Society in General

X-Weather Shattered Solar, Coal Undaunted

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Drone footage shows hundreds of solar panels ripped apart and scattered across farmland after a powerful tornado tore through Wheatfield overnight. Homes in the area also suffered heavy damage as the violent storm carved a path of destruction. Photo credit Joemar Sombero

Energy Bad Boys draw the lessons from an Indiana tornado impacting power supply in their blog article Solar Scattered, Coal Still Standing. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

What an Indiana tornado revealed about the cost of fragile power

On Tuesday, March 10th, an EF-1 tornado destroyed the Dunns Bridge Solar I and II facilities owned by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO). The facilities, located outside of Wheatfield, Indiana, had 2.4 million solar panels, totaling 700 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, and reportedly cost $1 billion to construct—a little over $1,400 per kilowatt (kW).

The Chief Deputy of Jasper County Sheriff’s Department, Brandon Napier, noted, “Just the path of the tornado that came through, we have several large solar fields to the east of the town here it went right through the solar field and just ripped a lot of them out.”

While the solar panels were damaged by the tornado, we are not aware of any reports of damage at the nearby R.M. Schahfer Generating Station, a 950 MW coal facility that NIPSCO was planning to retire at the end of 2025. However, it is still running thanks to a 202(C) order issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) requiring the plant to continue operations. Click on the map below to explore the custom Google Map we made this week of the facilities.

To enlarge, open in new tab.

This article will explore the cost of the destroyed solar facility compared to the nearby R.M. Schahfer Plant, and explore how energy costs have changed in the NIPSCO service territory in response to changes in the company’s generation fleet, using some cool data from S&P Global.

According to S&P Global, the Dunns Bridge solar projects were built to “support Northern Indiana Public Service’s goal of becoming coal-free by 2028, reducing carbon emissions by more than 90 percent by 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline, according to the utility.”

The situation begs several questions:

  • If climate change is going to make the weather more extreme, how does it make any sense to shut down coal plants and build energy generation facilities, like solar, that are destroyed by extreme weather?
  • Are the company’s coal-free and emissions reduction goals increasing the company’s exposure to costs associated with weather events, and why should ratepayers be saddled with these additional costs?
  • Was there any damage to the R.M. Schahfer coal plant or the onsite battery storage facility at Dunns Bridge?
  • What type of insurance policy is in place for the solar facility, and what deductible would the company be required to pay, if any?
  • What liability, if any, does the company have for the cleanup of the site and surrounding areas?
  • How is any of this in the best interests of ratepayers?

The Cost of Tornado-Truncated Solar Facility

Let’s be incredibly uncharitable and look at the anticipated levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of the solar facility over its projected 25-year useful lifetime, and its actual, tornado-truncated lifetime.

Dunns Bridge I began generating power in June of 2023, producing a total of 1.3 million megawatt hours (MWh) up until December of 2025, the most recent month for which data are available. Dunns Bridge II began generating power in January of 2025, and through December, it produced 812,439 MW of power, which is good for a 21.3 percent capacity factor.

We calculated the LCOE over two time periods: a 25-year lifecycle, a standard assumption in the industry, and a 2-year lifecycle to account for the facility being destroyed very early in its lifecycle. The results are about what we would expect. Our estimated subsidized costs over 25 years are approximately equal to S&P Global’s reported PPA cost for the facilities, including subsidies.

Net Zero is Dead, Carney Still Pushing It

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Gwyn Morgan reports on nonsense in Canada in his Financial Post article Net zero is dead. Why is Carney still pushing it?. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The PM did abolish the consumer carbon tax,
though only by shifting it to businesses.

Delegates at the first World Climate Conference held in 1979 adopted a declaration calling on governments to “foresee and prevent man-made changes to the climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity.” It was, in effect, a declaration of war against the oil and gas industry.

At the time, I was the president of a Calgary-headquartered oil and gas company that I had co-founded, as well as volunteer-president of our industry’s public communication vehicle, the Independent Petroleum Association of Canada. My industry colleagues were reluctant to take on the global climate elite, but I believed doing so was vital to the future of our industry, which was the bedrock of western Canada’s economy. My public commentary was, of course, condemned as evidence that I was only out to save the oil and gas industry.

But it wasn’t just my responsibility as an industry leader that called me to challenge that World Climate Conference declaration. I knew that extremely hot temperatures had been occurring long before that first Kyoto conference. For example, in the 1920s European immigrants settled in the verdant grasslands of southeastern Alberta. Some of those hopeful settlers were my wife’s grandparents. A decade later, rain stopped falling and temperatures soared as high as 43 C. Hot, dry winds blew precious topsoil away, spawning choking dust storms. The “Dirty Thirties” had arrived. Starving settlers turned to eating rabbits, gophers and anything else edible they could scrounge. Parents took their kids to school in blinding dust storms, clutching fencelines and breathing through bandanas. And the wind kept blowing through the long, cold Alberta winters. Contrary to net-zero zealots’ rhetoric, half of Canada’s 20 hottest days pre-dated that 1979 World Climate Conference.

World Climate Change Conferences continued during the 1980s and 1990s, each featuring more alarmist rhetoric than the last. At the 1997 conference in Japan, 37 industrialized countries adopted the “Kyoto Protocol,” which committed them to reducing green-house gas emissions to five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The war on fossil fuels was on in earnest, and it was destined to escalate to ridiculous heights. At the 2012 conference in Qatar, the rich countries committed to reducing emissions by at least 18 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The naivety of those targets is breathtaking. Countries accounting for over half of global emissions, including China, Russia and India, continued their rapid growth without constraint. Virtually all other Asian, Middle Eastern and South American nations had no intention of playing the Kyoto game. Their emissions were going nowhere but up.

The 22nd climate conference was held in Morocco in November 2016, a year after Canadians elected the Trudeau government. In keeping with the new prime minister’s zealous embrace of the cause, environment minister Catherine McKenna led a delegation of 225, one of the largest among the 100 countries assembled. That cost taxpayers a lot in emissions-spewing flights!

