Day: December 29, 2025

Drought Deception

Northwest drought is being exaggerated by a group including publicly funded agencies, the media, local government, and climate activists.

At its essence, it is ideological, anti-science, political, and self-serving.

A dark and cloudy Seattle skyline during rain, featuring the Space Needle prominently in the foreground.

From The Cliff Mass Weather Blog

By CliffMass

Northwest drought is being exaggerated by a group including publicly funded agencies, the media, local government, and climate activists.   

At its essence, it is ideological, anti-science, political, and self-serving.

This blog will go into the problem in greater depth than my analysis of last week.

The center of what might be called the Drought Exaggeration Industry is the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is associated with the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  

The most viewed product of this National Drought Center is the Drought Monitor graphic, the national view of which is shown below.

U.S. Drought Monitor map released on December 24, 2025, showing drought conditions across the continental United States, including state-specific designations of drought severity.

To see how nonsensical and anti-science this effort is, consider the latest drought map for Washington State (released yesterday, and shown below).    

Most of Washington State is “abnormally dry” or in drought, with severe or extreme drought over the eastern slopes of the Cascades and the far portion of the state (see below).  

As shown below, this is total nonsense and inconsistent with hard data.  

Precipitation has been above normal, soils are moist, rivers are above normal levels, reservoirs are above normal, and snowpack is in decent shape.

Drought map of Washington State showing drought intensity levels including abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought, and no data, released on December 24, 2025.

But this wacky website does not end there.  It claims that 2.4 million Washington residents are in drought:

Text graphic stating '2.4 Million Washington residents in areas of drought, according to the Drought Monitor' with a dark blue background.

It states that 1,778,920 King County residents, many of whom are dealing with flooded roads, failing levees, and sodden fields, are affected by drought.

Text graphic stating that 1,778,930 people in King County are affected by drought, with a dark blue background and contrasting yellow and white texts.

But the national drought meisters don’t stop there!   They inform us that in KING COUNTY, 3266 cattle and 755 sheep are in drought.   And that thousands of acres of King County hay are in drought.

A graphic displaying drought statistics in King County, including estimated acres of hay and haylage in drought, along with the number of cattle and sheep affected.

Perhaps the national drought folks should speak to one of our local cows, many of which have been moved to escape flooding (see below)

A brown and white cow standing in shallow water in a flooded field, with trees and a cloudy sky in the background.

It is easy to prove that the drought claims for Washington State are entirely baseless.

For the past 90 days, precipitation over Washington has been near normal (light green or yellow) or above normal (blue and purple).

Map showing precipitation departure from average in Washington State from September 25 to December 23, 2025, with varying color indications for levels of precipitation.

Soil moisture is above normal over much of the state and MUCH above normal over the eastern Cascades slopes, where the drought monitor graphic has moderate to severe drought.  Go figure.

Map showing precipitation levels in Washington State over the past 90 days, with varying shades indicating normal to above normal levels.
Color gradient scale representing drought conditions from extreme drought (red) to wet conditions (dark green).

Our rivers are mostly running above normal levels, some at near record levels (black dots, particularly east of the Cascades):

Map showing streamgage locations and water conditions across Washington State, with color-coded indicators for different flow percentiles.

Reservoirs are way above normal.   The critical Yakima storage system….the fixation of the drought folks for a long time…. is not only above normal, but at levels commonly found at the end of winter.

Line graph depicting reservoir storage over time in acre-feet, comparing the current year (blue line), previous year (green dashed line), and average (red dotted line).

Seattle’s reservoirs are way above normal (see below) as are most of the others in the region.

Graph showing combined reservoir storage levels in billions of gallons over the course of water year 2025 and 2026, compared to the average from water years 1990 to 2019, indicating current and historical storage conditions.

What about snowpack, another fixation of the drought folks?   Good news, there has been lots of recent snow in the mountains, and most ski areas are open for Christmas. 

 Below are the latest numbers, which show a stunning recovery from a few weeks ago.  The snowpack feeding the Columbia River is now ABOVE NORMAL, and the snowpack for most of the western Cascades is 75% of normal.  More snow is expected during the next few days.

Map showing snow water equivalent percentages across Washington State with various color-coded regions indicating levels from below normal to above normal.

By any rational analysis, there is no drought going on.  

