Day: March 19, 2025

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin ‘Intentionally Buried’ Inconvenient Study to Justify Major Energy Crackdown, Sources Say

The Biden administration deliberately buried a final draft version of a study that would have undermined its January 2024 decision to pause approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, according to four Department of Energy (DOE) sources.

From Watts Up With That?

By THE DAILY CALLER

Daily Caller News Foundation

Nick Pope
Contributor

The Biden administration deliberately buried a final draft version of a study that would have undermined its January 2024 decision to pause approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, according to four Department of Energy (DOE) sources.

Former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and former President Joe Biden announced the LNG freeze in January 2024, stating that it would remain in place until the DOE could conduct a fresh study of the climate and economic impacts of LNG export growth. The Biden DOE finalized a draft of the study in 2023 and subsequently buried it because the initial version’s findings would have contradicted the administration’s rationale for the LNG freeze, according to four sources inside the Trump DOE granted anonymity by the Daily Caller News Foundation to freely discuss a sensitive matter.

“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one DOE source told the DCNF. “They were prioritizing their own political ambitions over the interests of the American people, and the administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.” (RELATED: Biden-Harris Admin Accused Of Deceiving America On Its Way To Freezing Gas Exports)

ICYMI last night:

A government watchdog group is alleging that the Biden-Harris Dept. of Energy effectively deceived the public to impose the LNG approvals moratorium. @DailyCaller

Quick 🧵

— Nick Pope (@realnickpope) October 3, 2024

The Biden DOE had essentially completed the final draft version of the LNG impacts study by the end of September 2023, and that version was ready to be presented to top Biden officials shortly thereafter, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That particular iteration of the study, DOE sources told the DCNF, found that increasing U.S. LNG exports would actually bring about a reduction in global emissions relative to other scenarios.

That particular finding is at odds with Granholm’s analysis of the final version of the study released to the public in December 2024, in which she argued that any increase in LNG exports will result in higher global greenhouse gas emissions.

At the end of September 2023, a Biden administration official left a comment on the final draft version that instructed others to halt work on it until further notice, despite other language in the document stating that the final version was to be published sometime around the end of September 2023, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That version of the study was never released publicly, and the Biden DOE considered it to be a “working document” given that the agency subsequently categorized it as part of an internal deliberative process, according to DOE sources.

Additionally, the Biden DOE appears to have deleted numerous pages that appeared in the September 2023 draft version from what became the final version of the report released to the public at the end of 2024, the Trump DOE sources told the DCNF.

While the September 2023 and December 2024 versions of the paper bear the same name, the final version released to the public did not include a specific type of analysis of LNG exports known as the consideration of market effects, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That particular analysis — included in the buried September 2023 version of the study, but not the final product — found that U.S. LNG exports would bring down global emissions by displacing more polluting sources of energy abroad, and its absence from the December 2024 version allowed the Biden DOE to skew the final report’s findings against increasing LNG exports. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmakers Press Biden-Harris Admin Over Alleged Cover-Up Behind Major Fossil Fuel Crackdown)

Biden Admin Appeals To Save Its Freeze On New Natural Gas Exportshttps://t.co/IyKK1YIgx5

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 7, 2024

The evidence showing that the Biden administration buried the initial, politically inconvenient version of the study and misled the American public in the process will soon be transmitted to Congress and to the public, DOE sources told the DCNF.

Granholm and Biden each made statements after the pause was announced implying that the administration was freezing LNG export approvals to pursue answers that Trump DOE sources say had already been found, and that Biden officials chose to ignore. Specifically, both Biden and Granholm suggested that increased LNG exports would be a net negative for the global climate, with Granholm definitively saying as much after the final study was released to the public in December 2024.

“During this period, we will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security, and our environment. This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” Biden said in a statement the day the pause was announced. “While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my Administration will not be complacent. We will not cede to special interests.”

Notably, House Speaker Mike Johnson recalled to The Free Press in January 2025 that Biden “genuinely didn’t know what he had signed” when he asked the president about the decision to freeze LNG approvals in January 2024, with the Republican adding that he left that meeting with the impression that Biden was not actually running the country in practice.

The DOE stated that it would “initiate” a review to determine whether increasing LNG exports is in the public interest in its statement on Jan. 26, 2024, the day the pause was announced.

Granholm claimed that the final version of the study released to the public in December 2024 demonstrates that “in every scenario, increases in LNG exports would lead to increases in global net emissions,” and that “a business-as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable.” When the pause was first announced in January 2024, Granholm said in a statement that the review “will ensure that DOE remains a responsible actor using the most up-to-date economic and environmental analyses.”

“At the time Granholm said that, they were literally hiding from the public the most up-to-date economic and environmental analyses available because it contradicted the very ban that they were trying to institute. They knew the facts well before they created a report that cherry picked the data,” a Trump DOE source told the DCNF. “When you look at what they hid and what they were saying at the same time, it becomes very clear that they weren’t interested in following the science to make decisions in the best interest of the American people. They were interested in making decisions that benefited them politically, and manipulating the science by whatever means necessary.”

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£102K For Two Days A Week At LCCC

Labour is facing a backlash over a key net zero role being advertised with an annual salary equivalent to £255,000. The Chair of the Low Carbon Contracts Company, sponsored by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, would earn £102,500 a year to work two days a week.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

An astonishing revelation from the Express:

Express.co.uk

Labour is facing a backlash over a key net zero role being advertised with an annual salary equivalent to £255,000. The Chair of the Low Carbon Contracts Company, sponsored by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, would earn £102,500 a year to work two days a week.

It is equivalent to a full-time salary of £255,000. But the job advert has sparked a backlash from politicians and campaigners.

Tory peer Lord Mackinlay, who chairs the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, told GB News: “The LCCC is yet another Government quango few will have heard of which is merrily adding to the black hole of Net Zero waste.

“This latest advertised role of chairman at a huge part-time salary speaks volumes about their approach.