Imagine our delegation’s shock when, just 24 hours after the conference opened, they heard the soon-to-be 45th U.S. president, Donald Trump, declare that man-made global warming was a “big hoax” promulgated by China and other countries wanting to steal American jobs.

With all the major players sidelined, who was left to save the planet from climate Armageddon? Just the EU, Japan and Australia, with a combined emission share of 15 per cent. And Canada, adding our minuscule 1.6 per cent. But futility didn’t deter the Trudeau government from saddling Canadians with carbon taxes and taxpayer-funded wind and solar power subsidies in pursuit of its “net-zero” holy grail.

Now we have a new prime minister who is trying to appear less committed to the net-zero mission. But the transformation of the UN Secretary General’s “special envoy on climate action and finance” has been less than biblical. True, one of his first actions on taking power was to remove the despised consumer carbon tax. But that was largely sleight-of-hand, moving the tax out of public view onto beleaguered businesses already struggling with Trump tariffs.

Meanwhile, the foundations of the net-zero emissions religion are crumbling rapidly. In 2021, Microsoft founder Bill Gates wrote a pro-carbon tax book entitled “How to Avoid a Climate Change Disaster.” But four years later, in a letter published on the eve of the most recent UN COP conference, he advised, “too many resources are focused on emissions and the environment. More money should go toward improving lives and curbing disease and poverty.” And he called out the “doomsday view” of climate change, urging world leaders to make a strategic pivot and focus on issues that “have the greatest impact on human welfare.”

Net-zero fatigued Canadians should be asking their prime minister, “Why are you weakening our already struggling economy with carbon taxes and wasting taxpayer money subsidizing wind farms when it will make no perceptible difference to the global climate?”  He owes them an answer.

 

SCOTUS to Hear Colorado Climate Case, What’s at Stake

Posted on by Ron Clutz

An excellent overview is an article at Energy in Depth (EID) by Kyle Kohli A Turning Point for Litigation Campaign: SCOTUS Takes Up Boulder Climate Lawsuit.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

On February 23, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the City and County of Boulder’s climate lawsuit against two major energy companies. This offers the first real opportunity to rein in the nationally-coordinated climate litigation campaign that has sought to force policy outcomes through the courts that elected officials and voters have repeatedly rejected.

What is the Boulder climate lawsuit?  

In 2018, the City and County of Boulder and San Miguel County filed a public nuisance climate lawsuit against Exxon Mobil and Suncor, seeking financial damages to pay for the costs of climate change. From the outset, the case raised serious questions about whether local governments should be allowed to use state tort law to extract damages for global phenomena driven by worldwide greenhouse gas emissions that have occurred across decades, across borders, and with the full knowledge and legal sanction of federal and state governments.

Woman on a ducking stool. Historical punishment for ‘common scold’ – woman considered a public nuisance. (Welsh/English heritage)

After San Miguel’s case was separated from Boulder’s in 2021, Boulder spent five years fighting jurisdictional battles – all the way to SCOTUS and back – before finally getting a May 2025 Colorado Supreme Court ruling allowing the case to proceed towards discovery and trial.

The companies appealed, and in February 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.

What questions will the Supreme Court consider and what do they mean?

The Court will hear arguments on two separate questions –
one that goes to the heart of the entire campaign,
and one that could let the justices sidestep it.

The big one: can state law be used to sue energy companies for the effects of international greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change? This is what the climate litigation campaign has always really been about: using tort law as a backdoor emissions regulator, extracting damages that function as a de facto carbon tax that Congress never voted for and voters never approved.

The companies argue that federal law forecloses exactly this kind of state-law end-run, and that issues of greenhouse gas emissions, interstate commerce, national energy policy, and foreign affairs belong at the federal level — not in a patchwork of state courtrooms where judges can impose wildly inconsistent liability on American energy producers.

The second question – added by the Court at Boulder’s urging – asks whether SCOTUS even has jurisdiction to hear the case right now. If the justices rule narrowly on procedure, the broader preemption question stays unresolved and Boulder’s case will continue in state court.

When will the court hear arguments?

Arguments are expected during the October 2026 term, with a decision anticipated in winter 2026 or spring 2027.

What is the likely impact?

This case has nearly three dozen copycats waiting in the wings. Defendants in similar lawsuits across the country are already moving to pause proceedings – several cases, including a homeowner class action in Washington, have been stayed pending SCOTUS’s decision. Others, in Chicago and Washington state have filed similar motions.

If the Court rules broadly for the energy companies — holding that state law cannot be used to impose liability for global and interstate emissions — it would deal a major blow to the entire national climate litigation campaign, as plaintiffs across the country have sought to use state tort law and to have their cases heard in state court.

That would be an appropriate outcome. Allowing dozens of state and municipal governments to impose state-court liability for inherently global phenomena would fragment national energy policy, chill domestic energy production, and circumvent the democratic process by substituting courtroom judgments for legislative ones.

If the justices punt using the jurisdictional question, Boulder’s case would return to state court, but the underlying legal vulnerabilities of the case would remain.

Where do Colorado leaders stand on the case?

The response to the filing of the [Boulder] lawsuit was met immediately with strong opposition from Colorado state leaders, including the Denver Post editorial board and former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, who also served as Colorado’s Attorney General.

Then-governor John Hickenlooper and one his top administration officials warned that litigation was not the best way to pursue an environmental agenda. Hickenlooper’s predecessor, current Governor Jared Polis, also didn’t support the case and remained silent on the issue throughout his entire time in office.

Conservation Colorado, a leading environmental group in the state, also declined to publicly support the lawsuit and The Denver Post editorial board delivered a sharp rebuke to the lawsuit, writing:

“Without fossil fuels, transportation would stagger to a halt, agricultural productivity would plummet, millions would suffer from cold, heat and hunger, and untold legions would suffer premature death. That’s why any comparison between fossil fuel companies and the tobacco industry, whose product is a health disaster with no redeeming economic value, is so wide of the mark…”

Who did Boulder hire as outside counsel?

