipe dream. A truly deluded fantasy that has zero chance of ever becoming reality. Based on this hyped up fantasy, Cuomo now rejects all new natural gas pipeline projects into the state. Here’s how and why that strategy, the strategy of switching to renewables, will soon come crashing down around him.
Continue reading
Does one government hand know what the other is doing in Puerto Rico? More to the point, is there a brain instructing either hand what to do? That’s the question we had as we read the legislature of PR has just passed an idiotic law requiring all electricity generation on the island to come from so-called renewables by 2050.
When you hear the term “Clean Energy” what do you think it means? Almost everyone would agree the term means wind and solar power. But that’s a premise that is ripe for questioning. When you start to look at the bigger picture, the illusion of “clean” wind turbines and solar panels quickly goes SPLAT!
Here’s a story we found interesting–about landowners in western New York who had leased their land for a wind farm. The company that owns the wind farm had a dispute with a contractor helping to build it, and the contractor sued–the landowners! Sound familiar?
What’s the best, most efficient way to produce electricity? The winner, hands down, is natural gas. That’s according to a recent report from the Manhattan Institute titled “The Real Fuel of the Future: Natural Gas” (full copy below). The report indicates that dollar-for-dollar, investment in natural gas generates 16 times the amount of power as solar panels, and eight times the amount of windmills. Tell us again how superior wind and solar are!
We spotted an announcement by Columbia Gas (subsidiary of NiSource) that says they are withdrawing a rate case–their request filed earlier this year with Massachusetts to increase natural gas rates by $33 million. Probably a good idea in light of the recent tragedy (see 
We have nothing against solar energy–honestly. Yes, in one sense solar competes with natural gas, but hey, let the best energy source win! Truth be told, we need all energy sources, not just one. So please understand this is not a “bash solar” story. However, we do have a problem when politicians and anti-fossil fuel zealots insist we MUST use one source of energy over another. That’s just not American. And it doesn’t make economic sense either. You may hear that solar is cheap and getting cheaper. Some claim solar now produces electricity at a lower cost than natural gas. Not true. Here’s a comparison. Earlier this week Broome County celebrated the startup of a “large” solar farm on 20 acres of county-owned land in Conklin, NY. The official ribbon cutting was a big affair with the county executive claiming the county will save $140,000 a year with the facility–a facility that’s a year-and-a-half late going online. Fair enough. Who doesn’t want to save $140K a year, right? Not that a single taxpayer in Broome County will notice the 10 cents per tax bill they end up saving. Meanwhile, over the past ten years in Susquehanna County, PA (just south of Broome County, shares a border with Broome), natural gas drilling has been going great guns. In Susquehanna County, a single driller, Cabot Oil & Gas, has put $1.5 billion into the pockets of private landowners through signing bonuses and royalties, and has spent another $3.5 billion on drilling (over $5 billion total spent)–all in Susquehanna County. It is an economic miracle. Tax revenues in the county have gone through the roof! Millions have poured into tax coffers because of the gas industry. Cabot, a single driller, is providing 2.5% of all the natural gas produced in the U.S.–from Susquehanna County. And that’s just one driller! There are more drillers in Susquehanna. We’d estimate that at least $7-$8 billion has flowed into the county over the past 10 years. Mind blowing. And yet, here in the Binghamton area, local media has a blackout and refuses to report on Susquehanna County’s economic miracle. Meanwhile, Broome residents are told to get all excited about saving $140K a year. We’re being asked to jump up and down and feel good about a few economic cracker crumbs when 15 miles away everyone eats economic filet mignon. And now a group of antis masquerading as a solar group is trying to snow even more Broome residents into thinking solar is our energy savior. They’re selling a bill of goods…
We have long thought (and written) that to concede the argument that renewable energy–wind and solar–is some sort of nirvana, a magical destination, that renewables are our inevitable energy future–is a mistake. To box ourselves in by buying into the argument that natural gas is a “bridge” to get us lower carbon emissions until renewable heaven arrives is faulty thinking. And now, none other than the CEO of BP is saying the same thing. Not in quite the same words we’ve used, but certainly the same sentiment. BP still bows to the alter of man-made global warming nonsense. But at least they have the guts to say, out loud, that natural gas itself is good enough–the “destination” as a fuel, and not simply a “bridge” to renewables. BP CEO Bob Dudley said that this week on a panel at the World Gas Conference in Washington, D.C. On the same panel, French oil giant Total CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, said, “This idea of natural gas as a transition fuel to renewables is strange.” Yes! Finally some clear thinkers willing to stand up for fossil fuels! We need more people to stand up and shout, “The renewables Emperor has no clothes!”…
This past Tuesday, hundreds of Pennsylvanians gathered in Harrisburg to “rally for a new vision for the Commonwealth powered by 100 percent renewable energy.” Among those attending including representatives from businesses, various religious leaders, local mayors, and nurses and doctors to advocate for “bipartisan” legislation to force PA to dump fossil fuels and adopt 100% renewable energy. There is no polite way to say this, but say it we must: This so-called “bipartisan” gathering to push House and Senate bills demanding the state dump the use of fossil fuels (like natural gas) and instead stick solar panels on every rooftop and windmills on every hilltop to power the Keystone state’s electricity (and other) power needs is stark….raving….mad. It’s lunatic. Forcing the state to adopt 100% renewables is not “nice” or a “gentle, blessed future that will arrive someday.” Adopting 100% renewables is a deluded fantasy. To pretend otherwise is unkind. We must call this nuttery out for what it is: irrational hatred of fossil fuels. We have nothing against any form of energy. They all have their pluses and minuses. You like a solar panel on your house–good for you! An ugly windmill with it’s whump whump whump sound nearby? Whatever floats your boat. But ending the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity any time within the next 75-100 years is the end of human life as we know it. What was presented at the rally as some benign gathering of average citizens was nothing of the sort. Big Green (radical) groups, including PennFuture, were behind this flummery…