Read the full story here.

This is absolutely scandalous. The LCCC does nothing of value, merely administering govt subsidy schemes for renewables, such as CfDs and Capacity Market payments. A junior civil servant could do the job perfectly competently.

But it seems where Net Zero is concerned, money does not matter!

The Case for a US Disaster Review Board

This is a guest post by Mike Smith. He is an incredibly successful scientist and entrepreneur, with 30+ U.S. and foreign patents, awards from three professional societies, and his publication record in the field of severe thunderstorms. He tells me that his proudest professional accomplishment is the thousands of lives saved by the forecasts made by Mike and his team at WeatherData — which he founded — and later at AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, after his company was acquired. I served on his board of directors for several years and watched him work first-hand. We are fortunate to have his voice here at THB. —RP

From Watts Up With That?

Roger Pielke Jr.’s The Honest Broker Substack has a guest post by Mike Smith that’s well worth reading.

This is a guest post by Mike Smith. He is an incredibly successful scientist and entrepreneur, with 30+ U.S. and foreign patents, awards from three professional societies, and his publication record in the field of severe thunderstorms. He tells me that his proudest professional accomplishment is the thousands of lives saved by the forecasts made by Mike and his team at WeatherData — which he founded — and later at AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, after his company was acquired. I served on his board of directors for several years and watched him work first-hand. We are fortunate to have his voice here at THB. —RP

The Case for a US Disaster Review Board, by Mike Smith

Compared to the past decade, the first quarter of 2025 has been terrible for America’s commercial aviation industry and its passengers. It has experienced:

  • near Washington’s Reagan Airport, the first mid-air collision involving an airliner since 1960 — with the loss of 67 lives;
  • a crash landing at Toronto’s Pearson Airport;
  • an extreme near-miss of a Southwest Airlines 737 and a business jet at Chicago’s Midway Airport;

There have been at least three other incidents involving emergency evacuations of aircraft with preliminary indications fires were in progress.

Yet, given the extensive media coverage, there has been little, if any, loss of passenger traffic since these accidents and incidents occurred.

Why?

I believe airline passengers have a great deal of confidence that these issues will be investigated and solved by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). With legislative origins dating back almost 100 years, Congress created the NTSB as an independent agency of the federal government in 1974 and since then, the NTSB has developed an outstanding reputation for fair and accurate analysis of accidents and incidents involving all modes of transportation.

In my career, I assisted the NTSB in a small way with two of its investigations. In 1997, my company, WeatherData was investigated by the Board for our flash flood warnings and services offered to our railroad clientele after the derailment of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief near Kingman, Arizona. The board was thorough and professional, and we received a clean bill of health (see their report).

Based on my considerable experience in both the workings of the NTSB and more than 50 years of experience in the field of consulting, forecasting, and warning of extreme weather and its effects, I believe that Congress should create a U.S. Disaster Review Board (DRB) modeled after the extremely successful NTSB.

Just as the first quarter of 2025 has been a bad run for U.S. aviation, the past 15 years have experienced a series of natural disasters with significant fatalities and billion-dollar-plus damage tolls (in 2025-dollar values). These include:

  • 2011 Joplin Tornado, 161 fatalities, $3.9 billion
  • 2018 “Camp” Fire, 85 fatalities, $17 billion
  • 2022 Hurricane Ian, 161 fatalities, $112 billion
  • 2023 Maui Wildfire, 102+ fatalities, $5.5 billion
  • 2024 Hurricane Helene Appalachian flooding, 230+ fatalities, final damage toll TBD
  • 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires, 28+ fatalities (more than 30 missing), preliminary financial loss is estimated to be between $250 and $275 billion dollars, which would surpass Hurricane Katrina as the most expensive natural disaster in United States history.

When a plane crashes, aviation officials know exactly what to do to identify what happened, why, and to use this information to propose and implement changes to prevent future occurrences.

What about disasters? As a popular movie once asked, “Who ya gonna call?”

Unlike other nations — such as the United Kingdom — the U.S. has no systematic process for investigating disasters and applying lessons learned to future mitigation. Based on my considerable experience in the workings of the NTSB and more than 50 years of experience in the field of consulting, forecasting, and warning of extreme weather and its effects, I believe that Congress should create a U.S. Disaster Review Board (DRB) modeled after the extremely successful NTSB.

The NTSB was established by Congress originally in 1967 within the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT). Seven years later, Congress determined the potential for conflicts of interest existed when the NTSB investigated other agencies of the DoT such as the Federal Aviation Administration.

So, Congress made the NTSB an independent federal agency.

The DRB would be staffed with experts in applied (as opposed to theoretical) meteorology, geology, oceanography, emergency response, and related fields, with an ability to appoint relevant experts to its investigatory panels as appropriate. The purview of the DRB would be on natural disasters including:

  • Hurricanes and tropical storms
  • Tornadoes and other severe convective storms such as derechoes and downbursts
  • Tsunamis
  • Floods
  • Wildfires
  • Earthquakes
  • Volcanic eruptions

Major disasters such as medical pandemics or technology related disasters (i.e., a radiation leak or chemical spill) will be beyond the purview of the DRB. Some of these human-created disasters are already handled by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

One of the reasons for the NTSB’s high level of success is the underlying focus on transportation. If the DRB were to be assigned, say, pandemics that would require a signifcantly different focus and expertise than natural disasters – however, clearly the US also needs a capability to evaluate responses to pandemics as well.

In October, 2021, California Representative Katie Porter introduced a bi-partisan bill to create a Natural Disaster Safety Board which passed the House of Representatives (but not the Senate). Her bill provided $70 million for first-year expenses and specified that the Board must be either co-located with an existing government research facility (which I oppose because of the potential for conflicts of interest, similar to those of the early years of the NTSB) or a university campus.