Boulder’s attorneys have admitted that their true goals for the litigation aren’t financial damages, but rather achieving preferred public policy outcomes.

A lead attorney for EarthRights International, a nonprofit representing Boulder, said that a key goal of the lawsuit is “to raise the price of the products” like oil and gas to shift the behaviors of companies and consumers. Another attorney long involved with the case, David Bookbinder, was even more direct last year, calling the lawsuit an “indirect carbon tax.”

Officials with the Boulder City Council also undercut their own legal arguments by publicly stating their true goal was achieving political and public policy objectives. In 2021, a memo prepared for a study session outlined the goal of “systems-level change”:

“Boulder has also been a national leader in exploring the use of the legal system in pushing for larger systems-level change. Both through its active participation in multi-jurisdiction efforts — like the Clean Power Plan Plaintiffs group — or its climate liability lawsuit with Boulder and San Miguel Counties against ExxonMobil and Suncor, Boulder has demonstrated that there are a range of different levers cities can take hold of to drive more fundamental systems change.” (emphasis added)

Why did the Supreme Court agree to hear the case this time?

Earlier petitions in similar cases, including Honolulu, never made it past the cert stage. This time, several things changed:

The biggest: the Department of Justice proactively weighed in to explain why the Court should take the case – a reversal from the Honolulu petition, whether the Solicitor General argued against review.

Beyond that, the legal landscape has shifted. Since the Honolulu petition was rejected, ten other cases have been thrown out or withdrawn, while two cases have been allowed to proceed – widening the split among state courts that warrants Supreme Court resolution.

Add in the fact that the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes a final decision, the companies argue, giving the Supreme Court jurisdictional footing to review it.

Does the EPA’s ruling on the Endangerment Finding impact climate lawsuits?

The EPA has maintained the Clean Air Act will continue to preempt state common law claims and statues that try to regulate out-of-state emissions.

As West Virginia’s Solicitor General, Michael Williams, explained:

“Before the Clean Air Act was a twinkle in Nixon’s eye, there was this whole existing body of federal common law that said interstate emissions issues really are issues for the federal government…Ultimately, I think that if you pull the Clean Air Act back, you’re still left with that original preexisting body of federal common law. It’s going to have the same preemptive force that it did before the Clean Air Act ever came to be.”

Some legal observers have noted that revoking the Endangerment Finding could actually help companies in these climate lawsuits. In the case of Boulder, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected defendants’ argument in part because of the Clean Air Act, there’s no federal common law and no preemptions. Without the endangerment finding, there’s a possibility that federal common law could be used in the defendants’ preemption argument.

However, the Endangerment Finding will not go into effect until April 20, 2026 and could change pending legal challenges.

Energy Realists Saved the US Grid (Alex Epstein)

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Alex Epstein explains how legacy media is mixing up the good guys and bad guys in a recent message Politicians Who Cut Solar and Wind Subsidies Saved Our Grid.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Last year, America was already in a serious electricity reliability crisis. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation—the body charged with assessing grid reliability—found that over half the country is facing the risk of power shortfalls over the next decade.¹

That crisis is far from over. But now, for the first time in years, the economics of building reliable power plants are turning around. And we owe this to a handful of politicians who led the charge to cut solar and wind subsidies in the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Solar and wind subsidies were defunding reliable power plants

To understand what these politicians accomplished by cutting solar and wind subsidies, you have to understand the condition of the grid as of last year.

For decades, the federal government paid massive subsidies—the “Investment Tax Credit” and “Production Tax Credit”—to solar and wind projects. These subsidies didn’t just take hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. They systematically destroyed the economics of the reliable power plants that keep our grid running.

When subsidized solar and wind flood the grid with cheap electricity every time the sun shines or the wind blows, they take away operating time and therefore revenue from reliable power plants.

Thanks to subsidies many reliable plants had no choice but to shut down prematurely, while investors were deterred from investing in building new reliable plants whose revenue under subsidies and unfair market rules would be taken by unreliable generation.

Subsidies were a big reason why as electricity demand increased over the past decade, America saw a decline in reliable capacity.

The IRA accelerated the catastrophic effects of solar and wind subsidies

Then came the “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022. The IRA increased solar/wind subsidies, and it also extended them for over a decade. These subsidies were projected to cost taxpayers over $1 trillion over that decade.²

But the damage to the grid would have been incomparably greater than the tax bill. The biggest cost by far was the defunding and disincentivizing of reliable power plants.

By 2024, solar and wind “capacity,” which as we saw during a recent winter storm can’t be relied on at all³, represented 70% of all new electricity additions in the US.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright was not exaggerating when he said solar and wind subsidies are “a big mistake,” which “result in higher costs and less reliable electricity.”⁴

A handful of energy freedom fighters cut solar/wind subsidies in the “Big Beautiful Bill”

When the “Big Beautiful Bill” budget negotiations began early last year, the solar/wind subsidy lobby descended on Washington in full force. The expected outcome was that Republicans, despite running on a promise to dismantle the IRA, would keep most of the solar and wind subsidies.

That’s not what happened. Instead, a handful of energy freedom advocates
fought relentlessly to cut the IRA’s solar and wind subsidies—and won.

The initial draft of the budget bill produced by the House Ways and Means Committee included a long “phase-out” of the subsidies that would have allowed new solar and wind projects to continue receiving 10-year subsidies well into the 2030s and even 2040s.⁵

When this bill came to the House Budget Committee for review, Representatives Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Josh Brecheen, and Andrew Clyde withheld their support (voting “no” or “present”). Because the Republican majority on the committee is very slim, their votes were crucial. This stalled the bill, and they were able to work through the weekend to significantly limit subsidy eligibility to projects that were “placed in service,” i.e., operational, by 2028.

