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Supporters Of Wind Farms Over Nuclear Power Are Eagle Killers, Not Conservationists


REPORTED BY: KEN BRAUN | APRIL 18, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/18/supporters-of-wind-farms-over-nuclear-power-are-eagle-killers-not-conservationists/

eagle

Hundreds of hypocritical nonprofits implicitly endorse eagle elimination because they oppose nuclear energy and promote wind turbines.

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On April 6, energy firm NextEra pleaded guilty to three federal charges of killing eagles with wind turbines. The plea included an $8 million fine, an agreement to pay almost $30,000 for future eagle kills, and a commitment to spend $27 million to prevent future kills.

The penalties should have been worse. Prosecutors alleged NextEra’s raptor-slayers had executed 150 eagles in eight states.

NextEra didn’t act alone. Hundreds of hypocritical nonprofits implicitly endorse eagle elimination because they oppose nuclear energy and promote massive build-out of wind turbines. Their combined annual budgets exceed $1 billion. The notorious list includes the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Financial support comes from big names such as the Ford Foundation.

A March 2021 Department of Energy report stated that a “typical” nuclear plant “needs a little more than 1 square mile to operate,” while “wind farms require 360 times more land area to produce the same amount of electricity and solar photovoltaic plants require 75 times more space.”

Supporters of wind energy are not conservationists. There’s nothing “clean” about energy that devours hundreds of times the land needed by another carbon-free option and then needlessly wipes out eagles as a cost of doing business.

Renewables Can’t Meet Energy Needs

President Joe Biden hasn’t learned this yet. In his March 1 State of the Union address he pledged to “double America’s clean energy production in solar, wind, and so much more.”

But despite hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies already given out, solar, and wind together still accounted for less than 5 percent of total American energy consumption in 2020. Biden’s speech didn’t mention increasing production of nuclear or the other fuels that account for 95 percent of the energy we need.

In 2020 the combined output of every wind turbine and solar panel on Earth was 6,037 TWh (terawatt hours). In comparison, the American nuclear program alone produced 2,051 TWh, even as it represented just 8.4 percent of total U.S. energy consumption.

Conservationists Should Support Nuclear Energy

If the president, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the rest were conservationists, they’d ditch the wasteful wind subsidies and instead demand a doubling (or more) of carbon-free nuclear energy. The Department of Energy reports uranium is “a common metal found in rocks all over the world” and “economically recoverable” in the United States and more than a dozen other nations.

France obtained 36.1 percent of total energy consumption from nuclear in 2020. Of the five richest and largest industrial economies, the French are the least carbon intensive per capita. In 2020, French carbon emissions measured 3.8 tCO2 per person, compared to 4.6 for the United Kingdom, 7.0 for Germany, 8.2 for Japan, and 13.0 for the United States.

If 36 percent of American energy consumption in 2020 had been nuclear, that could have theoretically displaced all of the coal and nearly half of oil consumption. (Although this would have required many more vehicles to run on electricity).

Fake conservationists are marching us in the other direction. Last April the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund cheered the closure of the Indian Point nuclear station in upstate New York. In an absurd defense of the weather-restricted power industry, the Sierra Club released a graphic showing house cats kill more birds than wind turbines.

Well, yes, house cats prey upon America’s inexhaustible supply of quickly reproducing sparrows, robins, and other small birds. For the Sierra Club to equate this with wind turbines wiping out big and slow-to-reproduce predators is as silly as saying a Formula One racer is comparable to what is found at a roadside used car lot.

Protecting Wild Animals and the Wide Open

Quoted by NPR after the federal plea deal, the leader of the eagle-killing wind firm copped a Sierra Club attitude: “NextEra President Rebecca Kujawa said collisions of birds with wind turbines are unavoidable accidents that should not be criminalized.”

Every single one of those collisions is avoidable, because wind turbines themselves are avoidable. We’d be knocking almost all of them down if the sanctimonious anti-nuclear nonprofits acted like conservationists who enjoy witnessing wild animals and wide-open spaces.    

Ken Braun is Capital Research Center’s senior investigative researcher and authors profiles for InfluenceWatch.org and the Capital Research magazine. He previously worked for several free-market policy organizations, spent six years as a chief of staff in the Michigan legislature, and wrote political columns for MLive Media Group.