There will be plenty of water for all uses.  Furthermore, this is a La Niña year, which is usually good for water resources.

The unsupportable and unscientific drought talk is very destructive and counterproductive.   

It induces fear and worry in the population, particularly the most psychologically vulnerable.  It results in poor decision-making.    

Who are some folks doing this?   

Some are doing it to promote their politics and ideology.  Others to push a climate change agenda, which they either believe in or profit from.  Media, such as the Seattle Times Climate Lab, do so for clicks and financial support from activist groups.  YouTube and social media channels do it for clicks and advertising revenue.

But whatever their reasons, I hope that the current administration takes a deep look at this drought-pushing enterprise and reforms the government-supported side of the advocacy campaign.  

Wishing all of you a good holiday.

A woman with brown hair is running through a forest, looking scared, as a large wolf-like creature chases her. The background features tall evergreen trees.
Crying wolf is a bad idea

Doubling Down on the Worst Possible Public Policy (“Affordable Housing” In Manhattan)

You may think it would be impossible to come up with any public policy that is worse than that one of a forced energy system transformation. And yet, the Manhattan Contrarian designee for “worst possible public policy” has gone to something else. That something else is the building of what they call “affordable housing” on some of the world’s most expensive real estate here in Manhattan.

Rendering of the proposed Hudson Mosaic affordable housing development at 388 Hudson Street in Manhattan, featuring green spaces, modern architecture, and busy pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

From The Manhattan Contrarian

By Francis Menton

I often write about the folly of attempting, through a myriad of government mandates and subsidies, to compel the replacement of our electricity system with one powered by the wind and sun. You may think it would be impossible to come up with any public policy that is worse than that one of a forced energy system transformation. And yet, the Manhattan Contrarian designee for “worst possible public policy” has gone to something else. That something else is the building of what they call “affordable housing” on some of the world’s most expensive real estate here in Manhattan.

The term “affordable housing” as used by housing advocates is a euphemistic term of art that means something different from what you would think. What it really means is subsidized and income restricted.

The policies of forced energy transition and of building “affordable housing” in Manhattan share some notable characteristics. One is that a few simple observations are sufficient to demonstrate that the policy wastes vasts amounts of taxpayer resources while accomplishing essentially nothing and indeed being destructive. Another is that there is near total consensus among the Manhattan cognoscenti that the policy is a not only good idea but indeed a moral imperative.

If you want to read about the disaster of a government-forced energy transition to generation of power from wind and sun, I can refer you to some hundreds of my prior posts, for example here, here and here. For today, I will discuss the ongoing disaster of pretending to build “affordable housing” in Manhattan.

The occasion for today’s post is the recent announcement of a major new all-”affordable” development to be built in my own neighborhood of Greenwich Village. The address is 388 Hudson Street, where there is currently a large vacant lot of approximately half the block, about 2/3 of an acre in total. This could well be the most valuable vacant site in Manhattan today on a per square foot basis. The proposal is to use about half the site to put up a new building with some 280 apartments, which will be allocated to people of low to middle-income by means of a lottery. The remainder of the site will then become “public open space.” Once selected for an apartment, the beneficiaries will get the right to continue to live in the apartments for the rest of their lives, and even on death to pass the right to occupy the apartments to their heirs under limited circumstances. However, they will have no ability to sell the right to occupy, and if they leave voluntarily they give up all future rights to occupy.

So why has the building of “affordable” housing in Manhattan been designated by this site as “the worst possible public policy”? There are too many reasons to cover fully here, but the main ones are (1) enormous cost per beneficiary if the costs are properly accounted for, (2) many of the beneficiaries are not even poor, (3) the benefit is not counted as income to the beneficiary, and thus the “poor” beneficiaries remain poor even though they get a benefit that could be costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars per year each, (4) the beneficiaries become essentially trapped, with a tremendous incentive not to move even if their life circumstances change such that their apartment is no longer appropriate to their circumstances, and (5) the properties inevitably deteriorate and require increasing subsidies and bailouts as the years pass.

The new project is being given the name “Hudson Mosaic.” On December 18, the City announced the “award” of the project to a group of designated developers. On December 22, a piece about the project, along with newly released renderings, appeared on the website New York YIMBY. Here is one of the renderings:

A rendered image of the 'Hudson Mosaic' building in Manhattan showing a tall, modern red brick structure with numerous windows and a landscaped base, surrounded by other buildings and greenery.