Solar and wind lobbyists threw a fit, claiming that cutting subsidies would raise electricity prices and destroy the grid. But Roy, Norman, Brecheen, and Clyde didn’t back down. And in later stages of the process, they were joined by more energy freedom politicians, including Rep. Scott Perry on the House side, and Senators Mike Lee, Rick Scott, and Ron Johnson on the Senate side.

Unfortunately, a last-second change by the Senate (sneaked in by the solar/wind lobby) weakened the House’s solar and wind subsidy cuts by allowing projects to collect subsidies if they are technically “in construction” (an easy threshold to meet) by July 4, 2026, at which point they have 4 years to be “placed in service.”⁶

Nevertheless, the final “Big Beautiful Bill,” significantly cuts solar and wind subsidies for projects. The upshot: Starting July 5, 2026, virtually no new subsidy-collecting solar/wind projects can be initiated. (They can only collect subsidies if they are actually “placed in service” by the end of 2027, a standard most new subsidy-seeking projects won’t be able to meet.)

Politicians who cut subsidies are wrongly being blamed for rising electricity prices

As soon as the “Big Beautiful Bill” was passed, the solar-and-wind lobby began blaming the politicians who cut solar/wind subsidies for depriving our grid of power and causing electricity prices to rise.

Not only is the timeframe of this claim absurd—the subsidy cuts would not even go into effect for another year—it gets the relationship between subsidies and price increases exactly backwards.

Solar and wind subsidies have contributed to the electricity price increases we’ve seen so far—by forcing the premature shutdown of the reliable power plants our grid needs to function. (And we’re also paying for the subsidies through taxes and inflation.) Cutting these subsidies was necessary to stop price increases going forward.

The energy freedom fighters who cut solar/wind subsidies did not deprive the grid of power; they did more than anyone to ensure that the grid had electricity when it needed it most. They set up a market where new reliable plants can be profitable. And they did not increase electricity prices, they created the necessary conditions for electricity prices to decrease.

In fact, that’s exactly what we’re seeing already.

The solar/wind subsidy cuts in the “Big Beautiful Bill” are already saving our grid

After the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, investors looked at the electricity market and saw that building reliable power would soon become much more profitable than if the solar/wind subsidies had continued. At the same time, they became more and more aware that they need ultra-reliable power to power AI data centers.

The US nearly tripled its gas-fired capacity in development in 2025, reaching 252 GW—more than any other country⁷. Developers plan to add 18.7 GW of combined-cycle natural gas capacity by 2028⁸. Major utilities are announcing record capital plans to build reliable generation.

This is what happens when you stop paying people to build an inferior product. Capital flows to what actually works: power plants that can run when you need them, in the quantity you need them, regardless of the weather.

The AI data center boom makes the timing of the solar/wind subsidy cuts even more crucial. Data centers need power that is available 24/7, 365 days a year. The subsidy cuts arrived just in time to help redirect investment toward the reliable generation that America’s growing digital economy urgently needs.

The lesson: Energy freedom works

Any energy source that is genuinely cost-effective will thrive without subsidies. The path to affordable, reliable electricity isn’t subsidies for some politicians’ and lobbyists’ preferred energy sources—it’s the freedom to produce and invest in the energy sources that actually work.

A year ago, NERC was warning that more than half the country faced electricity shortfalls. Today, the market is responding to restored price signals by building reliable power at a pace we haven’t seen in decades.

The politicians who cut solar and wind subsidies didn’t just save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. They saved our grid.

Solar Panels Replace Spanish Olive Trees

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

 

Spanish Solar Farms, Where hundreds of thousands of ancient olive trees are being ripped out to build massive solar factories. Trees, bees and insects all wiped out leaving increased temperatures caused by the heat island effect of the panels. Just so sad 😩😩😩. Plus Where will they all go when they are broken, damaged, and no longer function in 15 years time?

 

    • Centuries-old olive groves in Spain’s Andalusia region are being uprooted to make way for solar energy projects, sparking resistance from farmers who see their livelihoods and cultural heritage threatened.
    • The regional government uses a Franco-era expropriation law to seize land “in the public interest,” while farmers and activists accuse authorities of prioritizing corporate profits over local agriculture.
    • Jaén, known as the “olive oil capital of the world,” could lose up to 100,000 trees, devastating small farmers and cooperatives, with some groves dating back over 1,000 years.
    • Spain’s aggressive push for 81 percent renewable energy by 2030 is clashing with rural sustainability, as solar projects bring few local jobs and risk depopulation, while also raising transparency concerns.
    • The groves combat desertification and were considered for UNESCO status, but their destruction threatens ecological balance and forces younger generations to leave, raising ethical questions about green energy transitions.

In the sun-drenched plains of southern Spain, a bitter conflict is unfolding as centuries-old olive groves – some dating back to Roman times – are being uprooted to make way for solar energy projects.

The regional government of Andalusia, leveraging a Franco-era expropriation law, has declared the land seizures “in the public interest.” This has sparked fierce resistance from olive farmers who see their livelihoods and heritage under threat. With Spain leading Europe’s renewable energy push, the clash highlights the tension between green energy ambitions and the preservation of agricultural and cultural legacies.

The province of Jaén, often called the “olive oil capital of the world,” is at the center of the dispute. Here, olive trees blanket over 600,000 hectares, forming a landscape so vast it’s known as the “Sea of Olives.” Many of these trees are centuries old, with some exceeding 1,000 years. (Source: A crime against nature: Ancient olive trees uprooted for solar farms in Spain )

States Claiming Climate Crisis Can’t Prove It

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Andrew Weiss explains the cascading effects upon climate obsessed politicians in his Real Clear Energy article After the Endangerment Finding, States Must Prove CO2 Harms. Wisconsin Can’t..  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The EPA’s revocation of the 2009 endangerment finding shifts the burden of proof from federal agencies to state capitals. Governors who declared climate emergencies must now demonstrate with regional data that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) endangers their residents. Wisconsin cannot meet that burden.

