Category Archives: Energy

The renewable energy transition is failing

Renewable energy isn’t replacing fossil fuel energy—it’s adding to it.

Despite all the renewable energy investments and installations, actual global greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing. That’s largely due to economic growth: While renewable energy supplies have expanded in recent years, world energy usage has ballooned even more—with the difference being supplied by fossil fuels. The more the world economy grows, the harder it is for additions of renewable energy to turn the tide by actually replacing energy from fossil fuels, rather than just adding to it. Continue reading

How Europe has navigated its energy crises

A multifaceted response from Europe has so far prevented its energy woes from creating widespread social and economic destabilization. But with winter approaching, the crisis is far from over and risks are getting worse.

While European energy prices have eased slightly in recent months, stress continues to build across a continent that has long been dependent on access to cheap Russian energy. Continue reading

Nukes on the brink in Ukraine and California

The latest “Nuclear Power Renaissance” is on the brink of creating radioactive Dark Ages in Ukraine, California and at more than 400 other atomic reactors worldwide. Continue reading

Manchin bill is bad for jobs and the climate

Senator Manchin has already sabotaged his own party’s Build Back Better plan to address the climate crisis. Now he wants to delay and divert action on climate by building his own nuclear empire.

Senator Joe Manchin’s International Nuclear Energy Act of 2022 is couched in a good deal of America first-style rhetoric, promising to deliver a new home-grown “whole-of-government strategy for nuclear cooperation and nuclear exports.” Continue reading

Dishonoring Earth Day 2022 with an oil, gas, coal & nuclear heyday

Instead of championing solar, wind and conservation energy, the GOP (Greedy Old Party) is championing the skyrocketing profits and prices for the omnicidal fossil fuel and atomic power companies. Continue reading

If high gas prices are so painful, shouldn’t we move away from fossil fuels?

Not only is it possible to switch to renewables, but it’s also cheaper and would make economies less vulnerable. Yet, bizarrely, politicians and the fossil fuel industry, who are using the war on Ukraine to justify high gas prices, are now calling for more oil to be produced.

Long used to cheap gas at the pump, Americans are experiencing serious sticker shock these days as gas prices rise to $6 or even $7 a gallon. News headlines are linking this sharp increase to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Guilt-inducing memes are cropping up on social media shaming people for complaining about the high gas prices in the face of Ukrainian suffering. Continue reading

Why poorer nations aren’t falling for green-washed imperialism

The world’s wealthiest countries make a big show of fighting climate change without offering poorer countries the finances to switch to renewable energy.

Fighting global warming is not just about providing a path to net-zero carbon emissions for all countries. It is also about figuring out how best to meet the energy needs of people across the world while working toward net-zero emissions. If fossil fuels have to be given up, which has now become an urgent need given the current environmental challenges, countries in Africa and a significant part of Asia, including India, need an alternate path for providing electricity to their people. What then is the best alternate course for poorer countries to follow for electricity production—if they do not use the fossil fuel route—that is being used by rich countries? This in turn also raises questions about how much this alternative energy source route will cost poorer countries, and who will pay the bills incurred when making the switch to this new source of energy. Continue reading

Nature’s own fuel could save us from the greenhouse effect and electric grid failure

Hemp fuel and other biofuels could reduce carbon emissions while saving the electric grid, but they’re often overlooked for more expensive, high-tech climate solutions.

On July 14, the European Union unveiled sweeping climate change and emissions targets that would, according to Gulf News, mean “the end of the internal combustion engine.” Continue reading

Will Ohio finally inherit its wind?

Amidst an astonishing billion-dollar nuke reactor corruption scandal, one of the world’s richest wind resources—the key to Ohio’s economic and ecological future—is being trashed by a single sentence. Continue reading

Pipeline or a pipedream: Israel, Turkey hydrocarbon conflict is brewing in the Mediterranean

Massive natural gas discoveries off the eastern coast of Israel and Palestine is slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic wealth is yet to be seen. Continue reading

Stop the spread of liquefied natural gas—before it’s too late

A liquefied natural gas disaster could make an oil spill look like a picnic.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a potential disaster in the making. That’s the conclusion of a new report by Physicians for Social Responsibility, which surveyed an abundance of research on LNG’s threats to public health. Continue reading

40 ways Ohio now proposes nuclear suicide

A bought, gerrymandered Ohio legislature has just handed a much hated $150 million/year public bailout to two dinosaur nuke reactors primed to explode. Continue reading

Ohio’s ‘Chernobyl Socialism’ would hand $20 million to seven utility scammers

A huge proposed bailout of two Chernobyl-in-progress Ohio nukes (plus two old coal burners) would put $20 million directly into the pockets of seven utility executives. Their bankrupt company last year spent $3 million “lobbying” the legislature. Continue reading