To help insulate a DRB from politics and to make it equally accessible to the entire nation, the DRB should be headquartered outside the Beltway and the constantly shifting winds of politics Washington. My recommendation is that it be in the central United States to insure equal access to all parts of the nation and that potential conflicts of interest be considered, and avoided, when a site is chosen.

Like the NTSB, the DRB would be an independent agency. The NTSB has five Board Members, each nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve 5-year terms. The President designates a Board Member as Chair and other a Vice Chair for 3-year terms. I recommend the same for the DRB. To their credit, both political parties have respected the essential requirement of the Board’s independence.

To read the rest, go to Roger Pielke Jr.’s The Honest Broker Substack

UK opposition leader dumps “impossible” climate plan: Net Zero fantasy will bankrupt us!

Finally, 8 weeks after Donald Trump was sworn in, the UK conservative party says what skeptics and many conservatives have been saying for ten or twenty years. Perhaps they were jolted into action by the shocking polls that showed — from out of nowhere, the Reform Party was polling just as well, or even better than the 200 year old Conservative party.

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

Hallelujah — Kemi Badenoch has thrown Net Zero under a bus

Finally, 8 weeks after Donald Trump was sworn in, the UK conservative party says what skeptics and many conservatives have been saying for ten or twenty years. Perhaps they were jolted into action by the shocking polls that showed — from out of nowhere, the Reform Party was polling just as well, or even better than the 200 year old Conservative party.

Conservatives supporting global weather witchcraft and UN fantasies are facing an existential threat.

The GWPF is delighted, of course, having warned about the dire Net Zero outcomes for 15 years. And Kemi Badenoch blasts the old policies, calling them “fantasy politics” that cost the Earth, drive up the cost of electricity, while “not really” protecting the environment. She’s realized no one had a detailed plan, and if they did, sensationally, she says they wouldn’t talk about it because it would reveal “just how catastrophic the actual costs will be for families, for businesses, and for our economy.” In a blockbuster moment, she even admits the futility of it all saying that the UK has done more on carbon emissions that anyone in the developed world, but they were only responsible for 1% of the world’s emissions, and the world isn’t following them.

Her three big reasons are that the plans have no details, the targets are unrealistic, and they’re far too dependent on China for everything, which is 60% powered by coal. Finally, a Western Leader admitting that “leading the way” on climate change is pointless if no one else is following you.

This marks a major change in the Tory party plan — and even though the UK election is not for another four years, it will finally allow the conservatives to point out all the silly flaws in the government climate plan, instead of just promising to be a different shade of crazy themselves.

Wikimedia

Kemi Badenoch’s speech: (some excerpts)

Net zero by 2050 “is fantasy politics. Built on nothing. Promising the earth. And costing it too.”

Today, I’m talking about one of the biggest ways we are destroying our children’s inheritance.

Let’s start by telling the truth on energy and net zero. Every single thing we do in our daily lives is dependent on cheap, abundant energy.

When energy became cheap and abundant, living standards began to rise, health and life expectancy grew. Cheap, abundant energy is the foundation of civilisation as we know it today. We mess with it at our peril. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for twenty years. And it’s now starting to cause real pain for everyday people and businesses. The cost of electricity – far too high – much higher than nearby and comparative countries with the real possibility of it going even higher with environmental levies.

It’s fantasy politics. Built on nothing. Promising the earth. And costing it too.

She lays out the pointless hypocrisy of it all — though doesn’t twist the knife — did Nick Clegg care at all about CO2?

I remember Nick Clegg dismissing the idea of building new nuclear because it would not come online until 2022. That decision has cost us billions.

Given that the conservatives legislated many of the suicidal Net Zero ideas themselves, there is a mountain they have to climb, to convince voters they really mean it:

…the political class has lost trust. The only way that we can regain it is to tell the unvarnished truth. Net zero by 2050 is impossible.

I don’t say that with pleasure. I want a better future and a better environment for our children. But we have to get real.

Anyone who has done any serious analysis knows it cannot be achieved without a significant drop in our living standards or worse, by bankrupting us.

Let me give you three truths at the heart of net zero.

Nigel Farage blasted back with — “Fooling No One”

…Reform UK leader Mr Farage, whose party had already pledged to ditch the target, accused her of desperation. The Clacton MP said: “Kemi is fooling no one. Let’s not forget that she happily waved through Conservative government legislation on this, including enshrining net zero by 2050 into law. “If she truly believed this would bankrupt the country, why didn’t she voice her opposition sooner? This is a desperate policy from a leader and party floundering in the polls in an attempt to hitch themselves onto Reform’s momentum.

The Conservatives have a lot of work to do to earn trust after years of sabotaging their own country.

More of her speech below:

First: the published plans are completely muddled.

It is true that the UK has made the greatest progress on carbon emissions in the developed world. Yet we are only responsible for 1% of global emissions. Even if we hit absolute zero, we will not have net zero around the world, if other countries are not following us. And they are not. They certainly will not if they see us bankrupting ourselves to get there.

Our success at reducing emissions has also come at a significant cost: the highest electricity bills in the developed world.

…we must effectively build two systems of electricity generation – one based on renewables and one not. One for when the sun shines and the wind blows. And one for when they don’t.

The real reason no one in their government is talking about a proper overall plan is that they know it would reveal just how catastrophic the actual costs will be for families, for businesses, and for our economy. Those costs include families being forced to replace perfectly functioning cars, boilers, and cookers with more expensive, less reliable versions of the same thing.

[The Second truth]: even where there is a plan, we’re behind.

By 2040, the Committee on Climate Change says more than half of UK homes need to rip out their boilers and replace them with a heat pump.There is no way we can do this quickly enough on that timescale.17 million houses need to be fitted with an expensive heat pump in just 15 years. How many houses have one now? Fewer than 300,000 – because heat pumps run on a lot of expensive electricity and it turns out, many people just don’t like them.