In 2019, Wisconsin declared climate change a crisis requiring the state’s electricity to be carbon-free by 2050, citing worsening extreme weather as justification. Since then, the state has spent $6 billion on renewable infrastructure while residents pay 15% more for electricity than the Midwest average.

A new report by the Weiss Energy Policy Institute analyzed 130 years of Wisconsin climate data and found that as atmospheric CO2 rose 45%, Wisconsin experienced 63% fewer days over 90°F, heatwaves 71% shorter in duration, powerful tornadoes down 70%, and significant drought decline since 1894.

This isn’t just absence of evidence, it’s negative correlation.
As CO2 increased, climate extremes decreased.

In addition to the improving climate, the report also notably found that rural Wisconsin’s average temperature has not changed since 1894. Urban areas, on the other hand, have warmed about 2.2°F since the late nineteenth century. The report finds that this urban warming is nearly entirely due to the Urban Heat Island effect from concrete and development, not CO2. In many measurable ways, Wisconsin’s climate has become more conducive to human flourishing over the past century.

Even if CO2 were causing harm, Wisconsin’s ability to adapt
to climate change far surpasses its ability to influence it.

The Badger State’s 2023 carbon emissions were 22% below its peak of 110 million metric tons in 2005. Despite its reduction, annual global emissions have increased by over 100 times Wisconsin’s entire annual emissions over the same period. In fact, in 2023, Wisconsin’s carbon emissions made up less than 0.25% of the global total.

While CO2 has not endangered residents of Wisconsin,
the climate-based policies have.

Residential electricity prices continue climbing even as household consumption falls. In fact, Xcel Energy and Alliant Energy have requested cumulative rate hikes approaching 19% over the next two years. Some in Waukesha County are already facing “dramatically higher” energy bills, double from just months earlier. Under Wisconsin’s current policies, this is sure to continue. In fact, Wisconsin is hurtling toward an energy crisis. The latest long term reliability assessment projects the state will enter “high-risk” territory for blackouts by 2028.

This economic burden stems from poor energy policies. Current leadership has forced coal plants into early retirement, blocked critical natural gas infrastructure, mandated carbon targets over grid reliability, vetoed consumer protections against appliance bans, and weaponized the permitting process to strangle traditional energy development.

For example, the state’s climate policies prevented a gas-fired plant that would have brought $1 million in annual tax revenue and 350 construction jobs to northern Wisconsin last year. Its initial permits expired while waiting for more permits.

In the face of unprecedented new energy demand, Wisconsin’s grid might have been able to absorb the new data centers and industrial growth if it weren’t already stressed by climate policy. But solar cannot replace coal megawatt-for-megawatt. In order to replace reliable coal with solar, while maintaining the same reliability, nearly  twenty times the capacity must be installed. That means ratepayers pay to build and maintain thousands of acres of solar panels and pay to keep backup plants on standby for when those panels underperform.

Even overturning the carbon mandate won’t be enough to save the grid, because the current regulatory system was not built to accommodate surging industrial demand without punishing ratepayers. Wisconsin lawmakers need to save residents from footing the bill for data center infrastructure by utilizing free markets and private capital rather than heavy-handed subsidies.

This market-oriented solution for Wisconsin is called Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE). It allows privately financed utilities to generate and sell power directly to large customers through voluntary contracts, operating independent of the regulated grid. This creates a parallel pathway for new industrial demand, protecting residential ratepayers while giving Wisconsin a competitive advantage over other Midwest states. It attracts industrial capital without subsidies or forcing costs onto families.

The revoked endangerment finding forces a reckoning: will Wisconsin continue its expensive and dangerous energy transition, or will it examine the actual data? New evidence suggests the state should:

♦  rescind its zero-carbon mandate,
♦  restore reliable baseload power to the legacy grid, and
♦  pass Consumer-Regulated Electricity legislation to let private capital serve new industrial demand without burdening ratepayers.

Combined with removing carbon mandates from the legacy grid,
these reforms position Wisconsin a bright energy future.

In the 21st century, affordable and reliable power separates flourishing societies from struggling ones. Wisconsin cannot prove CO2 harms, but its climate policies are already bringing on an energy crisis. Other states that built climate mandates on the endangerment finding should audit their climate data. The burden of proof has shifted to state capitals, and the evidence may not support the mandates.

See also:

No Climate Crisis in Texas

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 1

 

Germany Impaled by Climate Virtue

Posted on by Ron Clutz

“Imagine an argument so airtight about science so settled
over technology so reliable that you have to use censorship
to make sure nobody gives a dissenting opinion.”  @ProctorZ

Thomas Kolbe diagnoses what ails Germany in his article Germany’s Climate Policy Has Moved From Politics To The Courts… And The Economy Is Paying The Price.  H/T Tyler Durden

Germany is the political engine of the Green Deal, yet it continues to fall short of its own CO₂ reduction targets. Now Germany’s Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has ordered the federal government to tighten its climate targets by the end of March. The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by the German Environmental Aid (Deutsche Umwelthilfe), aimed explicitly at increasing political pressure. Germany is tightening the screws on its own catastrophe.

Germany in 2026: the economy has entered its eighth consecutive year of industrial decline. Companies are shutting down, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have already been lost in the core sectors of the country’s former prosperity—chemicals, mechanical engineering, and above all the automotive industry.

Climate change has struck—or rather, the ideologically skewed and
socially unprecedented self-destructive frenzy of German politics has begun
to shred any remaining hope of a return to normal economic conditions.

The attempt to free the country from conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, and coal through a rapid transition to CO₂-free energy—politically and psychologically inflated into a moral crusade to “save the planet”—has failed.

Given the devastating competitive position of the German economy, which now pays energy prices roughly three times higher than competitors in reference locations such as France or the United States, any rational observer would urgently recommend consigning the entire transformation agenda to the dustbin of failed political hubris and collective delusion.

What remains is damage control:

♦  a rapid return to a market-based energy system,
♦  an end to destructive environmental and social experiments, and
♦  an unavoidable restructuring of the welfare state to reflect new economic realities.