Some history of this area: The site is about 400 feet from the location of a colonial-era mansion that was known as Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill was used as, among other things: (1) one of the buildings that George Washington occupied as a headquarters during his 1776 battles and retreats across Manhattan as the British took over the City; (2) the Vice Presidential residence of Vice President John Adams when the federal government was first established in 1789 and until the capital moved to Philadelphia in late 1790; and (3) as a home of Aaron Burr, including at the time he shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804. Richmond Hill overlooked the Hudson River, but subsequent landfills have moved the waterfront close to 1000 feet to the West. By the mid-twentieth century, this micro-neighborhood had become known as the “printing house” district, mainly occupied by industrial loft buildings that were the home of the financial printers that produced the hard-copy prospectuses and annual reports that Wall Street then required. Those loft buildings today are a combination of offices and residences. Google has recently established a campus of multiple of these buildings just across the street from the site of Hudson Mosaic. The industrial loft building visible on the left side of the rendering above is used today as an office building, one of the tenants being the headquarters of the Squarespace company that is the host of this website. Disney has just built two new headquarters-type buildings a few blocks to the South.

The particular site at 388 Hudson Street was purchased by the City and vacated decades ago to be used for staging of construction of a new water tunnel to augment the City’s supply of drinking water. That endless project is still ongoing (projected to be complete some time in the 2030s), but construction in this area wrapped up in 2013. The City could have sold off this site for big money — multiple hundreds of millions of dollars — but instead chose to keep it vacant until now.

Rather than selling the vacant site to the highest bidder, the City is following a procedure they call “Request for Proposals.” In this procedure the City indicates that it will essentially give the land away to whoever makes the best proposal for the favored use, here “affordable” housing. The consequence is enormous cost to the taxpayers, all of which is opaque. As far as I can tell, the developers are getting the land for free, versus an auction price that the City could have achieved in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars. There is also some sort of City-subsidized financing, although I am unable to find details. The City will also make a grant of tens of millions of dollars to the project, mostly to build a new public athletic facility on the lower floors (but undoubtedly also useful to reduce construction costs for the developer). There will also be a ten year abatement from real estate taxes, with taxes then phasing in gradually thereafter.

Other than the grant for the athletic facility, none of this will appear on the City’s budget. But how much will be the real subsidy to the lucky lottery winners? It could easily be a million dollars or more each. (If the foregone sales price for the land is $300 million, and lost real estate taxes over 20 years are $120 million — which are reasonable if rough estimates — then the subsidy would be in the range of $1.5 million per beneficiary family.). To get an idea how crazy this is, the City could have given $500,000 each to 280 lucky lottery winners — plenty to buy a house outright in a nice middle class area — and have $300 million to spare for other City priorities. If the other priority were “affordable housing,” they could have tripled the number of beneficiaries by auctioning this site and using the money in more modestly priced areas.

Meanwhile, as this new “affordable” project moves forward — along with dozens of others around the City, in areas of all income levels — how are things going with the existing stock of such housing? The answer is, badly. The tightening of rent regulations that took place in 2019, combined with the high inflation of the Biden years, have put much of New York’s rent regulated/income restricted housing into financial distress. In November something called the New York Housing Conference produced a Report titled “Policy Reforms Required to Avoid Defaults in Distressed Affordable Housing.” The Report states that a large percentage of the existing so-called “affordable” (i.e., subsidized and income restricted) developments in the City are in financial distress, failing to cover their costs and debt service. Essentially, the Report then becomes a plea for increased City subsidies to keep the projects from either going broke or deteriorating badly or both:

Recent data shows that a significant number of affordable housing buildings in New York City are experiencing operating deficits, where rents are not covering expenses. Policy interventions to increase revenue and decrease expenses are required to prevent these buildings from defaulting on their loans with private banks and the City of New York. When operating costs and debt service exceeds rental income, building owners don’t have the necessary funds to make repairs but even more consequential is that financial instability threatens the financing making these buildings affordable, putting their tenants at risk.

“Policy interventions” are “required.” In other words, give us more money! But there is never enough money. And yet we continue to double down.