Ohio stumbles, with a Team Trump nudge, toward nuclear and coal

Defying all laws of competitive economics, climate change, and technological progress, the Ohio House has voted in a ratepayer-funded bailout for two aging nuclear power plants on Lake Erie, and two even older coal burners, one in Indiana, but owned by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, based in Piketon. According to Politico, a senior adviser to the Trump reelection campaign, Bob Paduchik, pressured at least five members of the Ohio House of Representatives to vote “yes” on the bill. Continue reading

Putting values into action

Earlier in May, two North Carolina Republicans intro’d state legislation that would place obstacles in the path of renewable energy development. Senate Bill 843, sponsored by Senators William Cook and Andrew Brock, leaves anyone with even semi-decent cognitive functioning asking WTF(?). Despite the unquestionable obviousness of the why of that What, you still can shake your head no, no, no in amazement, outrage, disbelief. Continue reading

Trump to add ‘tasteless insult to injury’ by promoting fossil fuel deregulation in shadow of fatal chemical fire

‘It's no surprise that Trump is once again taking an action championed by climate deniers and fossil fuel companies.’

Just a week after a chemical plant explosion killed one worker and spewed thousands of pounds of dangerous pollutants into the air in Crosby, Texas, President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to visit that city Wednesday to sign executive orders to speed up approval of pipelines and other fossil fuel projects. Continue reading

Three Mile Island’s murderous legacy still threatens us all

Forty years ago on March 29, the Three Mile Island nuke began pouring lethal radiation into our air and water, lungs and livers. Continue reading

Millions of unwitting Americans paying $1 billion more for dirty coal energy each year when cleaner, cheaper sources available

Millions of U.S. energy consumers are unwittingly propping up a coal industry by paying more than $1 billion annually over recent years for dirty energy that renewable sources could have provided at much cheaper prices. Continue reading

Trump’s coal-friendly EPA rule decried as ‘sheer reckless folly’ and ‘all-out assault on our climate and communities’

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday night rally in West Virginia, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a highly anticipated new rule that would roll back restrictions targeting greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, and enable states to set their own standards. Continue reading

Trump has plenty of accomplices in his reckless energy policies

Some 360,000 Americans now work in the solar industry, more than in nukes and coal combined. In fact, more Americans are now working in California’s solar industry than are digging coal nationwide. And the U.S. wind business now employs more than 100,000 people. Continue reading

Puerto Rico goes back door to Solartopia and the corporate media black it out

Puerto Rico has made history by becoming—briefly—the largest US territory or state to be powered almost entirely by renewable energy. Continue reading

How one coal baron set an entire administration’s energy agenda

In a political system awash in money, it's Big Coal vs. democracy.

It’s common knowledge that our political system is awash with money. And that money, despite some flimsy legal barriers, comes with strings attached. Continue reading

Goodbye nuclear power

Construction of two of four remaining planned U.S. plants just canceled

Two of the last four commercial nuclear power plants under construction in the United States—both of them at the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina—have been cancelled. A decision on the remaining two, which are in Georgia, will be made in August. Continue reading

Ohio’s anti-wind regulation comes at a serious cost

In the corporate war against renewable energy, a single Ohio regulation stands out. Continue reading

Getting out of our coal hole

States that invest in renewables are reaping the rewards. Those that stick to coal are faltering.

When you’re in a hole, it’s usually best to stop digging. But when President Trump told supporters at his 100th day rally in Pennsylvania that “we are putting our coal miners back to work,” he just burrowed deeper into the bed of administration lies on energy. Continue reading

Three Mile Island nuke plant closure strengthens call for renewable energy future

Tuesday’s announcement that the Three Mile Island Unit One nuclear plant will close unless it gets massive subsidies has vastly strengthened the case for a totally renewable energy future. Continue reading

Trump’s incredibly dumb bet on coal

When Donald Trump was running for president, he talked a lot about putting people back to work. And one of the industries he focused on most was the coal industry. He even put on a hard hat and waved around a pick axe to show how much he loved coal. Continue reading

4 dying nukes vs. fleet of Gigafactories: Which will Gov. Cuomo choose?

Elon Musk’s SolarCity is completing the construction of its “Buffalo Billion” Gigafactory for photovoltaic (PV) cells near the Niagara River in Buffalo, New York. It will soon put 500 New Yorkers to work inside the 1.2 million-square-foot facility with another 700 nearby, ramping up to nearly 3,000 over the next few years. Continue reading

Ohio’s crumbling nukes face judgment day

The likely explosion of an American nuclear power plant is the ultimate terror in the age of Trump. Continue reading

Crumbling reactors and other nightmares of a Trump-Perry energy policy

In the area of energy policy under the presidency of Donald Trump, two concerns loom above all others. Continue reading

King CONG vs. Solartopia

As you ride the Amtrak along the Pacific coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, you pass the San Onofre nuclear power plant, home to three mammoth atomic reactors shut by citizen activism. Continue reading

Florida’s “deceptive” solar initiative, backed by utilities companies, loses support

‘It's a monopoly wolf in solar sheep's clothing’

As utilities companies funnel millions of dollars into a last-ditch effort to convince Florida voters to pass an anti-solar initiative, the latest polling data shows support for the measure falling. Continue reading