Germany is getting poorer, productivity is falling, and GDP per capita
is declining—realities that even the federal government’s massive
debt-financed spending programs can no longer conceal.

Yet Germany in 2026 is no ordinary country. Its political elite, supported by an affirming media ecosystem, has entrenched itself in a self-referential system of emissions-centered economic control—a system now reinforced by judicial authority.

In its ruling, the court mandated that the government sharpen its environmental targets. Under current conditions, a gap of at least 200 million tons of CO₂ would remain by 2045, which must now be eliminated across Germany’s entire economic structure.

Judges who effectively substitute political objectives for democratic
deliberation are now setting the framework for Germany’s continued decline.

The lawsuit was brought by the German Environmental Aid—an organization already known for launching the first serious legal assault on Germany’s automotive industry during earlier battles over particulate emissions in city centers. The pressure on Germany is now coming from within: from a taxpayer-funded NGO complex that appears determined to politically delegitimize key industries, with the state apparatus firmly on its side.

According to Deutschlandfunk, a leaked draft from the SPD-led Environment Ministry outlines a new climate program aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2045. Spanning more than 330 pages, it appears the government anticipated judicial escalation and preemptively prepared the groundwork for a revised climate law. Political conflict has been outsourced to the courts, to the relief of Berlin’s climate hardliners amid worsening economic conditions.

Among the core measures is the intensified “heat transition” in the building sector. The ministry proposes increasing subsidies for low-income households—up to 40 percent of costs—for heating replacements and heat pump installations. A generous solution for the climate-policy establishment, conveniently rolled out during an election season.

The leaked strategy signals a general increase in transformation pressure. No fundamentally new instruments are introduced; instead, property owners are placed under tighter time constraints to replace heating systems.

Climate policy and financial affordability are colliding ever more sharply. Amid a prolonged recession, the government is deliberately provoking social conflict while attempting to pacify it through ever-expanding subsidies.

Germany’s public debt, at roughly 65 percent of GDP, still appears moderate by European standards. In Berlin, this is interpreted as ample room to finance the transformation through rising debt while simultaneously increasing pressure on the private sector.

Environment Minister Carsten Schneider speaks optimistically of new “climate jobs.” The overall picture, however, increasingly resembles political farce. A state that secures public consent for its transformation agenda through debt, subsidies, and higher taxes acts obscenely and invites long-term economic damage.

Plans even include methane measurement programs for livestock, modeled after New Zealand—yet another blow to farmers. German emissions policy is entering a manic phase, blurring the line between real policy and political satire.

The subsidy machine continues to spin. The government plans to support 800,000 electric vehicles in the coming years. Credit resources remain abundant after Chancellor Friedrich Merz effectively neutralized the constitutional debt brake with the previous parliament. By 2040, electric vehicles are supposed to account for 70 percent of Germany’s car fleet—despite the absence of any credible plan for supplying the required electricity.

Artificial, technocratic necessity has replaced political debate. From the outset, it was clear that the supposed softening of the combustion-engine ban was mere political theater—a sedative for citizens gradually awakening to the scale of the green ideological disaster.

The energy sector faces further tightening. Dozens of reserve gas power plants are to be added, while existing plants are to be converted to hydrogen capability. Offshore wind projects abroad are being accelerated. These measures amount to desperate rescue attempts for a failed energy transition—an assessment implicitly acknowledged even by the Environment Ministry itself. Model-driven hope has replaced rational judgment.

Technocrats Deliver Catastrophes

Germany’s climate policy, entangled in a feedback loop with Brussels, has ossified into an auto-referential system marked by a narrow temporal vision and growing argumentative poverty. Looming over it all is the threat of further litigation by the German Environmental Aid should the final legislation fail to meet its standards.

Germany now finds itself in the grip of green ideologues who have subordinated all parties behind an ideological firewall. The environmental lobby’s greatest success came when it elevated the Net Zero target to constitutional status.

How much greater must the economic pressure become before a majority forms
—even in front of this firewall—to dismantle this manifest political folly?

World is Better Off Dispelling Al Gore Climate Fears

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Miranda Devine reports in NY Post article Trump debunking Al Gore’s climate fears has made the world a better place.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Ding dong, the climate hoax is dead.

Twenty years after Al Gore’s apocalyptic movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Trump administration has put the final nail in the coffin of the lie that scared a generation into believing the planet was about to explode in flames if they kept using fossil fuels.

In what the White House calls “the largest deregulatory action in American history,” the EPA on Thursday will repeal an Obama-era proclamation that has mandated greenhouse-gas regulations for 17 years,

The 2009 “endangerment finding” has been the primary climate handbrake on American industry, forming the legal justification for increasingly punitive greenhouse-gas regulations.

Rescinding it would “save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week, with the EPA projecting an average saving of $2,400 per vehicle and further savings on farm machinery, soon to be freed from the complex extra circuitry required to restrict emissions.

It will also end Joe Biden’s enforced transition to electric vehicles by 2030.

Yay!  It’s about time that common sense returned to energy policy.

During the recent bone-chilling winter storm that hit 200 million Americans across more than 35 states, it wasn’t wind and solar that kept the lights on but fossil fuels.

Fueling US prosperity

According to the Florida Municipal Power Agency, 90% of power generation in the country at the height of the storm was natural gas, coal, nuclear or oil.

Cheap, abundant energy fueled America’s prosperity, but charlatans citing pseudoscience have conspired to send us back to the dark ages with hyperbolic predictions that keep falling apart.

As we keep sailing past the various doomsday deadlines set by climate shucksters from Gore to Greta Thunberg, the public has been waking up to the hoax.

A Gallup poll found in 2024 only 2 percent of Americans cite climate change or the environment as their main concern. 

It’s telling that green activists have been relatively silent in the face of a full-scale assault by Trump and his Cabinet on climate shibboleths the past year.  He lauded EPA administrator Lee Zeldin and his rapid fire deregulation moves as the administration’s “secret weapon” in his war against the “war on coal.” 