Remarkably, new Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his team will shortly come into office promising to raise taxes on the “rich.” But here are the rich volunteering to pay big money into the City’s coffers without need for additional taxes, but just to buy land to build on, and then pay the property taxes at existing levels. Somehow this form of taking money from the rich doesn’t seem morally acceptable to them. I don’t understand the logic, but maybe they do.

‘A New Energy Blog’ (birth of MasterResource)

On December 26, 2008, Robert L. Bradley Jr. launched the free-market energy blog, MasterResource. This inaugural post is reproduced verbatim.

Header of the MasterResource blog featuring the logo and a city skyline at night.

From The Master Resource

By Roger Donway 

Editor Note: On December 26, 2008, Robert L. Bradley Jr. launched the free-market energy blog, MasterResource. This inaugural post is reproduced verbatim.

“… our blog name is inspired by the late Julian Simon (1932–1998). He labeled energy the master resource because it is the resource needed to bring other resources from a state of nature to one of human usefulness. Simon also used the term the ultimate resource to describe human ingenuity.”

We are just getting started here, but some of us veterans of the energy debate from a private property, free-market perspective have teamed together to offer our thoughts on late breaking energy items. When I read my newspapers each day, I have some thoughts that I wish I could share with folks from a historical, worldview perspective. I think we all have something to add–and thus the inspiration for this endeavor.

We have a good core group of principal (and principled) bloggers, as well as a growing list of guest bloggers. We aim to post new material most every day. What we have to provide to the reader is frequent insight so that you visit us regularly.

There will be some trial and error, but this is the time to launch. President-elect Obama and his team have little concept of history in the energy debate–what W.S. Jevons said about renewable energies in the 1860s or the perils of U.S. energy regulation learned from wartime planning and the 1970s. Some of us will dwell on this to add some unique perspective to the debate.

By the way, our blog name is inspired by the late Julian Simon (1932–1998). He labeled energy “the master resource” because it is the resource needed to bring other resources from a state of nature to one of human usefulness. Simon also used the term “the ultimate resource” to describe human ingenuity. As the institutional economist Erich Zimmermann once said, resources come from the mind, not the ground.

Finally, I do hope mainstream journalists and many other open-minded individuals will come our way in the great energy and climate debates. The Obama march to energy statism needs a lot of debate. Big Government Democrats are not the cure to Big Government Republicanism. Oil, natural gas, and coal are middle-class, working-class energies. Wind and solar are for the rich. Windpower, in particular, as my friend Robert Bryce has put it, is the ethanol of electricity. Maybe, just maybe, these parasitic, inefficient energies will get the scrutiny they deserve from all sides of the political spectrum.

Winter weather and electricity in Europe

Hardly any reader will remember the winter of 1962/63. It was the coldest of the 20th century.

A snowy landscape with strong wind creating snow drifts, featuring an old blue car and three people near it, with trees lining the road and houses in the background.

From The Klima Nachrichten

By Frank Bosse

Hardly any reader will remember the winter of 1962/63. It was the coldest of the 20th century.

For something like this to happen, a “blocking weather situation” is required, blocking the Atlantic weather with its low-pressure areas moving eastwards quite quickly.
The comparatively mild and windy “weather broth” ensures lower energy requirements and a lot of generation from wind turbines at “Atlantik on”. This is completely different with blocking. The air masses then come from eastern and northern directions, because there is a high-pressure area on the Atlantic, there in the Iceland-Greenland area, where otherwise a low-pressure area determines the current with the Atlantic “switched on”.

Such weather conditions can have quite drastic consequences in winter, even if the temperatures themselves can no longer take on the minus values as they did at the beginning of the 60s of the 20th century. In the end, the winter of 1962/63 was 5.7 °C colder than the 1961-1990 average and even 6.9 °C colder than the more recent 1991-2020 average. So, this is very difficult to imagine today, because climate change has caused significant warming, especially in Eastern Europe and the north.
Nevertheless, the weather situation with blocking poses a challenge for infrastructure and energy supply in the age of weather-dependent generation with wind and solar plants.
Especially for Germany, since in this country a backup without the use of nuclear power has to be processed. So, what impact would a winter like that have on the energy supply?