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Why Are Energy Prices Everywhere So High? Democrats


REPORTED BY: DANIEL TURNER | JANUARY 24, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/24/why-are-energy-prices-everywhere-so-high-democrats/

Mystic Generating Station, Massachusetts

When President Biden warned of a bleak and deadly winter, he was referring to the Covid-19 outbreak that he promised to “shut down.” While he has failed to curb the virus, his policies have unfortunately been more successful reining in our once thriving energy industry. At the one-year mark of his administration running the Departments of Interior and Energy and determining regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency, anyone paying a bill sees the results. Oil prices have nearly doubled since Biden’s inauguration.

Despite the longing of green activists worldwide, we are in fact, a fossil fuel-driven economy, and all prices have gone up dramatically: gas, food, utilities, shipping, durable goods. Biden’s inflation, now at 40-year highs of 7 percent, is now the number-one issue among voters and will no doubt hang over every race this November. The only logical response for an embattled president is changing the narrative. So, Biden bought a puppy.

To be fair, Biden alone is not to blame. The entire far left is. For years, leftist politicians have attacked the energy industry in the name of “climate change” and for years those of us who know the industry have warned of dire consequences.

The Left’s Insanity On Energy Supply

Four years ago, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey started using her office to prevent pipeline construction. Without a constant supply, power plants turned elsewhere for reliable natural gas: Russia. Despite the absolute insanity of sending Commonwealth checks to Vladimir Putin rather than Pennsylvania, Healey insisted it was better for the climate. Even when the Massachusetts electric grid was teetering on failure, she insisted that transatlantic cargo ships were an improvement over domestic pipelines to a neighboring state. It was insanity then. It’s worse now.

Massachusetts joins the ranks of many European nations enriching Putin. He has used the surplus to build his army along Ukraine preparing to invade. You didn’t think he was going to build orphanages, did you? It is Vladimir Putin, after all. Maybe the Russian army can have a disclaimer, like the ones Healey applies to campaign ads. “This army brought to you by climate change activists.”

Writing for Forbes, energy analyst David Blackmon breaks down the current state of electricity generation in New England. Despite the subsidies and the posturing of Northeastern climate-conscious Democrat politicians like Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Green New Deal author Edward Markey, the region has increased use of the very fossil fuels they try so hard to eliminate. Blasted New Englanders and their… heat.

They are also importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Caribbean because of the now four-year old Healey logic: why buy inexpensively from your friend what you can buy at a premium from a stranger? Add to that the few thousand miles in an ocean tanker and you get a perfect formula for being an eco-warrior.

Reduced Production

Supply is becoming an ongoing problem for the energy industry. The United States is currently producing about 1.5 million barrels of crude oil fewer per day than pre-pandemic levels. Worse, investment in the industry is down nearly 25 percent from that period. Why? Biden.

Fossil fuels are a labor and market-intensive industry, and they rely on government cooperation. That means a secretary of Energy who does not laugh when asked about industry challenges. That means an Interior secretary who does not say publicly “it would be great to stop all oil and gas leases on public lands.” Investors are not going to gamble on the Biden variable, even with oil reaching seven-year highs.

Government is dropping the ball. It’s mid-January, and we have a lot of winter ahead of us. Between the high prices and the scarce supply, consumers should be worried.

Lessons from the Texas Freeze

Last year, Texas experienced a terrible winter storm that shut down its wind turbine electricity production. Sadly, 246 people died in that storm. For decades, Texas Republicans bought into the green energy myths, quietly allowing the notion that fossil fuels were the enemy to fester in their policy hearts. They introduced “renewable energy mandates.” When the storm of February 2021 froze the wind turbines, supporters of the renewable energy mandates quickly came to the green defense. This was not about science or facts: this was about defending ideology.

“Don’t Blame Wind Turbines” blared Time Magazine, along with USA Today, The Washington Post, and of course, The New York Times. The laughable, knee-jerk reaction brings up a metaphysical dilemma: if the absence of something is no different than its presence, does it have any value? Or even exist? If the wind turbines failed, and make no mistake they failed completely, but their failure does not matter, then how can they have measurable success?

All of these outlets blame the fiasco in Texas on natural gas pipelines, as fossil fuels are, and will always be, the reliable backup to green energy. The renewable energy advocates, desperate not to have a failure on the books, contend that in certain conditions natural gas must overperform. During that storm it did not, and therefore is at fault. Renewables are asked to do the bare minimum, demand perfect conditions, and if any variable is introduced, they get to throw in the towel and cast aspersions on the real performers.