“Biden and the radical left wanted to abolish coal,” Trump told the assembled group of coal miners in hard hats and hi-vis vests in the East Room. 

“They did everything they could . . . but on Day 1 of this administration I ended the war on coal. We terminated the green new scam and we withdrew from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate deal.”

He also boasted that he has saved 74 coal fired power plants from extinction and announced that the Tennessee Valley Authority has just taken two coal plants off the chopping board. 

Meanwhile, buoyed by falling electricity prices, the first American aluminum smelter in 50 years is now slated to be built in Oklahoma.

Net-zero policies adopted by in Europe, Canada and Australia, with their blind reliance on wind and solar, have failed.  Add the huge new demand for power by data processing centers underpinning artificial intelligence, and the climate fiction has become impossible to sustain. 

Now, policymakers and powerful influencers are hoping they can sidle away from the disastrous decisions they forced on us with false pretenses. 

Climate activism out 

Billionaire activist Bill Gates has renounced climate alarm, declaring quietly last October that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” and “the global temperature doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of people’s lives.”   

Thank you, Captain Obvious.  Maybe there are more pressing problems in the world that we could more usefully spend his money to solve. 

What Worries the World – January 2026

On Wall Street, ESG (environment, social and government) stocks have fallen out of favor. 

Public disillusionment is happening as the underpinnings of the climate hoax have collapsed. 

In congressional testimony last week Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to the “monumental retraction” of Nature magazine’s infamous paper on “The Economic Commitment of Climate Change” which claimed the cost of global warming would be $38 trillion per year by 2049.   It was retracted two months ago because, Nature admitted, the errors were “too substantial for a correction.” 

Bessent declared that the repudiation of the influential economic modeling “laid bare the radical left’s apocalyptic hyperbole on climate change . . . 

“This fatally fraught paper, with errors far too substantial for correction, has been frequently used and abused to justify bad policymaking around the world, undermining both energy abundance and better living standards.”

These days, when Energy Secretary Chris Wright meets his European and Australian counterparts behind closed doors, they confide to him that he “may be right on the data,” but the public still “feels” climate alarm is real. 

As he points out, that’s because they’ve been lied to for a quarter of a century.
The truth hurts, but it’s better than the alternative.

 

 

 

Why Rescinding the Endangerment Finding May Survive Lawfare

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Some thoughts from my browser AI.  My Question: What are the legal matters, such as major questions requiring congressional action, that favor ending EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding?

Search Assistant Reply:

The legal matters surrounding the repeal of the EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding involve the major questions doctrine, which suggests that significant regulatory authority should not be assumed by agencies without clear congressional authorization. This doctrine has been reinforced by recent Supreme Court rulings, indicating that the EPA may need explicit legislative backing to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, thus favoring the argument for ending the Endangerment Finding.

Legal Matters Surrounding the EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding

Major Questions Doctrine

The major questions doctrine is a legal principle that limits the authority of executive agencies, like the EPA, to make significant regulatory decisions without clear congressional authorization. This doctrine has been increasingly applied by the Supreme Court to ensure that major political or economic issues are addressed by Congress rather than delegated to agencies.

  • Definition: The doctrine asserts that agencies must have explicit congressional authorization to regulate matters of significant economic or political importance.
  • Recent Cases: The Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2022) emphasized that agencies must point to clear congressional authorization for their regulatory actions, particularly when those actions have broad implications.

Implications for the Endangerment Finding

The repeal of the EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding could be supported by arguments based on the major questions doctrine:

  • Lack of Clear Authorization: Opponents of the Endangerment Finding may argue that the Clean Air Act does not provide the EPA with the authority to regulate greenhouse gases based on global climate change concerns, as these gases are not traditional air pollutants.
  • Historical Context: The Endangerment Finding was established following the Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) ruling, which recognized greenhouse gases as pollutants. However, the current administration may argue that the regulatory framework established under this finding lacks explicit congressional backing for such extensive regulatory power. [Note:  AI got this wrong.  Mass v. EPA only ruled EPA could itself decide GHGs are pollutants subject to its regulation. That judgment by EPA regarding auto emissions in 2009 is now rescinded by EPA in 2026.]

Potential Legal Challenges

  • Court Challenges: Environmental groups are likely to challenge the repeal in court, arguing that the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases is well-supported by the Clean Air Act and previous Supreme Court rulings.
  • Future Regulations: If the Endangerment Finding is repealed, it could undermine existing regulations on vehicle emissions and other sources of greenhouse gases, leading to further legal disputes over the EPA’s regulatory scope.

The intersection of the major questions doctrine and the Endangerment Finding highlights the ongoing legal debates regarding the EPA’s authority and the role of Congress in environmental regulation.

From SCOTUS Blog June 30, 2022

The Supreme Court on Thursday truncated the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases. The ruling may hamper President Joe Biden’s plan to fight climate change and could limit the authority of federal agencies across the executive branch.

By a vote of 6-3, the court agreed with Republican-led states and coal companies that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was wrong when it interpreted the Clean Air Act to give the EPA expansive power over carbon emissions. The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, was handed down on the final opinion day of the 2021-22 term.

Turning to the merits of the case, Roberts wrote that the EPA’s effort to regulate greenhouse gases by making industry-wide changes violated the “major-questions” doctrine – the idea that if Congress wants to give an administrative agency the power to make “decisions of vast economic and political significance,” it must say so clearly.

Section 7411 of the Clean Air Act, Roberts reasoned, had been “designed as a gap filler and had rarely been used in the preceding decades.” But with the CPP, Roberts observed, the EPA sought to rely on Section 7411 to exercise “unprecedented power over American industry.” “There is little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to” the EPA, Roberts concluded, especially when Congress had previously rejected efforts to enact the kind of program that the EPA wanted to implement with the CPP.

“Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,’” Roberts wrote. But only Congress, or an agency with express authority from Congress, can adopt a “decision of such magnitude and consequence.”