This question is explored in a recent study from August 2025. First, she looks at the pressure distribution, the temperatures and the winds at that time:

Map showing Z500 composite anomalies in Europe for winter (DJF) with temperature and wind anomalies depicted.
A reproduction of Figure 17 of the linked study

It is not difficult to see (above in the picture) the blocking high over the North Atlantic and low air pressure over Central Europe. What about today, at Christmas 2025, with the (model) prospects for the beginning of January, since the “coldest feast ? This is quite wild speculation in “normal winter conditions”, but less so in blocking locations, as they tend to maintain the patterns to a great extent, i.e. they can last quite stably if they have arrived in this way.
At “Kachelmannwetter” we find what we are looking for under “Forecast”, the modern AI-supported model of the ECMWF is used. On January 6, 2026, it will find this solution for pressure distribution:

Forecast map showing geopotential height at 500 hPa over Europe for January 6, 2026, with color gradients indicating pressure distribution.

Do you see the similarity with the situation in 1962/63? In the northwest the strong blocking high, over Europe low air pressure. What does that do to the temperatures and wind in the current model?

A weather forecast map of Europe showing temperature variations in shades of blue and yellow, with arrows indicating wind patterns. The left side represents colder regions, while the right side indicates warmer areas.
Image sources: Kachelmannwetter

The temperatures (left) are quite crisp in the permafrost range, the wind (right) is probably only very weak with an average of around 20 km/h over the mainland and thus clearly below normal in almost all of Europe.

We will probably see quite a severe winter in the first half of January, weather models cannot look much further into the future, and everything is also very uncertain for the time shown. It may not be unlike 1962/1963; the different models agree quite well on that. And the problem: Something like this can be very persistent or “persistent”.

The sky will also be quite overcast, and a lot of snow is expected in the lowlands. As a result, production from wind and solar plants will only be able to be very low. A European interconnected grid then shows a dark side: If there is nowhere to compensate for, then regions can also carry each other along via electricity distribution in the event of a shortage.

The study linked above examines the effects of the rare winter weather and also lists the shortfalls:

Map showing normalized demand composite across Europe, highlighting varying energy demand levels.
A reproduction of Fig. 19 of the study linked above.

The energy requirements are shown in the upper left, Germany probably needs a factor of 1.5-2 more than under normal weather conditions and can only produce about 1/3 of that with wind power (shown above right). So high demand meets lower production. The shortfall will then be five times the standard deviation (i.e. the normal fluctuations) in Germany, and seven times in Denmark. The “red” (below) speaks volumes!

Again such weather as in the winter of 1962/63 would be a huge challenge under today’s infrastructure conditions, whether it could be mastered remains open, it is only to be hoped. The probability that this will happen in January 2026 is not negligible, according to the “smartest” weather models that humans have created so far.

An energy system with very few and, if very dirty, redundancy systems, which works especially in good weather, answers “dark red” in rare but not impossible situations like no other country in Europe for which there is valid data, except Denmark.

An alleged role model in the “energy transition”.
Also a “scoop of ice cream problem”, created by political summer fantasists!

The Year of the Octopus

Octopus vulgaris, commonly known as the common octopus, is a highly intelligent marine cephalopod found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide.

A close-up of a common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) swimming underwater, showcasing its flowing tentacles and vibrant color against a blue background.

Octopus vulgaris, commonly known as the common octopus, is a highly intelligent marine cephalopod found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

'Year of octopus' declared after warmer seas lead to record UK numbers, featuring a pair of octopuses swimming underwater.

A wildlife charity has declared 2025 “the Year of the Blooming Octopus” after record numbers were spotted off the south-west coast of England.

In its annual marine review the Wildlife Trusts says octopus numbers were this summer at their highest level since 1950.

Warmer winters, which are linked to climate change, are thought to be responsible for the population spike, which is known as a “bloom”.

The charity’s findings are backed up by official figures which show that more than 1,200 tonnes of octopus was caught by fishermen in UK waters in the summer of 2025.

It’s a dramatic increase on previous years. Only once since 2021 has more than 200 tonnes of octopus been landed.

Experts say most of those spotted are Octopus vulgaris a species commonly seen in the warmer Mediterranean Sea. Wildlife Trusts volunteers in Cornwall and Devon reported an increase in sightings of more than 1,500 percent on 2023 figures along one stretch of the south coast.

“It really has been exceptional,” says Matt Slater from the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. “We’ve seen octopuses jet-propelling themselves along. We’ve seen octopuses camouflaging themselves, they look just like seaweeds.