But let’s look at the good statistics. Last year saw the highest number of heat pumps ever installed in the UK, 50,000. That’s the best we’ve ever done. So, at that rate it’ll take 340 years not 15 to get to the target.

The third truth.We are massively exposing ourselves to countries who don’t share our values.

Take solar panels – the good news is that costs have dropped in the last decade.

But here’s the less good news. Ten years ago, we were heavily dependent on China for all of the key components. Today we’re even more dependent.

….60% of their supply comes from coal fired power stations.

Those three truths are why I call myself a net zero sceptic. Muddled plans, unrealistic targets and deadlines, over-reliance on China.

We have got to start acknowledging what is in plain sight.

Australia Shuts Down Solar Farms Due to Bushfire Concerns – But the China Connection is Even More Worrying

There have been plenty of stories about wind turbines bursting into flames. Now it seems solar farms are fire hazards too says the Australian, and in more ways than one:
Victoria’s energy safety regulator has ordered five solar farms to be switched off due to concerns over bushfire risks caused by uncontrolled vegetation.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Sallust

There have been plenty of stories about wind turbines bursting into flames. Now it seems solar farms are fire hazards too says the Australian, and in more ways than one:

Victoria’s energy safety regulator has ordered five solar farms to be switched off due to concerns over bushfire risks caused by uncontrolled vegetation.

Operators of the five solar farms owned by subsidiaries of Chinese-owned Sungrow Power Australia have been ordered to cease generating electricity from sites at Raywood and Goornong, near Bendigo; Stawell and Ledcourt in western Victoria and Moolort, west of Castlemaine, after a blitz by Energy Safe Victoria in February.

A spokesperson said the inspections coincided with a fire breaking out at the Raywood solar farm, 28km north of Bendigo, which started in electrical equipment and spread to vegetation on the site.

“When Energy Safe officers attended the scene, they observed a lack of adequate vegetation management including insufficient fire breaks and vegetation that had grown too high,’’ the regulator said.

The fire, which started in an inverter, sent black toxic smoke drifting over the small town of Raywood, causing authorities to issue warnings to residents and causing difficulty for crews trying to access the fire site.

The incident isn’t an isolated one:

Energy Safe CEO Leanne Hughson said energy businesses must prioritise safety and ensure their installations do not endanger the community.

“At the beginning of summer last year, we wrote to the operators of all solar farms in Victoria to ensure they were actively managing safety risks during the fire danger period,” Ms Hughson said.

“Solar farm owners and operators have a legal duty to minimise bushfire risks and if they don’t, we will take action to protect people and property.”

She said safety officers were inspecting other renewable energy facilities in Victoria to ensure they complied with their maintenance and safety obligations.

The Raywood fire is not the first to ignite in a solar farm. An inverter in a shipping container burst into flames at Mannum east of Adelaide in 2024, causing $250,000 damage and injuring a contractor. CFS crews contained the fire to the shipping container and stopped it spreading to nearby panels.

A solar farm near Gulgong, north of Mudgee in the central-west region of NSW, was temporarily shut down after a grass fire in 2023.

Worth reading in full.

The knock-on risks from such fires would obviously be less in Britain where bushfires, or anything like them, are a rarity. Nevertheless, the Victoria story shows there’s a lot more to these installations than simply building them and sitting back.

Readers might also be interested to know that Sungrow has a UK arm. According to Wikipedia, Sungrow is ‘”a publicly listed Chinese solar photovoltaic (PV) inverter manufacturing company headquartered in Hefei, Anhui”.

On July 21st 2023 the Australian ran a story about “China’s spy threat to our solar energy grid”, claiming that:

Australia’s fast-growing solar energy grid is being dominated by Chinese firms with links to the Chinese Communist Party, raising fears of the potential for ­Beijing to sabotage, surveil or disrupt solar energy supplies.

The country’s solar grid is increasingly reliant on ‘smart inverters’ to convert energy from rooftop solar panels into usable electricity for homes and businesses. But new research shows Chinese companies dominate 58% of the Australian inverter market, making the devices, which are internet-connected and can be remotely controlled, potentially vulnerable to any Chinese attempt to target the solar electricity grid.

Under China’s national intelligence laws, the companies supplying these solar inverters could be ordered by Beijing to sabotage, surveil or disrupt power supplies to Australian homes, companies or government.

The two largest suppliers in the Australian solar inverter market, Sydney-based Sungrow and Melbourne-based GoodWe, are Chinese-owned and have links with the Chinese Communist Party.

Sungrow’s major shareholder, Professor Cao Renxian, is also President of the state-run China Voltaic Industry Association, which is required to “adhere to the (CCP) party’s line, principle and policies”.

The Government has said that for Australia to reach its 43% emissions reduction target there will need to be 22,000 500-watt solar panels installed each day and a total of 60 million by 2030.

China already dominates the global production of solar panels, with an 85% market share – a fact that Prime Minister ­Anthony Albanese has previously described as a national ­security issue.

Moreover, Australia is pushing the market towards smart inverters:

It is the growing reliance on Chinese-produced solar smart inverters that turn direct current (DC) from solar panels into alternating current (AC) for homes and businesses that is causing most concern.

South Australia has mandated the use of smart inverters in all new solar systems, while Victoria will mandate their use from March next year as they gradually become the standard technology for new rooftop solar systems across the country.

Up to a million rooftop solar systems in Australia are expected to use smart inverters within three years. “In about two to three years, I think there will be a critical mass (of controllable smart inverters),” says Grace Young, Chief Innovation Officer with clean tech device company Wattwatchers.

“I can see it becoming quite a serious threat in certain contexts and circumstances if it was done nefariously and, therefore, yes we absolutely have to take it seriously,” Ms Young said.

Also worth reading in full.

