Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
If liberal politicians maintain control of the governorship and expand their numbers in the Wisconsin state legislature this fall, green energy outfits will gain a monopoly.
In an interview with Restoration News, Olson warns these same utilities could win their fight to pass legislation known as “Right of First Refusal” (ROFR) that would cancel any meaningful competition and dilute the ability of local government agencies to oppose projects their citizens view as harmful.
Using “Right of First Refusal” to legally impose a climate monopoly.
If liberal politicians maintain control of the governorship and expand their numbers in the Wisconsin state legislature this fall, green energy outfits will gain a monopoly.
The big utilities backing wind and solar projects already have vast financial resources and considerable influence over members of both parties in the statehouse. So says Annette Olson, the CEO of the MacIver Institute, a free market think tank in Wisconsin.
In an interview with Restoration News, Olson warns these same utilities could win their fight to pass legislation known as “Right of First Refusal” (ROFR) that would cancel any meaningful competition and dilute the ability of local government agencies to oppose projects their citizens view as harmful.
What Would This Sweetheart Deal Mean for Utilities?
A Right of First Refusal law would award incumbent utility companies a project without having to go through the competitive bidding process. This would give them a monopoly over new 345 kV transmission lines. That means any company not already providing transmission services in the state would be blocked from competing for construction of the proposed new regional transmission lines.
Transmission lines are critical for wind turbines because they carry electricity over long distances from rural wind farms to population centers. Engineers design them to prevent energy loss over long distances and mitigate against grid congestion. ROFR legislation sets 345kv as the standard because that’s required to move large amounts of electricity over long distances quickly.
Because they are part of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) electrical grid, Wisconsin utilities will sometimes import or export electricity from or to other MISO members. Those could be as close as Illinois, or as far as Louisiana. If a utility has a generating shortfall of even one percent, only very high voltage transmission lines can deliver enough electricity quickly to fill that gap.
“The big utilities want a monopoly, and they don’t want any competition,” Olson said. “They have actually written a letter to the Trump administration and asked for them to intercede and stop the competition that is being allowed here in Wisconsin.”
“The utilities also have deep pockets,” she added, “so they are able to get a lot of lobbyists in the capitol building to discuss energy policy.”
This Legislative Fight Could Affect Election Day
Looking ahead to the midterm elections, Olson told Restoration News she would like to see candidates discuss the importance of farmland preservation and the need to eliminate government subsidies for renewables.
“We know from experience solar and wind are not reliable,” Olson said. “The price escalates with solar and wind farms. We are very concerned about the number of government subsidies. If they were profitable, they would not need government subsidies. The solar panels and wind turbines that sit on these great big tall posts, well they are eyesores. A lot of these [projects] in past have had no reclamations agreements made. So, if a solar panel is near the end of its lifetime, or gets hit with hail, who is responsible for the land and who is going to restore and reclaim it?”
New Report Critiques High Costs of Solar Project
The MacIver Institute has just released a report on a proposed solar energy farm that further highlights the importance of local autonomy. For the past year, Xcel Energy negotiated with St. Croix County to install a 300 MW facility known as the “Ten Mile Project.”
“This has been very contentious,” Olson said. “The citizens formed a small group when they became aware the solar project was happening and they really have been active in making sure the citizens attend the meetings of their local units of government.”
Xcel has been attempting to purchase what Olson said are “thousands and thousands of acres” to install solar panels. But after reaching an impasse with the county, Xcel is taking the position that it does not need county approval. Instead, Xcel is now working to get the project approved through the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin. The MacIver report goes into detail about how much the solar project will cost St. Croix residents if Xcel prevails. The report said these costs are especially high when solar is compared with natural gas plants as an alternative.
MacIver takes the position that communities are right to object to solar because it is not an effective and sufficient source of energy to satisfy Wisconsin’s needs. The state’s solar capacity factor amounts to just 18.3 percent. Only 11 states have lower solar capacity than Wisconsin, according to the report.
Xcel’s current proposal calls for constructing 300 MW of solar panels with 300 MW of battery backup storage. Proponents of the project say Wisconsin needs it to replace the 598 MW of capacity of the Allen King coal plant across the river in Washington county, Minnesota, set to close by 2028.
The solar company has not filed an official application yet for the project, but it has submitted its engineering plan to the PSC. Concerned citizens can follow the PSC’s approval process for the solar project by referencing Docket 4220-CE-190. MacIver is not optimistic about what happens next.