“We’ve seen them cleaning themselves. And we’ve even seen them walking, using two legs just to nonchalantly cruise away from the diver underwater.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c709gz3k9k9o

Of course, it is all down to climate change! But if numbers are the highest since 1950, what happened back then?

Geo TV reported in August:

Bryce Stewart, a University of Plymouth marine scientist leading the probe, noted past blooms in Britain — in 1950, the 1930s and 1899 — were all preceded by similarly “ideal” warmer-than-usual waters.

However, Stewart suspects octopuses are now breeding in local waters — an unprecedented situation that could also explain their sudden disappearance.

Both male and female Atlantic longarm octopus — which typically only live about 18 months — tend to die not long after breeding.

“They eat everything, they’re ferocious, and they start to breed. It’s like the ultimate live fast, die young life cycle,” he explained.

He said he is constantly asked if the octopuses are here to stay. His answer? “Probably.”

https://www.geo.tv/latest/620734-tentacles-rule-as-octopus-invasion-leaves-uk-shellfish-trade-in-perfect-storm

Warmer waters in the 1930s? What could have caused that?

In fact, Olly the Octopus never went away!

Far from walking along the bottom of the sea all the way from Spain, octopus rarely travel more than a hundred yards or so.

The blooms are due to higher survival rates for eggs and larvae in milder winters. As Bryce Stewart points out, the adults die soon after breeding, a natural way of keeping population under control.

Tucked away at the bottom of the BBC article is this little gem:

Text discussing wildlife conservation efforts and record numbers of puffins in Pembrokeshire.

Puffins have, of course, been thriving for years on those little islands off the Pembrokeshire coast, in stark contrast to the prognostications of the doom and gloom lobby.

Puffins, like most of the life on earth, thrive on warmer weather. The reason why they have been in decline in the North Sea is the industrial fishing of sand eels there. In contrast, there is ample supply of their favourite food around Skomer.

The PJM capacity auction sent a message the Washington Left can’t spin away

The latest PJM capacity auction cleared at the maximum allowed price—$333 per megawatt-day—and still came up short. Even at the price cap, the market could not buy enough power to meet PJM’s own reliability standard.

Silhouettes of two workers in hard hats observing high voltage power lines against a sunset sky.
Silhouette workers construction. ai generative.

From CFACT

By Terry L. Headley

The latest PJM capacity auction cleared at the maximum allowed price—$333 per megawatt-day—and still came up short. Even at the price cap, the market could not buy enough power to meet PJM’s own reliability standard.

Capacity auctions exist for one reason: to make sure the lights stay on when the system is under real stress. Not on a mild spring afternoon. On the worst day of the year—when demand peaks, equipment is strained, and weather is working against you. This auction tested that standard and found the system wanting.

This did not happen overnight. Electric demand has been climbing for years. Data centers multiplied. Electrification mandates piled new load onto the grid. Population shifts changed where and when power is used. Utilities, regulators, and planners saw it coming. The forecasts were published. The warnings were filed. No one was caught by surprise.

Supply, meanwhile, lagged badly.

New dispatchable power plants take years to permit, finance, and build. Those timelines grew longer, not shorter. Projects bogged down in regulatory reviews. Lawsuits became routine. Interconnection queues stretched out for years. At the same time, existing power plants—coal, gas, nuclear—were pushed into early retirement. The math stopped working.

Capacity markets do not reward good intentions. They pay for performance when things go wrong. Power that runs when the grid is under stress earns full value. Power that depends on weather does not, because weather does not take orders. Batteries help, but only for so long. New plants cannot appear on command.

For decades, coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants carried the system. They ran day and night. They showed up during heat waves and cold snaps. They kept reserve margins healthy and prices stable. Policy choices accelerated their exit before replacements were ready.

The auction simply counted what was left.

By the time bidding hit the price cap, PJM still had not secured enough dependable capacity. That is not a market failure. That is a supply failure. You cannot buy power plants that no longer exist, no matter how high the bid.

The cap did what it was designed to do—it limited how much customers would be charged. It did not create megawatts out of thin air. Raising the cap would have raised prices without fixing the shortage. The damage was done years earlier.

Now the bill comes due.

Capacity costs from this auction will be baked into electric rates for years. Households will see higher monthly bills regardless of fuel prices or weather. Businesses will face higher fixed costs that squeeze margins and weaken competitiveness. Manufacturers will factor those costs into decisions about where to invest—or whether to invest at all. This is the real-world cost of pretending supply does not matter.

