FERC Report: Summer Blackouts During “Extreme Conditions”
Some interesting exchanges took place at yesterday’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) open meeting between the five commissioners. Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick released the agency’s Summer Energy Market and Reliability Assessment report along with a press release sugarcoating some of the strong language in the report. One of the statements in the Key Findings of the report is this little gem under Electric Markets: “Despite having planning reserve margins that exceed reference margin levels, all regions may face energy shortfalls [of electricity] during extreme operating conditions.” The two Republican FERC commissioners didn’t let Glick get away with sweeping it under the proverbial carpet.
Read More “FERC Report: Summer Blackouts During “Extreme Conditions””
From time to time we bring you columns written by Ronald Stein, author, engineer, and energy expert. He writes for several organizations, including his latest column appearing on The Heartland Institute website (he is an advisor for Heartland). Stein’s column points out the blazingly obvious that nobody else seems to grasp: Without fossil fuels and the products that are made from fossil fuels, there’s no reason to have so-called renewable electric energy because there won’t be any products to power with that energy! But maybe that’s exactly what the left wants?
We’re holding on by a thread folks, with respect to PA’s onerous new carbon tax. Back in April, we told you about a lawsuit filed by Big Coal against the Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf administration to block Wolf’s attempt to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants (see 
Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw has been a champion in the fight to defeat Gov. Tom Wolf’s hideous carbon tax, otherwise known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Wolf is trying to force PA to join over the objections of a majority of state legislators. In his latest missive about RGGI, Yaw connects some dots that need to be connected–between Russian money funding Big Green groups, and the groups using that money to lobby, influence, and litigate in an effort to force PA to join RGGI. It’s an effort to force PA to use less fossil energy. Clearly, RGGI is anti-fossil fuel. We would argue, as does Yaw in this excellent editorial below, that RGGI is also anti-American.
Last week Philadelphia released a so-called “Greenhouse Gas Inventory” report (full copy below) comparing emissions from 2019, the most recent pre-pandemic data, to a baseline in 2006. The report shows citywide emissions have dropped 20% since 2006. In reporting done by the lefties at PBS about this news, you have to read down to the fifth paragraph before you locate the reason for the 20% drop in Philly’s emissions: using Marcellus Shale gas to generate electricity.
Has there been a more dysfunctional White House than the Biden White House…ever? No, there hasn’t. While Joe Biden mouths words (that someone has written for him, appearing on a teleprompter) supporting natural gas and encouraging more natgas exports to help Europe, the Biden EPA and others in the administration (see today’s story about the haughty John Kerry) attack natural gas, calling for programs to phase out its use here in the United States. We’ve given up trying to understand psychotic leftists. There is no understanding and reconciling “drill more to help our allies” with “but we’re going to ban its use here at home.”
Bloom Energy, a provider of fuel cells that convert natural gas (or biogas, or hydrogen) into electricity without combustion, meaning no carbon dioxide emissions, has signed a two-year deal to buy all of its natural gas to power fuel cells at some 700 locations from EQT. But it’s not just any natural gas Bloom is buying–it’s EQT’s certified responsible natural gas. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
MDN has highlighted Capstone Turbine Corporation, a California company that manufactures small electric-generating plants that run on natural gas, several times in the past (
Last Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled that Gov. Tom Wolf’s obscene carbon tax, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), will not go into effect until “pending further order of the court” (see 
The main reason Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wants to force his state (against the will of a majority of residents) to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax, is that it will supposedly cut down the state’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is supposedly causing Mom Earth to toast (see