“Unfortunately, the project is essentially guaranteed to be approved,” the report says. “As of right now, Wisconsin law encourages the development of renewable energy power plants which, although seemingly loved universally, always seem to provoke the ire of residents when they come to their town.”
Still Olson has faith in “power at the local level” and credits concerned citizens across the state for creating avenues for “honest discussions.” One group that has made headway, Farmland First, serves as a platform for residents opposed to wind and solar projects. Fred Schindler, a Clark County Supervisor, is one of the original members of the group, and is primarily concerned with the encroachment of wind power.
“We call it the big Wisconsin injustice,” Schindler said. “This is the 1250-foot setback.”
Setbacks refer to the minimum legal distance required between a wind turbine and property lines, public roads, and neighboring homes. The current setback rule, Schindler explained, was made in 2012 when turbines were 250 feet tall, but now they are anywhere from 600 hundred to 700 feet fall. This means the existing setback is hardly sufficient.
Elections Have Consequences
So, can local communities level the playing field against green energy companies bent on creating a monopoly? These projects are not clean and not green, but they are very expensive.
A new bill, State Senate Bill 3, would require wind and solar companies to get approval from local governments before a project could be brought before the PSC. The bill fell short in the last session. But it’s still an active proposal. Democrats oppose it, while Republicans would pass it if they had the majority.
It would seem the midterm elections are for all the marbles.
At least since New York passed its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) back in 2019, it has been clear that trouble has been coming for New York’s electrical grid.
Supposedly, lots of wind and solar generators were going to be added to the system.
At least since New York passed its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) back in 2019, it has been clear that trouble has been coming for New York’s electrical grid. The CLCPA effectively prohibits construction of new fossil fuel power plants, even natural gas plants; and the old ones are aging and are forbidden to be replaced or upgraded. Supposedly, lots of wind and solar generators were going to be added to the system. But those have been slow to come and, more importantly, can’t be counted on to generate anything when you need them. In addition, new construction of such things has now been stalled by the end of federal subsidies. At some point the lines of diminishing reliable generation and increasing demand would have to cross.
However, here at this website I have held off predicting imminent grid failure. The reason is that I don’t want to be the boy who cried wolf. Our grid operators are competent people, and they have a lot of tricks up their sleeves to hold things together even in difficult circumstances. In a pinch, they can start up every ancient “peaker” plant, and then import some power from PJM, or New England, or even from Canada. Despite New York’s hostile energy environment, they could get lucky and avoid blackouts for at least several more years.
So I think it is important to report that on this past July 2 and 3, Con Edison ran out of options and imposed rolling blackouts in parts of the North Bronx and Southern Westchester County.
You haven’t heard about this? It’s another example of the legacy media burying an inconvenient story. Checking to see what the New York Times has to say about these blackouts, I find just one sentence in the sixth paragraph of a July 3 article that is otherwise reporting on the heat wave that hit that weekend. The sentence in question reads, “The heat also put stress on power grids, contributing to scattered outages in New Jersey, New York and Ohio for tens of thousands of utility customers on Thursday, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.” The heat put “stress” on the grid, leading to “scattered outages.” That’s it. No mention in the Times that the blackouts on that day in New York were intentionally imposed, or that the ongoing degradation of grid reliability had anything to do with it.
I have been waiting to report on this until I could find a credible source attributing the blackouts to an intentional act by Con Edison versus, for example, a heat-related accident of some sort. On July 16, the Institute for Energy Research had a piece with the headline “New York City Cuts Power During July 4th Heat Wave.” Excerpt:
Con Edison shut off electricity to over 5,000 customers in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, leaving residents there without air conditioning. Affected residents were directed to city cooling centers for relief. Con Edison had decided the N.Y. grid could not handle the load, saying the shutoffs were necessary to reduce strain on the grid, protect equipment, and speed up restoration. The company also cut voltage by 8% in areas of the city as a precaution to protect equipment and keep service running while crews worked.
So it was not just blackouts for 5,000 customers, but also 8% voltage cuts in various “areas of the city.” IER does not specify the extent of the areas covered by the voltage cuts.