If Texas Republicans fall victim to the green energy siren calls, then what hope does New England have? New England, the bastion of unblemished liberalism, back to burning oil instead of cleaner natural gas, running low on LNG, buying supplies from Russia and the Caribbean, adding to ocean pollution with more tankers, sacrificing American jobs, and enriching Putin.

Again, 246 people were victims of Texas’ green energy dreams. It’s the nameless, the powerless, the voiceless, who die at the hands of the state because of political decisions based on ideology. And their numbers are going to climb unless there is a major reversal at the federal and state level.

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Energy Dept. Defends Obama’s Climate Action Plan By Firing Honest Scientist


waving flagAuthored by Ethan Barton / 12/20/2016

URL of the original posting site:  http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/20/energy-dept-defends-obamas-climate-action-plan-by-firing-honest-scientist/#ixzz4TW1wasAN

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science Committee. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science Committee. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

solid-foundation-600-wlogoDepartment of Energy (DOE) officials withheld information from Congress to advance President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan and fired an employee who honestly and thoroughly answered legislative staff’s questions, a congressional committee investigation found.

DOE officials, including Noelle Metting, met with staff from the House Science, Space and Technology and Senate Energy and Natural Resources committees in October 2014 to discuss pending legislation the agency opposed. DOE wanted to suppress information to kill support for the bill, science committee Republicans revealed in a report Tuesday.

Metting was later fired because she “refused to conform to [DOE management’s] predetermined remarks” and provided “candid and complete information” in response to the committees’ questions, the report said.

(RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Energy Department Investigated By Congress For Firing Whistleblower)

“Instead of providing the type of scientific information needed by Congress to legislate effectively, senior departmental officials sought to hide information, lobbied against legislation, and retaliated against a scientist for being forthcoming,” Science, Space and Technology committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said in a statement.

The report added: “The DOE’s actions constitute a reckless and calculated attack on the legislative process itself, which undermines the power of Congress to legislate,” the report continued. “DOE’s disregard for separation of powers is … an institutional problem that must be corrected …”

Additionally, retaliating against Metting created a potential “chilling effect,” preventing other scientists from providing forthcoming information to Congress, the report said. (RELATED: Obama’s Energy Department Fired A Whistleblower And Even Democrats Are Furious)

The October 2014 briefing regarded DOE’s Low Dose Radiation Research Program (LDRRP), which studies how small radiation exposures effect humans. Its research assists in the medical field and plays a role in forming evacuation plans in the event a terrorist detonates a radioactive dirty bomb.

The briefing was intended to help lawmakers make an informed decision about pending legislation that would codify the LDRRP program in statute and require a report concerning low-dose radiation’s effects.

But DOE management opposed the legislation — instead preferring to close the program to focus on Obama’s Climate Action Plan — and used the opportunity to lobby against the bill, according to the science committee’s report. That decision allegedly violates the Anti-Lobbying Act.settled-science-600-la

The agency could reroute funding to programs related to the Climate Action Plan by closing LDRRP.

“DOE placed its own priorities to further the president’s Climate Action Plan before its constitutional obligations to be candid with Congress,” the report continued.

Metting’s immediate supervisor, Todd Anderson, was intended to lead the briefing, since he “may be better at staying on message,” Julie Carruthers, a DOE senior technical advisor, said in an email.Leftist Propagandist

Similarly, Anderson needed “to brief the Senate folks so they don’t develop their own bill,” Sharlene Weatherwax, a DOE associate director, wrote in an email to Anderson.

“DOE management developed a scheme to withhold information from congressional staff,” the report said. “Dr. Metting was directed to omit information from a presentation to congressional staff given during the briefing.”

DOE managers also wanted to “muzzle” Metting — then-LDRRP’s program manager, the report said. “Prohibiting federal employees from providing information and communications with Congress is also a violation of the Anti-Lobbying Act.”

Regardless, Metting provided “too much information in response to questions from committee staff” that “provided supportive evidence to continue the LDRRP,” so management “retaliated against Dr. Metting,” the report said.partyof-deceit-spin-and-lies

The investigation was spurred after Metting and her attorneys contacted the committee in late 2015 and provided an account of the events that followed the October 2014 briefing. The committee then obtained DOE documents and communications regarding LDRRP.

DOE has since reinstated Metting after she took legal action, a committee aide said in a press briefing.

Follow Ethan on Twitter. Send tips to ethan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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