Political rhetoric about protecting working families collapses when electricity becomes scarcer and more expensive. Power prices respond to physics and infrastructure, not slogans. Shrinking reserve margins and fewer dependable plants mean higher costs. Ratepayers pay them every time.

For years, planners assumed new capacity would show up somehow, even as rules made building it harder. Retirements accelerated. Replacements stalled. Hope replaced hard planning. This auction priced that gamble.

PJM followed its rules. The market worked as designed. It revealed the condition of the system policymakers handed to it. Demand is still growing. Data centers are still being built. Electrification policies are still adding load. Peak demand forecasts are still rising.

Supply constraints remain. Permits still take years. Interconnection queues are still backed up. Financing remains uncertain. More retirements are already scheduled. There is no near-term surge of dependable capacity waiting in the wings. Under those conditions, higher capacity prices are not a surprise. They are inevitable.

Reliability is built, not declared. Power plants and transmission lines take time. Skilled workers and fuel supply chains matter. Decisions made today show up in auctions years later. Reserve margins are the system’s shock absorber—and they are thinning.

This auction measured the result.

Unless policy changes to allow dependable power to be built and kept online, the pattern will continue. Capacity will tighten. Prices will rise. Customers will pay.

The auction sent a message in megawatts and dollars. The Washington left may try to spin it, but the grid will not.

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

Claim: Some Men Downplay Climate Concerns Because of Gender Insecurity

According to the study, some men are frightened of appearing weak and feminine if they admit they are worried about climate change.

An artistic representation of a horned figure with a muscular build, set against a dark red background featuring abstract geometric patterns and symbols.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by  Eric Worrall

According to the study, some men are frightened of appearing weak and feminine if they admit they are worried about climate change.

Some men may downplay climate change risks to avoid appearing feminine

by Eric W. Dolan
December 25, 2025
in Climate

New research provides evidence that men who are concerned about maintaining a traditional masculine image may be less likely to express concern about climate change. The findings suggest that acknowledging environmental problems is psychologically linked to traits such as warmth and compassion. These traits are stereotypically associated with femininity in many cultures. Consequently, men who feel pressure to prove their manhood may avoid environmentalist attitudes to protect their gender identity. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

Scientific consensus indicates that climate change is occurring and poses significant risks to global stability. Despite this evidence, public opinion remains divided. Surveys consistently reveal a gender gap regarding environmental attitudes. Men typically express less concern about climate change than women do. Michael P. Haselhuhn, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, sought to understand the psychological drivers behind this disparity.

…

Precarious manhood theory posits that manhood is viewed socially as a status that is difficult to earn and easy to lose. Unlike womanhood, which is often treated as a biological inevitability, manhood must be proven through action. This psychological framework suggests that men experience anxiety about failing to meet societal standards of masculinity. They must constant reinforce their status and avoid behaviors that appear feminine.

…

Haselhuhn found a negative relationship between masculinity concerns and climate engagement. Men who placed a high importance on being a man were less likely to believe that climate change is caused by human activity. They also reported feeling less personal responsibility to reduce climate change. Furthermore, these men expressed lower levels of worry about the issue.

…

The study has some limitations. It relied on self-reported attitudes rather than observable behaviors. It is possible that the pressure to conform to masculine norms would be even higher in public settings where men are watched by peers. Men might be willing to express concern in an anonymous survey but reject those views in a group setting to maintain status.

…Read more: https://www.psypost.org/some-men-may-downplay-climate-change-risks-to-avoid-appearing-feminine/

The abstract of the study;

Man enough to save the planet? Masculinity concerns predict attitudes toward climate change

Michael P. Haselhuhn

Highlights

  • •Concerns about maintaining manhood predict less worry about climate change in men.
  • •Those who are concerned about the climate are perceived as warm and caring.
  • •Masculinity concerns interact with warmth perceptions to predict men’s attitudes.