China Promises to Work with Britain on Climate Change, while Building more Coal

“… We obviously want China and all countries indeed to move away from fossil fuels …”

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… We obviously want China and all countries indeed to move away from fossil fuels …”

Ed Miliband vows to engage with China on climate after Tory ‘negligence’

Energy security and net zero secretary travels to Beijing for countries’ first formal climate meetings since 2017

…

Miliband stressed that “the world is way off track from where we need to be” before the COP30 UN climate summit in Brazil in November. He said that in his first eight months as secretary of state, he had visited Brazil, India and China, showing that “Britain is back as a climate leader” on the world stage. The UK is hoping to shape a new global axis in favour of climate action along with China and developing countries, to counter Donald Trump’s abandonment of green policies in the US.

…

Miliband said: “The issue of forced labour is absolutely something I’ve raised and it is a concern in the UK … I raised it with my Chinese hosts.” He said China “will continue to play a really important role in solar production”.

…

… Beijing remains committed to coal, and recently pledged “increase coal production and supply capacity” to ensure energy security.

“We obviously want China and all countries indeed to move away from fossil fuels,” Miliband said. He said that he believed …

…Read more: 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/17/ed-miliband-vows-to-engage-with-china-on-climate-after-tory-negligence

I’m confused. If China is not doing anything substantial to reduce emissions, and even the Guardian admits China is openly committed to building more coal, what did the mission actually achieve?

The bell “tolls” for congestion taxes

The Trump administration, specifically U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, last month rescinded the federal government’s approval during the Biden administration of New York State’s imposition of congestion pricing tolls for vehicles driving into the southern half of Manhattan in New York City. Secretary Duffy’s February termination letter to Gov. Hochul said the congestion tolls are “a slap in the face to working-class Americans and small-business owners.”

From CFACT

By Peter Murphy

The Trump administration, specifically U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, last month rescinded the federal government’s approval during the Biden administration of New York State’s imposition of congestion pricing tolls for vehicles driving into the southern half of Manhattan in New York City. Secretary Duffy’s February termination letter to Gov. Hochul said the congestion tolls are “a slap in the face to working-class Americans and small-business owners.”

The New York City congestion toll-tax scheme has national implications. If allowed to continue, it could proliferate to pre-existing public roadways in jurisdictions throughout the nation as the ever-greedy political class and unscrupulous climate grifters find ways to extract more cash from the public.

Call it a promise made/promise kept by President Trump, who committed during the campaign to remove the tolls and their cost to average New Yorkers. He stated he is holding firm and criticized the state and city for their refusal to crack down on subway and bus fare beaters, which loses $800 million annually – more than the annual projected revenue from the congestion tax.

At this writing, the toll cameras remain on and are collecting the $9.00 automobile and $14.40 to $21.60 truck taxes for entering the Manhattan congestion zone. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the tolls and is controlled by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, sued to block the fed’s reversal.

This latest chapter of the congestion toll saga is not final. If the courts uphold the tolls based on prior traffic and environmental approvals by the Biden administration, there are a myriad of other federal mandates and funding streams to New York for the Trump administration to leverage as a means to otherwise bury them.

Congestion tolls were first floated for Manhattan two decades ago when the NYC Mayor at the time, Michael Bloomberg, a champion of climate change fanaticism and the nanny state, proposed them. The state legislature instead rejected the idea.

Fast forward to 2019, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the congestion tolls into law as he sought to juxtapose himself with the legislature’s “progressive” shift further to the political left and parrot the bogus climate change narrative to reduce vehicle emissions. Five years and $500 million later, the tolls were about to take effect in the summer of 2024 when Gov. Hochul stopped them.

“I cannot add another burden to working middle-class New Yorkers,” Hochul said at the time (with her fingers crossed behind her back).

Hochul’s mendacious action came at the behest of U.S. House leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn to curry favor for his New York City metropolitan congressional candidates before the November elections.

Five months later, following the elections—surprise! —Governor Flim-Flam announced that, in fact, she can and will add another burden to working middle-class New Yorkers. The toll-taxes were back on and went into effect January 5th, two weeks prior to President Trump’s inaugural. Such was a reminder of why the public generally despises politicians.

Governor Hochul met in vain with President Trump last month during the annual National Governor’s Association meeting in Washington to get him to reconsider nixing the congestion tax. The governor’s spokesperson said that she presented to the president “a booklet on the early success of congestion pricing.”

Talk about a political tin ear.

Drivers are paying substantially more to enter the heart of New York City, which indeed has reduced traffic in lower Manhattan thus far by a measly 7.5 percent—Bravo!—as though that electron-lite amount will curtail “climate change.” Yet, to no surprise, increased traffic and emissions outside the zone also resulted. Congestion taxes also are being passed on by businesses and contractors to millions of consumers residing and working in the lower half of Manhattan. Some “success”.

CFACT has said from the beginning when congestion tolls were first approved for New York that it was a massive cash grab to pay interest on billions of dollars in new debt for the city’s mass transit system. For the non-credulous, it was never about the “climate crisis” or reducing Manhattan vehicle traffic overall.

The congestion tolls are a microcosm of what always happens when climate policies are imposed: Americans pay more, the economy suffers, the standard of living drops, and the climate goes on changing like the wind, unaffected. As with other costly and useless climate scams, President Trump rightly pulled the plug, hopefully to bury congestion taxes permanently.

A version of this article originally appeared at The Daily Caller

Energy Fantasy Versus Reality in Woke-Land — Part III

JP Morgan Chase — that’s the largest bank in the country. It has been headed for almost 20 years by celebrity CEO Jamie Dimon. For much of the 20 years, Chase and Dimon have been known for their fealty to woke orthodoxies, at least in their official pronouncements. For example, here is a Forbes piece from October 2020 citing Dimon on the subject of “systemic racism.” (Pithy quote: “Systemic racism is a tragic part of America’s history. . . . It’s long past time that society addresses racial inequities in a more tangible, meaningful way.”)

