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Gov. Wolf Sacrifices 2,000 Acres of PA Farmland for Ugly Solar Farms

If you live in Pennsylvania, actually in just about any state, you couldn’t miss the big splash made yesterday when PA’s worst governor in the past 50 years, Tom Wolf, announced a massive taxpayer-funded initiative to build seven new solar energy facilities in six PA counties that will strip away some 2,000 acres of valuable PA farmland to produce enough electricity to power just half of PA’s state government. (Perhaps we can call it the half-baked solar project?) Leftists in mainstream media are falling over themselves to praise Wolf. We (as usual) have a different take.
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Shale Insight 2020 Day #2: Renewable Energy Myth; Unions Love Gas

Mark Mills – Manhattan Institute

Yesterday the second day of Shale Insight began with a keynote delivered by West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D). He mouthed support for the shale industry in an unremarkable talk. We’re not all that thrilled with Manchin. The American Energy Alliance Report Card says Manchin voted only 67% of the time to support affordable energy and fossil fuels (see House/Senate Energy Scorecard: Who to Vote For/Against PA-OH-WV). The real belle of the ball yesterday was another speaker: Mark Mills.
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Enbridge Using Solar Farm to Power TETCO Compressor Station in NJ

Enbridge, the owner/operator of the Texas Eastern Transmission Pipeline Company (TETCO), is building a first. The company is building a compressor station in Hunterdon County, New Jersey that is all-electric. Building an all-electric compressor isn’t a first (although it’s not typical). What is a first is where the electricity will come from to power it–a big, ugly 12-acre solar farm sitting nearby.
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Fossil Fuels – The REAL Superheroes!

Who would win a fight between Thor and Superman? Could Wonder Woman defeat Spider-Man? Does it even matter? Of course not! We just know we love watching superhero movies. But there would be no superhero flicks without oil, natural gas, and coal. You wouldn’t know it to listen to the news media, activists, and many politicians, but these essential energy resources are the REAL LIFE superheroes of our daily lives. Without fossil fuels, we would all be living in an unending horror show with no popcorn, no drink, no comfortable seat, no air conditioning, and… not much else for that matter.
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Josh Fox Tries (Fails) to Silence Michael Moore Renewables Film

Josh Fox, the propagandist who made the Gasland fictional documentary bashing natural gas (see New Anti-Drilling Movie GASLAND Takes Aim at Hydrofacking) has picked a public fight with fellow liberal Michael Moore over the later’s new documentary challenging renewable energy orthodoxy (see Michael Moore Documentary Exposes Renewable Energy Farce). Fox is trying to get Moore’s new film censored.
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Court Rejects Stanford Prof’s Lawsuit Against Renewables Critics

A Standford University professor who sued another scientist who dared to criticize his wacky views on renewable energy in a journal article sued the scientist and the journal for defamation. It took a while for the lawsuit to play out (two years), but a judge in the case recently ruled the Standford prof was wrong in filing the lawsuit and must now pay the attorney’s fees for those whom he sued. Sweet justice.
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Michael Moore Documentary Exposes Renewable Energy Farce

Michael Moore, the uber-leftist filmmaker, has just trained his sights on destroying his own leftist brethren in the Big Green movement. Two days ago Moore released a full-length documentary on Youtube called “Planet of the Humans” (embedded below) questioning the claims of “green” wind and solar farms, pointing out the environmental destruction being caused by so-called “renewables.” Moore is no longer on the Christmas card list of Big Green groups after this one.
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Happy “Fossil Fuels Make the Earth Livable” Day

Earth Day is the day Big Green has a collective orgasm over Mom Earth and their efforts to keep her clean. We have no issue with responsible stewardship of our natural resources and keeping the environment clean. Everyone (with a brain) aspires to that. We do have a problem with worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. Worshiping the earth is what Earth Day is all about. Each year it gets nuttier than the last. This year is the 50th year so-called Earth Day (as a “thing”) has been celebrated. We celebrate Earth Day each year by celebrating the life-changing good brought to humankind by fossil fuels.
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When (Not ‘If’) NatGas Use in US Will End Debated at NARUC Mtg

In the space of a little over 10 years natural gas has gone from “climate hero” to “climate villain.” In no small part the change has come due to huge amounts of money spent by disgusting Big Green groups like the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, NRDC, EDF and others. We’d guess if you were to ask most Americans, they would say fossil fuels (like natural gas) will be replaced “soon” by electricity–not knowing natgas is the single largest source of generating electricity! At the Winter Policy Summit of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) last week, a standing-room-only crowd filled a session moderated by former FERC Commissioner Cherly LaFleur on the topic of how soon the electric sector (along with other sectors) will “wean off gas” here in the United States.
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NY’s Uneven Treatment of Wind Energy vs. Natural Gas Fracking

This is so outrageous we don’t even have words for it. New York State’s highest court, with its judges appointed by Gov. Cuomo, ruled in 2014 that local municipal “home rule” laws to block fracking are just fine (see Shale Drilling in NY is Over – High Court Upholds Town Bans). Yet another group of Cuomo appointees–who sit on the New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment–have just ruled that a NY town’s recently enacted wind law was passed too late in the process, so its conditions do not apply to the current wind project developer. This is NOT justice. THIS IS WRONG. We have some advice for other Upstate NY towns (important advice) based on this miscarriage of justice.

Please see our update at the bottom about the home rule issue.
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NY Corruption: Home Rule OK to Ban Fracking, but Not Ban Windmills

There is a double standard in existence in New York. A CORRUPT double standard. And the corruption comes from Andrew Cuomo. In 2014 judges on NY’s highest court, the Court of Appeals (all them appointed by the governor) voted to uphold a disastrous energy policy that grants town boards of local municipalities the right to ban fracking, should the state ever allow it, in an entire community (see Shale Drilling in NY is Over – High Court Upholds Town Bans). BUT, when a local town baned wind farms in Western NY, Cuomo stepped in and like the tin horn dictator he is, he overruled them (see NY’s Grotesque Energy Double Standard re “Home Rule”). CORRUPT! It’s happening again–this time in MDN’s own back yard.
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Maine Eyes Turning Excess Renewable Electricity into…NatGas?!

click for larger version

Even the most hardened anti-fossil fuelers can’t deny that science has not yet caught up to our capacity to store electricity generated by so-called renewable sources like wind and solar. Sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and last time we checked, the sun doesn’t shine at night. But sometimes the wind does blow, a lot, and the sun shines a lot, and produces far more electricity than the grid can handle. It would be nice to store that extra electricity for use later–but batteries don’t cut it. Not yet. So how can you store extra electricity from wind and solar aside from batteries?
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World Energy Use Up 50% Next 30 Years, Powered by Fossil Fuels

Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), published an article yesterday in which their expert number crunchers predict the world will use 50% more energy than it does today by 2050–in 30 short years. While so-called renewable sources of energy (which include hydro as well as solar and wind) will see a big jump up in supplying that increased need, the very sobering observation is that then, as today, fossil fuels will continue to supply the lion’s share of energy worldwide. How much?
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Why Solar and Wind Will Never Replace NatGas in New York State

Cost per Megawatt-hour (click for larger version)

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.
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Will Puerto Rico’s Clean Energy Law Affect Marcellus LNG Imports?

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.
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