Roberts’ full-throated embrace of the major-questions doctrine – a judicially created approach to statutory interpretation in challenges to agency authority – likely will have ripple effects far beyond the EPA. His reasoning applies to any major policymaking effort by federal agencies.

In a concurring opinion that was joined by Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that the dispute before the court involved “basic questions about self-government, equality, fair notice, federalism, and the separation of powers.” The major-questions doctrine, Gorsuch wrote, “seeks to protect against ‘unintentional, oblique, or otherwise unlikely’ intrusions on these interests” by requiring federal agencies to have “clear congressional authorization” when they address important issues. Whether coal- and gas-fired power plants “should be allowed to operate is a question on which people today may disagree, but it is a question everyone can agree is vitally important.”

Net Zero is a Downer, Choose the Way Up

Posted on by Ron Clutz

In this Net Zero Watch video, Colin Brazier takes us on a journey through Britain’s energy transformation as he looks at how energy abundance spawned the modern world. For those who prefer reading, below is a transcript with my bolds and added images. H/T Not a Lot of People Know That.

How did Britain get to where it did? How did this damp little corner of northwestern Europe become the economic superpower of the Victorian age? A lot of people point to our temperament, our system of government, our heritage, our scientific tradition. But I’d offer a rival explanation. It’s because of this.

This battery, like coal before it, represents energy and Britain’s story is a story of energy, a story of how people climbed out of the cold and darkness and built a girdle around the earth. And it’s a story which began here.

This is Ironbridge Gorge, the Silicon Valley of the 18th century, where coke was first smelted with iron and where the industrial age really began.

For centuries, life was fragile. Families lived by candlelight, worked the land, subject to storm and famine. In this truly organic green economy, energy was provided by muscle, by wind, water and wood. And life was constantly on the brink of collapse.

Then came something extraordinary, coal. Dense, powerful, reliable. Unlike wood or wind, coal delivered more power, more consistently and with a surplus. That surplus transformed Britain. It wasn’t just fuel, it was freedom.

One of the early steam engine locomotives.

Coal powered factories, cities and ships. It broke the stranglehold of the aristocracy because land was no longer the source of all wealth. Energy abundance spread prosperity, dignity and opportunity far beyond the manor house.

Life expectancy rose, death rates fell, cities grew. Children left fields, found trades, found schools, found new futures. Coal wasn’t just about energy. It was the very beginning of the modern world. Energy abundance spread opportunity, dignity and choice. Energy is the fuel of civilisation.

Freedom requires means, the ability to travel, to act, to think, to choose. All of it depends on energy. Energy is not just another input to the economy. It is the foundation of every input. It’s the key to every human action. This was the way up.

But from the late 20th century onwards, something changed. A new philosophy took hold. Instead of celebrating energy as the lifeblood of prosperity, it was recast as the villain. Coal was demonised. Oil and gas became suspect.

Energy abundance, once a mark of progress,
was rebranded as a threat to the planet.

Net zero requires us to make big changes today. “Net zero is our best chance for a sustainable future.” The logic of net zero spreads into almost every aspect of daily life. What cars we drive, what we eat, how we heat our homes, even how many children we are encouraged to have. Petrol and diesel cars banned. Gas boilers ripped out. Smart meters to ration our use of power. Meat consumption cut. Families told to fly less, to travel less, to live with less.

This is not abundance. This is managed decline. Think about it. Not power when you need it, but when the state sees fit. That’s not freedom. That’s rationing. Net zero isn’t about emissions. It’s about control. It is central planning extended into every aspect of life.

The state tells you what you can and what you can’t eat, how to travel, when to use power. They call it green, but to me it feels like a command economy. And like all command economies across the world, it ends up in the same way, in poverty and in misery.

We cannot let it happen here. Claire Coutinho was Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and retains the brief in opposition. She knows just what effect such a policy will have on the country.  Claire, what does net zero mean for growth overall?

The problem with net zero is it’s making us all poorer. Every time a business leaves this country for another country with more polluting energy regime, we are losing jobs, we are losing growth. And for what? So we can become more reliant on other countries for the products that we used to make here.That means fewer jobs here, but higher carbon emissions. It simply doesn’t make sense. And if we carry on down the route that we’re currently travelling, what does the future from a pessimistic position begin to look like? Higher energy bills, fewer jobs. I mean, it simply is not the right path for this country.

Sometimes this whole conversation can be so steeped in declinism. What is the positive vision if we change direction on net zero?

Look, for the last 200 years, Britain has been at the forefront of every industrial revolution. And we can do that again, whether it’s AI, whether it’s robotics, whether it’s space. There are so many things that this country could do if we have access to cheaper energy. Britain is there. We can do this. But we need ministers and governments to focus on providing that cheap energy the country needs.

And here is the twist. Britain gets to make the sacrifice while others get to race ahead. Our emissions in the global scheme of things are negligible. China’s annual increase alone dwarfs our entire output.
We get to pay the cost. They get to enjoy the growth. What we’re left with is the worst of both worlds.
Economic decline at home. No meaningful effect on the climate abroad.

And yet we’re told this is virtuous. That living with less is noble. That accepting decline is moral. But ask yourself, is poverty moral? Is coldness in winter moral? Is telling working families they cannot afford to travel or eat moral? This is not morality. This is coercion dressed up as compassion.

And this is the way down. But decline is not inevitable. We can choose the way up again. Britain has the resources, the ingenuity and the history of leading the world in energy innovation. Coal, oil, gas, nuclear. These are not enemies. They are the foundation stones of modern life. And yes, new technologies can play a part. But they must serve freedom and prosperity, not restrict them.

We need energy abundance, not energy rationing.
Competition, not central planning.
Innovation, not authoritarian diktats.

Britain’s national story really is a story all about energy. Abundance built our freedom. Scarcity may well yet destroy it. We now face a choice. Energy prosperity the way up, or energy poverty the way down. Which future will we choose?