From Manhattan Contrarian

By Francis Menton

JP Morgan Chase — that’s the largest bank in the country. It has been headed for almost 20 years by celebrity CEO Jamie Dimon. For much of the 20 years, Chase and Dimon have been known for their fealty to woke orthodoxies, at least in their official pronouncements. For example, here is a Forbes piece from October 2020 citing Dimon on the subject of “systemic racism.” (Pithy quote: “Systemic racism is a tragic part of America’s history. . . . It’s long past time that society addresses racial inequities in a more tangible, meaningful way.”)

The fealty to woke orthodoxies has in the past extended in particular to the subject of “climate change.” In April 2021 JPM put out a big announcement of plans to facilitate investment of some $2.5 trillion in what they called “climate action and sustainable development.” In October 2021, JPM joined the so-called Net Zero Banking Alliance, then being organized by the UN (led by Mark Carney), promising to starve fossil fuels of investment capital in order to reduce CO2 emissions.

But meanwhile, over at J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, they have a guy named Michael Cembalest, who currently has the title Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy. For some 15 years, Cembalest has put out an annual Report called the Annual Energy Paper. I have covered a couple of Cembalest’s prior reports, here for 2021, and here for 2022. The titles of both those posts included the words “Fantasy Versus Reality In Woke-Land.” Cembalest is just out with the 2025 version of his Annual Energy Paper, so consider this to be Part III of this series.

These Reports by Cembalest are far from perfect. At a basic level, the Reports accept the ideas that there is a real energy transition going on, that it is somehow important, and that use of fossil fuels must eventually be eliminated. I don’t know if Cembalest really believes those things himself, or if accepting them for purposes of your public reports is the price of holding a highly-paid job at JPM. Either way, while I consider the failure to question those ideas to be a major flaw of these Reports, that failure does not prevent Cembalest from taking a serious and realistic look at many aspects of the supposed energy transition that are completely failing.

I’ll start with a couple of sections of this year’s Report that I consider to be the strongest: those covering hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Hydrogen

Cembalest’s section on hydrogen, beginning at page 45, is titled “Frydrogen: the cancellation of green hydrogen projects when exposed to the sunlight of energy math.” The reason for use of the word “fry”: “[M]any hydrogen projects are being fried (terminated) since the energy math didn’t work.”

Cembalest quotes Hanns Neubert in the June 2024 German MIT Technology Review:

“Electrolyzers, which do not exist, are supposed to use surplus electricity, which does not exist, to feed hydrogen into a network that does not exist in order to operate power plants that do not exist. Alternatively, the hydrogen is to be transported via ships and harbors, which do not exist, from supplier countries, which – you guessed it – also do not exist.”

There is a long list of some 12 insurmountable obstacles standing in the way of a green hydrogen economy. My favorite:

The green hydrogen economy barely exists despite mountains of taxpayer subsidies promoting supply. In the US, for example: a production tax credit of $3 per kg is equivalent to $91 per MWh based on the energy content of hydrogen (i.e., greater than wholesale electricity prices which averaged between $30 and $50 per MWh in 2024).

(Note that the $91/MWh tax credit for green hydrogen is just the subsidized portion of the cost of making the fuel; the $30-50/MWh wholesale cost of electricity includes all elements of making the electricity, not just the fuel.)

CCS

In a section on CCS on page 19 of the Report, Cembalest correctly takes note of the fact that after decades of hype, CCS has gone absolutely nowhere. He calls the CCS “citation-to-usage ratio” (that is, the number of citations of CCS in academic papers divided by the actual operating capacity of CCS facilities) “the highest ratio in the history of science.” A chart shows current U.S. capacity of operating CCS facilities at about 0.1% of CO2 emissions. If all planned facilities actually get built (highly unlikely based on experience), then the percent of emissions captured would go to around 0.8% of emissions.

Another interesting chart shows that CCS facilities that have been built capture far from all of the CO2 emissions from the plant in question, despite consuming substantial portions of the energy production of the plant. Here is a portion of that chart:

Capturing 55-75% of the emissions of a coal power plant is never going to satisfy the environmental zealots. So what’s the point?

OK, those were the strong parts of the Report. Let’s get to the fundamental flaw.

Solar power

The biggest theme of this year’s Report is “Heliocentrism.” The title of the Executive Summary of the Report is “Heliocentrism and the speed of the energy transition.” Why the term “heliocentrism”? “For purposes of this paper, heliocentrism refers to the view that rapid growth in solar power and energy storage are at the heart of the energy transition, and that new investment in complementary thermal power generation is no longer required.”

Cembalest says that there are “believers in heliocentrism,” apparently lots of them, and lays out their case for them:

Believers in heliocentrism point to rapid growth in global solar capacity which more than doubled over the last three years. If BNEF projections are correct, solar capacity will double again from 2024 to 2027. Solar is now the dominant form of global capacity additions, comprising 60% of new capacity in 2024 and by our estimates ~75% in 2027. According to Carbon Brief, the International Energy Agency underestimated solar capacity growth for years and has been trying to catch up as shown below. Globally, the combination of wind and solar power generation has soared past nuclear and should surpass hydropower in 2025.

Cembalest then states that “there are a couple of ‘buts’ to keep in mind.” That’s putting it mildly! As the “buts,” Cembalest mentions that solar facilities have annual capacity factors in the range of 15-20%, and that producing electricity from solar panels does not solve the issue of non-electrified uses of energy, like transportation, industry, and most space heating. Fair enough. But he never gets to the biggest problem, which is dealing with the problem of intermittency as the penetration of solar generation into the grid increases.

The problem of energy storage is barely mentioned. There is this on page 5:

EIA analysts I spoke with cite a “staggering” amount of battery storage being added to the US grid: another 38 GW by 2027 on top of 22.5 GW already in place. This suggests that some natural gas peaker and baseload plants could eventually be displaced.