Nor were the blackouts limited to just the Bronx. My colleague Richard Ellenbogen lives in Southern Westchester County, in a town called Pelham. Pelham is just north of the Bronx, and also within Con Edison service territory. In a July 12 email that he sent to his distribution list, Ellenbogen described what happened in his area:
[Over the weekend of July 3-5], [t]here were numerous power surges associated with the rolling blackouts where the lights went on and off several times before going out. . . . Those surges destroyed a bunch of equipment in my home despite having surge suppressors on the equipment. . . . I missed the Friday evening [July 3] rolling blackout and I returned to a mess. There is thousands of dollars in damages related to the surges. Based upon the Facebook Page MOPS (Mothers of Pelham), my home was not the only one impacted as many people are complaining about electronic equipment not working after the blackouts, notably air conditioners. . . . My home is going to need about $3000 worth of new battery backups. . . .
I don’t find any reporting in the press about these blackouts in Westchester.
New York definitely experienced a severe heat wave in early July. The temperature at the Central Park weather station in New York City reached 100° F on July 2, and 98° F on July 3. These are unusually high temperatures that are not reached in most years. Indeed, the last time it reached 100° F at Central Park was in 2012. On the other hand, these temperatures were by no means records. The highest temperature ever recorded at the Central Park station (with data going back into the late 1800s) was 106° F in 1936. Here from recordtemps.in is a list of the highest temperatures ever recorded at the Central Park weather station:
In other words, we have had temperatures over 100° F many times in the past, and undoubtedly we will have them again. But with temperatures on July 2 and 3 that were well short of the records, the grid operators had to resort to imposing rolling blackouts and/or voltage reductions in various areas of the City and Westchester County. One can only imagine how much more extensive the outages would have been if the temperature had gone up another 6° F to match the 1936 record.
Without any ability to add reliable generation to it grid, New York faces more of same every time the heat gets into this range. There is nothing inevitable about this. It is entirely a consequence of intentional decisions made by politicians.
“Unprecedented surge in demand driven by the rapid expansion of large-load data centers and broader economy-wide electrification,” is noted by PJM as one of the the three drivers of grid strain, alongside “the accelerated retirement of dispatchable generation due to environmental policy and economics; and significant supply chain and permitting frictions that have extended the time required to bring new resources online.”
Data centers are the primary drivers of rising electricity consumption, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA expects electricity demand to grow by 1% in 2026 and 3% in 2023, potentially outpacing new energy supply.
“The result is a transition from an era of managing surplus to an era of managing scarcity,” the memo continues, highlighting long lead times on new energy developments. “Construction timelines have doubled,” the report continues. “Today, a new natural gas turbine plant – the reference technology for the capacity market – requires at least four years under optimistic assumptions from financial investment decision to commercial operation.”
Permitting requirements contribute considerably to long development times. The average environmental review takes over fouryears to complete, according to the Council on Environmental Quality.
PJM’s white paper highlights three paths toward keeping the grid solvent.
Path A aims to stabilize markets “through long-term forward commitments either through mandatory Load Serving Entity (LSE) hedging requirements or through a PJM-administered, long-term procurement, such as a tiered, multiyear capacity market.”
LSE is a catchall term for any authorized seller of electricity to its principal users.
Alternatively, PJM’s Path B institutes differential reliability.
“This could be implemented geographically (different states or zones procuring different levels of reliability) or by customer class (for example, with residential and native loads insulated from curtailment while unbacked new large load additions are curtailed first),” the memo notes.
Under the differential reliability model, data centers using preexisting supply would be subject to throttling during periods of high demand. Residential consumers who contributed to existing supply would be prioritized for output.
Path C aims to partially transition grid use to a supply-and-demand pricing model, while maintaining long-term contract optionality. PJM would “pursue a deliberate, phased shift of revenue recovery from the capacity market” combined with “long-term forward energy contracting requirements to protect consumers from increased energy price volatility and to support investment.”
“Constrained supply” is at the heart of PJM’s complaints. This shortage largely stems from the many regulatory reviews required to break ground on energy developments, according to the Consumer Energy Alliance.
The Trump administration has employed statutory actions to cut regulation and expedite permitting, notably overturning the Obama-era endangerment finding that allowed for federal regulation of carbon emissions.
These actions have not been made law by Congress. Though the House of Representatives passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act in December 2025 to modify the National Environmental Policy Act, the legislation is frozen in the Senate.
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According to a recent report from Reuters, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Trump administration has announced a redirection of $365 million in federal funds originally allocated for rooftop solar development in Puerto Rico. The funding, awarded during the Biden administration in late 2024, was intended for solar and battery storage projects not scheduled to begin construction until 2026. That money will now be used for immediate power infrastructure needs centered on fossil fuel-based generation.