Abstract

Despite scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, many individuals deny that the climate is changing. Although past work has examined gender differences in climate change attitudes, less is known about how within-gender individual differences may affect climate change concern. In this paper, I study how masculinity concerns relate to climate change attitudes in men. I assert that expressing concern about climate change is associated with traditionally feminine characteristics of warmth, caring and compassion and predict that, because of this relationship, men who are more concerned about maintaining their sense of masculinity will express less concern about climate change. Across four studies, I find support for my predictions.Read more (paywalled): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494425002555

Sadly, the study is paywalled, but this entire hypothesis appears to be based on the assumption that concern about climate change is rational, and that rejecting climate alarmism requires a psychological explanation.

In my opinion the study author found what he expected to find. He expected to find a source of psychological distress which led people to embrace irrational climate skepticism. An apparent correlation between sexual insecurity and climate skepticism appeared to fit the preconceived need for an explanation for irrational behaviour.

But what if the irrational behaviour is to believe the climate alarmists? For just under 40 years we’ve been repeatedly promised imminent climate catastrophe. Why is it irrational to conclude after 40 years of fake doomsday predictions, maybe the climate crisis is fake?

From 2019:

30 Year Anniversary of the UN 1989 “10 years to save the world” Climate Warning

The question then is, why do women appear more likely to believe irrational climate warnings?

Before anyone suggests the problem is women are irrational, there is a much simpler explanation.

Women in Western culture are far less likely to have a science / engineering background. Knowledge of science provides the mental toolkit to challenge wild climate claims. Having the skill to analyse and question climate claims does not automatically make someone a climate skeptic, but it provides more a path for someone to become a climate skeptics.

It is completely understandable if men or women who lack scientific knowledge defer to authority figures instead of forming their own conclusions.

How many of the sampled “insecure” men had a STEM background? Did the study author even bother to check?

Scientific Literacy Leads to More Politically Polarized Opinions on Climate Change

From what I have seen this male bias towards STEM is purely a Western phenomenon. When I visited an IT shop in Taipei, over half the programmers were women. Somehow we are failing our women, steering girls away from STEM at an early age.

An easy test for this STEM knowledge can lead to climate skepticism theory would be to determine whether the climate skeptic gender gap was as prevalent in Eastern cultures as it is in Western cultures. At the very least STEM knowledge should be tested and considered as a factor. But author Michael Haselhuhn has a convenient inference which in his mind demonstrates that climate skeptics cling to skepticism to help cover their gender insecurity. I’m not holding my breath waiting for follow up studies which might undermine such a flawed claim.

Wasted Wind Power Costs Britain Almost £1.5 Billion in 2025

Nearly £1.5 billion worth of wind power has gone to waste in Britain this year, as grid bottlenecks dog Ed Miliband’s Net Zero plans and drive household bills higher.

A portrait of a man with wind turbines in the background, showcasing renewable energy in Britain.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Richard Eldred

A row of Union Jack flags in the foreground with offshore wind turbines visible in the background, set against a cloudy sky.

Nearly £1.5 billion worth of wind power has gone to waste in Britain this year, as grid bottlenecks dog Ed Miliband’s Net Zero plans and drive household bills higher. The Telegraph has the story.

The cost of switching off wind turbines and firing up alternative power sources in 2025 has jumped by nearly a fifth compared to last year, new data shows.

Households and businesses ultimately bear these costs through their bills.

It is a fresh blow to Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, who has pledged to cut household energy bills by £300 a year this decade.

So-called curtailment occurs when the grid is congested and cannot transport power from wind farms in remote areas, often in Scotland, to where it is needed most in other parts of the country.

Bar chart illustrating the combined cost of switching off wind turbines and using alternative power sources in Great Britain for the years 2024 and 2025, with monthly cost comparisons displayed.

At the same time, grid operators must call on gas plants to step in and keep the lights on with replacement power, often at great expense.

Regulator Ofgem warned earlier this year that curtailment had added around £15 to household bills under its October price cap.

With only days to go before the end of December, the combined total of this spending now stands at £1.46 billion this year – up from £1.23 billion in 2024, data from the Wasted Wind tracker website show. …

The cost of wasted wind power is expected to climb further in the coming years as Mr Miliband pushes for further wind and solar generation to be connected to the grid to meet Labour’s ambitious Net Zero targets.

By 2030, ministers have pledged to source at least 95% of Britain’s electricity from clean sources.

As part of the rollout, the Government is also scrambling to upgrade the electricity grid’s capacity. Still, key projects are currently on course to be delivered later than needed, raising the prospect of billions of pounds in additional curtailment costs.

Worth reading in full.