Well, how “staggering” is that? It’s really discouraging that Cembalest does not even use the correct units for describing battery capacity (which are watt-hours rather than watts). But assume that we are talking about standard 4-hour lithium-ion batteries. A few minutes of simple arithmetic would show that this “staggering” amount of storage is a tiny fraction of what would be needed to back up a predominantly solar electrical grid. The U.S. used 4,086 TWh, or 4,086,000 GWh, of electricity in 2024. Dividing by 8760 (hours in a year), that’s 466 GWh every hour. 38 + 22.5 GW of batteries would total 60.5 GW, times 4 hours’ duration would come to 242 GWh of storage. So, about half an hour’s worth. Full backup of a predominantly solar grid would take about 500 to 1000 hours of storage. So the “staggering” 242 GWh is around 0.05% – 0.1% of the storage that would be needed. An almost meaningless amount.

Cembalest’s conclusion is that while solar generation is increasing rapidly, it is only increasing “linearly,” which is not nearly fast enough to overtake all fossil fuel generation in any short number of years. Thus, “[A]s a general principle, . . . the US and Europe are a long way off from no longer needing both baseload and backup thermal capacity.”

Well, sorry Mike, but you’ve missed the big picture. If you had done the arithmetic, you could easily have seen that solar is not just “a long way off” from powering the grid without thermal backup; solar is never going to be the main source energy for a developed economy. You owed it to your clients to tell them that this can’t work, and there is a Green Energy Wall coming; but you failed.

Meanwhile, there is at least some reason to think that JPM at the highest levels has finally started to see reality and re-think its green energy commitments. Just in January, JPM quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance. Maybe by the time next year’s Report rolls around, the shackles will have been taken off Mr. Cembalest, and he can give his readers a dose of the truth.

EPA seeks to end climate cult war

Decades of sham climate-premised green scams promoting mandates and subsidies for costly, anemic wind and solar fantasies at the expense of abundant fossil energy we can afford and depend on appear finally to be over.

From CFACT

By Larry Bell

Hurrah!

Decades of sham climate-premised green scams promoting mandates and subsidies for costly, anemic wind and solar fantasies at the expense of abundant fossil energy we can afford and depend on appear finally to be over.

On March 12, incoming EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency will undertake 31 historic deregulatory actions to fulfill “President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower cost of living for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.”

Zeldin pledged, “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.”

As Zeldin elaborated: “The Trump administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas.”

He added, “We will follow the science, the law, and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier, and safer air, land, and water.”

Centrally important to all of this is an intent to reign in EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as a “climate pollutant” under a 2009 Endangerment Finding in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Departments of Energy, Transportation, Interior, and other agencies.

President Trump made this a key priority on his first-day executive order, “Unleashing American Energy,” where he gave the EPA administrator a 30-day deadline to submit recommendations on the legality of the Endangerment Finding and its continuation.

When EPA made the Endangerment Finding, the agency did not consider future costs that would flow from it. Since then, justifications based upon it have run up an aggregate cost of over $1 trillion for seven vehicle regulations alone.

EPA will now reconsider all of its prior regulations and actions that rely on the Endangerment Finding.

The Endangerment Finding has also played a significant role in EPA’s justification of regulations of other sources beyond cars and trucks.

Although under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act Congress tasked EPA to regulate new motor vehicles when the administrator determines that emissions of an air pollutant endanger public health and welfare, there was no evidence that CO2 presented any such risk.

Nevertheless, the agency went even far beyond that, arguing in multiple creative leaps of conjecture that a combined mixture of six gases contributes some mysterious amount above zero to climate change, and therefore that climate change creates some mysterious amount of endangerment above zero to public health.

In other words, CO2 pollutes the climate, causing danger to motorists, but somehow global warming influences that reduce icy roads don’t count?

How unfair!

Nevertheless, the Obama-Biden administration got the preferred Clean Air Act conclusion that it wanted in order to push electric vehicles.

White House OMB Director Russ Vought commented, “EPA’s regulation of the climate affects the entire national economy — jobs, wages, and family budgets. It’s long overdue to look at the impacts on our people of the underlying Obama Endangerment Finding.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said: “The 2009 Endangerment Finding has had an enormously negative impact on the lives of the American people. For more than 15 years, the U.S. government used the finding to pursue an onslaught of costly regulations — raising prices and reducing reliability and choice on everything from vehicles to electricity and more. It’s past time the United States ensures the basis for issuing environmental regulations follows the science and betters human lives.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy commented: “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the hard work of Administrator Zeldin, we are taking another important step toward ushering in a golden age of transportation. The American people voted for a government that prioritizes affordable, safe travel and lets them choose the vehicles they drive. Today we are delivering on that promise, and this will allow the DOT to accelerate its work on new vehicle fuel economy standards that will lower car prices and no longer force Americans to purchase electric vehicles they don’t want.”

Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum observed: “The United States produces energy smarter, cleaner, and safer than anywhere else in the world.” He said, “To achieve President Trump’s vision for energy dominance, we are prioritizing innovation over regulation to attain an affordable, reliable, clean, and secure energy future for all Americans.”

These EPA regulatory rollbacks will end trillions of inflationary expenses and hidden “taxes” for American citizens, households and businesses, reducing costs of home heating, gasoline, car purchases, and countless other expenses.

EPA regulatory reforms under consideration will benefit industry and job growth as well.

Included, are rulings that are associated with: regulations on power plants; the oil and gas industry; Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that improperly targeted coal-fired power plants; and the mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program that imposed significant costs on the American energy supply.

The EPA can also be counted on to end the Biden-Harris administration’s “Social Cost of Carbon” climate propaganda program and de facto electric vehicle mandates including heavy-duty trucks.

Whereas the Endangerment Finding acknowledges and identifies significant uncertainties in science and assumptions used to justify its rulings, the biggest endangerment of all has resulted from EPA’s regulatory overreach to strangle America’s energy energy-fueled economy.