According to a recent report from Reuters, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Trump administration has announced a redirection of $365 million in federal funds originally allocated for rooftop solar development in Puerto Rico. The funding, awarded during the Biden administration in late 2024, was intended for solar and battery storage projects not scheduled to begin construction until 2026. That money will now be used for immediate power infrastructure needs centered on fossil fuel-based generation.
Puerto Rico’s electrical grid has long struggled under the weight of systemic issues, including bankruptcy of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority in 2017, hurricane damage, and aging infrastructure. These vulnerabilities have manifested in frequent blackouts, including one last month that left 134,000 customers without power.
In response to ongoing electricity shortfalls, Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order directing the state-owned utility to utilize oil-fired plants to stabilize energy supply. These facilities, while reliant on fossil fuels, are able to provide consistent baseload power—something solar installations cannot offer without extensive and costly storage systems.
The DOE stated that the funding will now support measures that can be rapidly deployed, including:
Dispatching baseload generation units (primarily oil-fired),
Vegetation control to protect power lines,
Upgrading aging grid infrastructure.
The rationale presented by the department emphasized practical impact and scale. In its statement, the DOE noted the redirection:
“will expand access to reliable power for millions of people rather than thousands” and yield “a higher return on investment for taxpayers”
while strengthening the island’s grid resilience.
This action reverses a core initiative from the prior administration, which had allocated the funds for projects that would not deliver any tangible energy benefits for at least two years. These projects, focused on solar panel deployment, were not intended to address Puerto Rico’s pressing energy needs, but rather to support broader policy goals disconnected from current grid conditions.
The change in course indicates a pivot away from speculative energy planning toward established and operational power sources that can address deficiencies immediately. In a territory facing persistent outages and infrastructure decay, the prioritization of reliable baseload power over delayed solar initiatives suggests a reassessment of policy priorities in favor of operational necessity.
This case illustrates the tension between federal policy directives and ground-level energy realities. Puerto Rico’s infrastructure issues require immediate and scalable solutions, not long-term experiments. The DOE’s redirection of funds underscores a recognition that stable power generation remains a foundational requirement—especially in regions prone to natural disasters and systemic outages.
While energy policy continues to be a politically charged issue, the circumstances in Puerto Rico demonstrate that reliability and speed of deployment remain critical considerations—factors that speculative energy projects often fail to address.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (“NEA”), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (“NEA”), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. The energy and critical minerals (“energy”) identification, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs. We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation’s manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness. Caused by the harmful and shortsighted policies of the previous administration, our Nation’s inadequate energy supply and infrastructure causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed-incomes.
This active threat to the American people from high energy prices is exacerbated by our Nation’s diminished capacity to insulate itself from hostile foreign actors. Energy security is an increasingly crucial theater of global competition. In an effort to harm the American people, hostile state and non-state foreign actors have targeted our domestic energy infrastructure, weaponized our reliance on foreign energy, and abused their ability to cause dramatic swings within international commodity markets. An affordable and reliable domestic supply of energy is a fundamental requirement for the national and economic security of any nation.
The integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure —- from coast to coast -— is an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security. It is imperative that the Federal government puts the physical and economic wellbeing of the American people first.
Moreover, the United States has the potential to use its unrealized energy resources domestically, and to sell to international allies and partners a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy. This would create jobs and economic prosperity for Americans forgotten in the present economy, improve the United States’ trade balance, help our country compete with hostile foreign powers, strengthen relations with allies and partners, and support international peace and security. Accordingly, our Nation’s dangerous energy situation inflicts unnecessary and perilous constraints on our foreign policy.
The policies of the previous administration have driven our Nation into a national emergency, where a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid, require swift and decisive action. Without immediate remedy, this situation will dramatically deteriorate in the near future due to a high demand for energy and natural resources to power the next generation of technology. The United States’ ability to remain at the forefront of technological innovation depends on a reliable supply of energy and the integrity of our Nation’s electrical grid. Our Nation’s current inadequate development of domestic energy resources leaves us vulnerable to hostile foreign actors and poses an imminent and growing threat to the United States’ prosperity and national security.
These numerous problems are most pronounced in our Nation’s Northeast and West Coast, where dangerous State and local policies jeopardize our Nation’s core national defense and security needs, and devastate the prosperity of not only local residents but the entire United States population. The United States’ insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy. In light of these findings, I hereby declare a national emergency.