Last Thursday the radical Big Green group PennEnvironment released a “study” that claims PA should move to adopt electric buses, instead of all other alternatives (like compressed natural gas) because electric buses are (supposedly) more environmentally friendly. We understand the argument about replacing diesel-powered engines to lower the amount of nasty stuff that enters the air. But PennEnvironment’s argument to use electric buses is as much about reducing mythical global warming as it is reducing diesel emissions. And here’s the thing PennEnvironment doesn’t tell you (and what their Big Green supporters are too dull to figure out themselves): electricity comes from somewhere. It’s not magic. It’s produced. In PA, as of January 2018, 54% of all electricity is produced either by coal or natural gas-fired plants. Another 40% is produced by nuclear plants. How much electricity is produced in PA by all those gigantic windmills you see when sailing down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, along with solar? A measly 2.9%. So how “clean” are electric buses, really? Put another way, the majority of what powers electric buses is good old fossil fuels. Does PennEnvironment know they’re advocating for more fossil fuel use? Meanwhile, the Wolf administration (surprisingly) continues to invest in CNG buses, which is the smart thing to do…
In June 2014, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, reaffirmed two lower court rulings that empowers townships and municipalities across the state to strip away property owners’ rights to allow drilling and other energy projects (see 
As supporters of the fossil fuel industry, we must deal with the issue of catastrophic, man-made global warming head-on. Our kids now grow up believing this lie, and they turn into activists demanding action–sometimes to the point of violence–in support of this lie. We recently read an opinion column by a young woman who appears to be bright, earnest, talented, dedicated–and she believes the lies taught to her about fossil fuels and their role in society. She recently protested in Albany, willing to risk arrest, all in the name of demanding Gov. Cuomo end the use of all fossil fuels in New York State. She’s deathly afraid (we’d call it a phobia) of a common occurrence: the construction and operation of a natural gas-fired power plant in Orange County, NY. What this young woman apparently doesn’t understand is that New York would be plunged back into the Dark Ages if we were to forgo all fossil fuel use–as she is demanding via her protests. Wall Street would move to another state with no electricity to operate its computer networks. Disease and death would be rampant throughout the state. Reliable electricity (used to charge the phone she uses to snap selfies of her protest marches and arrests) would be a thing of the past. It’s really quite sad that this young woman has been completely and incontrovertibly miseducated. Lied to. Education malpractice. The real shame is that she parades her abject ignorance for the world to see. The miseducation of our youth–the intentional lies told to them about man-made global warming, must stop…
In June 2014, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, reaffirmed two lower court rulings that empowers townships and municipalities across the state to strip away property owners’ rights to allow drilling and other energy projects (see 
We spotted an article a month ago that is shocking and disturbing. This is the first time we’ve had a chance in our daily article roundup to bring it to you. A Stanford University professor pedals a “religion” that claims the world can be fueled by 100% renewable energy. That is, renewables can provide everything we need: electricity, heating, transportation, industry, shipping, the works. And renewables can do it so well that we won’t need power plants that run on actual fuel. It’s a bizarre viewpoint, but there you go. Some people believe in Santa Claus too. The Stanford prof published a paper espousing this theory. There were a lot of factual flaws in the paper, so another scientist (actually 22 prominent scientists) published a paper pointing out the problems with the Stanford prof’s paper. That’s how it’s done in academe. You put your research out there, and others can (often do) come along and question it with their own research and rebuttal. That’s how science gets better. So what did the Stanford prof do? He sued one of the 22 authors of the dissenting paper, along with the academic journal that published it! Sued them for libel. The person he chose to sue isn’t affiliated with an institution with a legal team to defend him–so this is selective persecution. An attempt at legal bullying. No longer is science something we debate with published findings. Now it’s a matter of faith–and God help you if you believe on the wrong side of an issue like global warming, or renewables. If you dare to believe the “wrong way”–or worse yet poke holes in a true believer’s theories–you may get hauled into court. An ebook titled “ROADMAP TO NOWHERE: The Myth of Powering the Nation With Renewable Energy” (full copy below) covers this controversy and shines a light on what you thought you knew about so-called renewables. The ebook compares renewables with nuclear energy (we wish it were natgas, but perhaps using nuclear is the better comparison in this case). Take a blood pressure pill before you read the following…
Yesterday Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (liberal Democrat) issued a press release to take credit for/crow about handing out another $1 million of taxpayer money. This time the money is part of the state’s Alternative Fuel Incentive Grants (AFIG) program–a program aimed at replacing gasoline and diesel fuel. At least replacing a little bit of it–a token gesture. The state issued grants totaling more than $1.1 million in their effort to replace fossil fuels as the fuel that powers vehicles. And what “alternative” will replace those nasty fossil fuels? What clean-burning, good-for-the-environment option did PA deign to fund for over $1 million? Was the money used to purchase new electric charging stations for Chevy Volts, Nissan Leafs, and Teslas? Nope. The superior option to replace those nasty fossil fuels is…other fossil fuels! The grants will buy buses that run on propane, and build compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling stations for vehicles that run on CNG. No electric outlets in sight. By using propane and CNG, Wolf says PA will replace “hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel” (meaning gasoline and diesel), making PA’s air cleaner. We think it’s kind of funny that Wolf’s enviro left hates natural gas, yet Wolf calls it clean and green and hands out money to make it more widely available…