This article originally appeared at NewsMax

Climate Propaganda at Columbia University: Meet Prof. Lisa Sachs

“One-sided argumentation/advocacy in place of intellectual rigor is fraudulent and morally wrong. It speaks to desperation in a dark hour. Your climate courses should be restructured or terminated. At a minimum, a new reading curriculum is needed.”

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“One-sided argumentation/advocacy in place of intellectual rigor is fraudulent and morally wrong. It speaks to desperation in a dark hour. Your climate courses should be restructured or terminated. At a minimum, a new reading curriculum is needed.”

Lisa Sachs, Director of theDirector of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, and Director of the Columbia Climate School’s Master of Science program in Climate Finance, recently wrote on social media:

Couldn’t be more excited for the official launch of Columbia Climate School‘s new MS in Climate Finance, as I hear from more and more incredible applicants AND practitioners, underscoring the importance, timeliness and breadth of rigorously understanding the intersection of Climate and Finance!!

I responded that climate finance was producing Net Zero for investors, with Sunnova being the most recent example. She deleted the comment and sent me this personal communication:

Rob, I don’t find your comments on my posts very helpful to anyone. If you’d like to discuss at some point, I’m happy to. I connected as a collegial connection but if it’s just to troll my posts, perhaps best not to be connected.

I responded:

Hi Lisa.  Did you delete my comment about climate investing resulting in ‘Net Zero’ for investors, with Sunnova being the latest example? The empirical record is clear on this….   But the bigger issue is intellectual diversity and the obvious need for Climate Finance program to have fair presentations on climate science, CO2 science, climate economics, and energy policies. The case against climate alarm and forced energy transformation is strong and politically ascendant. Net Zero (“immoral” to DOE head Chris Wright) is dying for predictable reasons. So, my question: does your Master’s Program have a professor sympathetic to these views, or can there be public debates on campus on these issues for your students?  If not, why not?

No response. I again asked her:

Lisa: I was hoping for a response.  Is there not room in Climate Finance for a different perspective on climate alarm and forced energy transformation?

She responded lawyerlike:

Our program is focused on equipping students with the tools to understand risks, impacts, and opportunities in climate finance—this is not a political stance, but a necessary foundation for sound decision-making. There is broad international agreement on the realities of climate change and the transition, which also brings economic and energy benefits, including cost efficiency, stability, and independence. We welcome diverse perspectives, and if you have a rigorous and constructive case to make, I’d be happy to engage.

I answered:

Chris Wright, head of DOE, gave just that to the CERA conference before several thousand yesterday.

There are plenty of very top, qualified people to dispute each and all of your seven assumptions in your statement:

“There is broad international agreement on the realities of climate change and the transition, which also brings economic and energy benefits, including cost efficiency, stability, and independence.”

Is there a professor on campus who can make these arguments? Can a series of debates be held at the Columbia Climate School on the benefits of CO2 enrichment and the fallacies of the ‘energy transition’?

After no answer, I asked:

Any response to my previous communication?  Is it your position that there are not two sides to the debates over climate alarm and forced energy transformation? 

Again, no answer. To her, there is not debate about fundamental questions, just the ‘obvious’ need for ‘climate investments’ that are ‘sustainable’ (my characterization).

Earlier Exchange

Professor Sachs posted two days earlier:

Well, we’re getting closer and closer to a more coherent and honest conversation on climate finance and net zero… it’s taking time to peel back the layers of confusion, conflation and misrepresentation from the past several years!!

She then outlined five points, all of which assume what is in debate (climate alarm) with false optimism about an area in retreat. (All this from a scholarly professor?)

1. “Net Zero” is a global GHG accounting concept – not one that can be atomized at the entity level. We must systematically reduce emissions across energy, transport, industry and land use, and then permanently remove and store any residual emissions….

2. That is NOT to say that transformations cannot and will not happen – they can, they must, and they will. And individual corporate actors and financial institutions have an important role to play….

3. It’s also categorically true that those who invest in the future will win in the future…. Those who have the ability, the leadership, and the insights to invest in the future will reap the economic and diplomatic rewards; right now, that is unequivocally China….

4. Many important sectors (finance, energy, industry, transport, etc.) are decisively responsive to (and in some ways, dependent on) policy frameworks…. In the US and in the EU, that has led many sectors to invest in ways that gamble with our fate and bet against a sustainable future — because the policy makers are doing the same.

5. But the energy transition is happening and present unprecedented opportunities. Climate impacts are real and present great risks. Leadership is possible. Truth-telling helps. Policies and politics are responsive to powerful voices (for better and worse). Vision is rewarded.

I responded:

Your assumption is that CO2 is a pollutant and worse–and Net Zero is a worthy goal. Maybe just the opposite! Do you allow debate at Columbia Center on this? The students deserve to hear both sides, particularly when the ignored side is winning in business and in politics.

Other critics joined in:

David Brattain: “Banks are lowering targets because NetZero is a loser. Climate Cult is a loser and the US Government is out of the fantasy funding business!”

And an ally of Sachs questioned her faith in China:

Nicole Reynolds: “Coal is still heavily favored in China’s electricity market design and the continued construction of coal plants alongside renewables hardly supports its decarbonization commitments…. Countries always defend their own interests so let’s not pretend that their technology advancements ‘benefit’ the world when China’s actions may very well push us past tipping points.”

Final Comment:

“The more rigorously and honestly we can chart the transition pathways and the challenges (indeed),” Lisa Sachs states, “the more we can help to shape solutions.” This is fair game for those of the opposite view. Look out the window, read the room, Lisa. Your naive view that it is business-as-usual with climate government subsidies and climate bulling is wrong. The failed Podesta-Biden-Harris era is over. It is Trump time, unleashing the best energies as chosen by consumers with taxpayers neutral.

One-sided argumentation/advocacy in place of intellectual rigor is fraudulent and morally wrong. It speaks to desperation in a dark hour. Your climate courses should be restructured or terminated. At a minimum, a new reading curriculum is needed, the subject of tomorrow’s post.