Sec. 2. Emergency Approvals. (a) The heads of executive departments and agencies (“agencies”) shall identify and exercise any lawful emergency authorities available to them, as well as all other lawful authorities they may possess, to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands. If an agency assesses that use of either Federal eminent domain authorities or authorities afforded under the Defense Production Act (Public Law 81-774, 50 U.S.C. 4501 et seq.) are necessary to achieve this objective, the agency shall submit recommendations for a course of action to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
(b) Consistent with 42 U.S.C. 7545(c)(4)(C)(ii)(III), the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, after consultation with, and concurrence by, the Secretary of Energy, shall consider issuing emergency fuel waivers to allow the year-round sale of E15 gasoline to meet any projected temporary shortfalls in the supply of gasoline across the Nation.
Sec. 3. Expediting the Delivery of Energy Infrastructure. (a) To facilitate the Nation’s energy supply, agencies shall identify and use all relevant lawful emergency and other authorities available to them to expedite the completion of all authorized and appropriated infrastructure, energy, environmental, and natural resources projects that are within the identified authority of each of the Secretaries to perform or to advance.
(b) To protect the collective national and economic security of the United States, agencies shall identify and use all lawful emergency or other authorities available to them to facilitate the supply, refining, and transportation of energy in and through the West Coast of the United States, Northeast of the United States, and Alaska.
(c) The Secretaries shall provide such reports regarding activities under this section as may be requested by the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.
Sec. 4.Emergency Regulations and Nationwide Permits Under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Other Statutes Administered by the Army Corps of Engineers. (a) Within 30 days from the date of this order, the heads of all agencies, as well as the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works shall:
(i) identify planned or potential actions to facilitate the Nation’s energy supply that may be subject to emergency treatment pursuant to the regulations and nationwide permits promulgated by the Corps, or jointly by the Corps and EPA, pursuant to section 404 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1344, section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of March 3, 1899, 33 U.S.C. 403, and section 103 of the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, 33 U.S.C. 1413 (collectively, the “emergency Army Corps permitting provisions”); and
(ii) shall provide a summary report, listing such actions, to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”); the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works; the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy; and the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Such report may be combined, as appropriate, with any other reports required by this order.
(b) Agencies are directed to use, to the fullest extent possible and consistent with applicable law, the emergency Army Corps permitting provisions to facilitate the Nation’s energy supply.
(c) Within 30 days following the submission of the initial summary report described in subsection (a)(ii) of this section, each department and agency shall provide a status report to the OMB Director; the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works; the Director of the National Economic Council; and the Chairman of the CEQ. Each such report shall list actions taken within subsection (a)(i) of this section, shall list the status of any previously reported planned or potential actions, and shall list any new planned or potential actions that fall within subsection (a)(i). Such status reports shall thereafter be provided to these officials at least every 30 days for the duration of the national emergency and may be combined, as appropriate, with any other reports required by this order.
(d) The Secretary of the Army, acting through the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, shall be available to consult promptly with agencies and to take other prompt and appropriate action concerning the application of the emergency Army Corps permitting provisions. The Administrator of the EPA shall provide prompt cooperation to the Secretary of the Army and to agencies in connection with the discharge of the responsibilities described in this section.
Sec. 5. Endangered Species Act (ESA) Emergency Consultation Regulations. (a) No later than 30 days from the date of this order, the heads of all agencies tasked in this order shall:
(i) identify planned or potential actions to facilitate the Nation’s energy supply that may be subject to the regulation on consultations in emergencies, 50 C.F.R. 402.05, promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce pursuant to the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.; and
(ii) provide a summary report, listing such actions, to the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, the OMB Director, the Director of the National Economic Council, and the Chairman of CEQ. Such report may be combined, as appropriate, with any other reports required by this order.
(b) Agencies are directed to use, to the maximum extent permissible under applicable law, the ESA regulation on consultations in emergencies, to facilitate the Nation’s energy supply.
(c) Within 30 days following the submission of the initial summary report described in subsection (a)(ii) of this section, the head of each agency shall provide a status report to the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, the OMB Director, the Director of the National Economic Council, and the Chairman of CEQ. Each such report shall list actions taken within the categories described in subsection (a)(i) of this section, the status of any previously reported planned or potential actions, and any new planned or potential actions within these categories. Such status reports shall thereafter be provided to these officials at least every 30 days for the duration of the national emergency and may be combined, as appropriate, with any other reports required by this order. The OMB Director may grant discretionary exemptions from this reporting requirement.
(d) The Secretary of the Interior shall ensure that the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Director’s authorized representative, is available to consult promptly with agencies and to take other prompt and appropriate action concerning the application of the ESA’s emergency regulations. The Secretary of Commerce shall ensure that the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries for the National Marine Fisheries Service, or the Assistant Administrator’s authorized representative, is available for such consultation and to take such other action.
Sec. 6. Convening the Endangered Species Act Committee. (a) In acting as Chairman of the Endangered Species Act Committee, the Secretary of the Interior shall convene the Endangered Species Act Committee not less than quarterly, unless otherwise required by law, to review and consider any lawful applications submitted by an agency, the Governor of a State, or any applicant for a permit or license who submits for exemption from obligations imposed by Section 7 of the ESA.
(b) To the extent practicable under the law, the Secretary of the Interior shall ensure a prompt and efficient review of all submissions described in subsection (a) of this section, to include identification of any legal deficiencies, in order to ensure an initial determination within 20 days of receipt and the ability to convene the Endangered Species Act Committee to resolve the submission within 140 days of such initial determination of eligibility.
(c) In the event that the committee has no pending applications for review, the committee or its designees shall nonetheless convene to identify obstacles to domestic energy infrastructure specifically deriving from implementation of the ESA or the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to include regulatory reform efforts, species listings, and other related matters with the aim of developing procedural, regulatory, and interagency improvements.
Sec. 7. Coordinated Infrastructure Assistance. (a) In collaboration with the Secretaries of Interior and Energy, the Secretary of Defense shall conduct an assessment of the Department of Defense’s ability to acquire and transport the energy, electricity, or fuels needed to protect the homeland and to conduct operations abroad, and, within 60 days, shall submit this assessment to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. This assessment shall identify specific vulnerabilities, including, but not limited to, potentially insufficient transportation and refining infrastructure across the Nation, with a focus on such vulnerabilities within the Northeast and West Coast regions of the United States. The assessment shall also identify and recommend the requisite authorities and resources to remedy such vulnerabilities, consistent with applicable law.
(b) In accordance with section 301 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1631), the construction authority provided in section 2808 of title 10, United States Code, is invoked and made available, according to its terms, to the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, to address any vulnerabilities identified in the assessment mandated by subsection (a). Any such recommended actions shall be submitted to the President for review, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.
Sec. 8. Definitions. For purposes of this order, the following definitions shall apply:
(a) The term “energy” or “energy resources” means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals, as defined by 30 U.S.C. 1606 (a)(3).
(b) The term “production” means the extraction or creation of energy.
(c) The term “transportation” means the physical movement of energy, including through, but not limited to, pipelines.
(d) The term “refining” means the physical or chemical change of energy into a form that can be used by consumers or users, including, but not limited to, the creation of gasoline, diesel, ethanol, aviation fuel, or the beneficiation, enrichment, or purification of minerals.
(e) The term “generation” means the use of energy to produce electricity or thermal power and the transmission of electricity from its site of generation.
(f) The term “energy supply” means the production, transportation, refining, and generation of energy.
Sec. 9. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of OMB relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
A group of renewable energy developers and environmental activists are pushing the largest U.S. grid operator to abandon its proposal to prevent energy shortfalls, according to a letter released Tuesday.
A group of renewable energy developers and environmental activists are pushing the largest U.S. grid operator to abandon its proposal to prevent energy shortfalls, according to a letter released Tuesday.
Hundreds of millions of Americans are at risk of experiencing power shortages this winter as data centers have helped drive a surge in electricity demand, with grid unreliability causing grid operator PJM to propose a fast-tracked process for 50 additional power plants to connect to the system. Now, a group of unnamed green energy producers are pushing the grid operator to abandon the effort, issuing a letter to PJM and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that suggests there isn’t a clear “emergency and reliability imperative” for boosting reliability and that the initiative wouldn’t hold up in court. (RELATED: Texas Is Booming On A Brittle Power Grid, Posing ‘Disastrous’ Risks For All Of America)
“The proposal is a blatant attempt to perpetrate undue discrimination and preference,” the letter states. “PJM management has acted as if there is an emergency and reliability imperative, but PJM has never defined ‘the need’ it must address.”
Like New England, the PJM grid from IL to NJ is generating very little electricity from wind and has had to resort to burning oil
In both places it’s the same reason: pro-scarcity climate activists have created a scarcity of reliable energy supplies pic.twitter.com/WIZdCZWwA7
The initiative, entitled the “Reliability Resource Initiative (RRI): Interim Accelerated Interconnection Process,” would allow up to 50 new generation projects to be connected to the grid alongside a slew of previously approved power facilities, according to the most recent version of the PJM proposal. The queue of already approved projects are made up almost entirely of green energy sources, which PJM notes are “intermittent and limited-duration resources,” and thus multiple megawatts of renewable power is needed to replace one megawatt of fossil fuel power.
In addition to the slew of renewable energy companies, environmental activist groups have also come out in opposition to the RRI, with attorneys for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, PennFuture and Earthjustice telling E&E News, “RRI is unjust and unreasonable as it retroactively changes the terms for projects that have been waiting years in the interconnection queue, and is unduly discriminatory against certain technologies.”
American energy demand could exceed supply before the end of the decade, with an October report from consultancy Bain finding utilities may need to increase their annual power generation by as much as 26% by 2028. A study from grid watchdog the North American Electric Reliability Corporation found the shortfall was largely driven by Democratic green energy mandates.
PJM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Here in New York we have our own unique and special acronym for how we think we are going to make our future emissions-free electrical grid work with predominantly wind and solar generation. The acronym is DEFR — the “Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource.” When the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing in the dead of winter, we will crank up the DEFR to keep us all warm and cozy. There will of course be zero carbon emissions, because by definition the DEFR is “emissions-free.”
Here in New York we have our own unique and special acronym for how we think we are going to make our future emissions-free electrical grid work with predominantly wind and solar generation. The acronym is DEFR — the “Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource.” When the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing in the dead of winter, we will crank up the DEFR to keep us all warm and cozy. There will of course be zero carbon emissions, because by definition the DEFR is “emissions-free.”
Unfortunately nobody is quite sure what this DEFR might be. There are only a few options. Nuclear could work, but in New York it is completely blocked by regulatory obstruction and the certainty of decades of litigation. Batteries are wildly too expensive and physically not up to the job. That leaves many green energy advocates grasping at hydrogen as the last remaining option. Granted, we don’t yet have any meaningful production of hydrogen from carbon-free sources. But it seems so simple: just use wind and solar generators to run electrolyzers to make hydrogen from water; then store the hydrogen in some big caverns, and burn it when you need it. No carbon is involved. Problem solved!
I’ve had a few posts over the past couple of years commenting on some of the many issues that make this “green” hydrogen fantasy infeasible. This post from June 2022 noted that the cost of making hydrogen from water is unlikely ever to fall below, or even close to, the cost of getting new natural gas out of the ground; this post from August 2024 discussed numerous other problems with hydrogen, like its lower energy density compared to natural gas, and the prospective need for a whole new infrastructure of pipelines, power plants, delivery trucks and consumer appliances.
Now comes along a new study focusing on a different piece of the costs of using hydrogen as a main energy source for the economy. The issue is the cost of storing the hydrogen from the time of its production until it is needed for use. The new study appeared in the scientific journal Joule on October 8 with the title “Carbon abatement costs of green hydrogen across end-use sectors.” (The link goes just to a lengthy introduction and abstract. You’ll need to pay $35 to get the whole article, but the introduction at the link tells you what you need to know.)
Perhaps most significant about this new study is the authors. They are Roxana Shafiee and Daniel Schrag, both of whom work at Harvard and have impeccable climate cult credentials, including multiple appointments at various Harvard sub-schools and institutes (Harvard University Center for the Environment, Harvard Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs — you get the idea). These are not people who can be dismissed as “climate deniers.”
Shafiee and Schrag correctly recognize that the cost of producing hydrogen from water is just a piece, and possibly a small piece, of the cost of getting useful hydrogen to a consumer at point of use. They criticize green hydrogen enthusiasts for paying insufficient attention to other costs, and particularly to the costs of “storage and distribution”:
Hydrogen generated via electrolysis using renewable energy (green hydrogen) has gained prominence as a potential strategy in decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors of the economy, in which electrification is technically challenging or prohibitively expensive. Many governments have set policy targets and, in some cases, financial incentives for green hydrogen production, with the expectation that production costs will fall rapidly in the coming decades, providing low-cost carbon abatement opportunities across many sectors. Yet, many recent analyses do not consider the storage and distribution costs of delivering green hydrogen to different sectors or how these costs may vary across end uses.
So Shafiee and Schrag set out to correct those deficiencies. To their credit, S&S have figured out that the costs of distribution and storage infrastructure are highly dependent on how intensely that infrastructure is used. (As far as I can determine, not one of the thousands of people in the vast New York energy regulatory bureaucracies has yet figured out this simple principle.) The more often the storage gets cycled, the lower the charge for each unit of energy stored and then used. S&S note that some sectors, particularly industries like petrochemicals and steel, can cycle hydrogen storage many times per month, thus driving down costs. Unfortunately, the same does not apply to the power sector:
Although low costs of hydrogen storage and distribution (<$1/kgH2) are possible through economies of scale, this requires high utilization of storage and distribution infrastructure, which is not applicable to all end-use sectors. If storage and distribution infrastructure is used at a low rate, costs increase significantly. Salt cavern storage costs increase from less than $0.50/kgH2 to $6/kgH2, on average, if stores are cycled fewer than 10 times per year, for example, in the context of seasonal changes in demand (e.g., heating or electricity generation).
That’s right: hydrogen produced and stored for purposes of home heating only gets cycled once per year at most. To understand the significance of the costs cited, recall that the energy-equivalence conversion factor from $/kgH2 to $/MMBTU (the units in which natural gas prices are customarily quoted) is 8. $6/kgH2 converts to $48/MMBTU. And that’s just for the intra-year storage. Meanwhile, the current price for Henry Hub natural gas is $3.06/MMBTU, and most of it does not need to be stored for any significant period because it gets produced roughly as needed to meet demand.
So kudos to S&S for figuring out that cost of storage for hydrogen is a big and unrecognized issue. But unfortunately, they only go as far as considering intra-year storage. There is also a huge issue of multi-year storage if green hydrogen is to become the backup for a grid powered mostly by wind and sun. In a post on September 28, 2023, I covered a Report then just out from Britain’s Royal Society dealing with issues of long-term energy storage to back up wind and solar generators. The Royal Society had collected weather data for Britain for some 37 years, which had revealed that there are worst-case wind and sun “droughts,” comparable to rain droughts, that may occur only once every 20 years or more. A storage solution to back up wind and solar electricity generation without fossil fuel back-up needs to cover these worst-case droughts.
The Royal Society Report includes the following graph of potentially needed withdrawals from storage to cover these worst case droughts:
The graph shows that of the storage needed for full back-up over the 37 year period of data, fully half would only have been called on twice, and about a quarter would only have been called on once. Perhaps S&S should go back to their laptops to figure out how much salt cavern storage costs per unit of energy stored when it only gets called on once in 37 years. If storage that gets cycled once per year costs $6/kgH2, does storage that gets cycled once per 37 years cost $222/kgH2? The blended cost — between the storage that gets cycled once per year and the rarely-used part that gets cycled only once every 10 or 20 or even 37 years — would look to be around $100/kgH2, equivalent to $800/MMBTU of natural gas. That’s more than 250 times the current price of natural gas, and of course is only the cost of storage. The cost of actually producing the hydrogen would be additional.
I understand that there are people moving forward on setting up some of this hydrogen infrastructure, funded with government subsidies. It’s almost impossible to imagine how much subsidies it would take to make such a system fully functional. It will never happen.
My repeated calls for a Demonstration Project of a zero-emissions electrical grid have led to a spirited debate among knowledgeable commenters. While most back my position, some say that a Demonstration Project is really not necessary and would be a waste of effort.
My repeated calls for a Demonstration Project of a zero-emissions electrical grid have led to a spirited debate among knowledgeable commenters. While most back my position, some say that a Demonstration Project is really not necessary and would be a waste of effort.
The gist of the argument of those disputing the necessity of a Demonstration Project is that it is so obvious that a zero-emissions grid powered predominantly by wind and solar generation cannot be achieved that the expense and effort of building an actual physical facility cannot be justified. Before the building of a physical demonstration project there would inevitably be an engineering feasibility study, and such a feasibility study would not get through its first day before everybody involved realized that this could never work. All it would take would be a few back-of-the-envelope calculations using basic arithmetic and the whole endeavor would be sunk.
Regular commenter Richard Greene leads the forces arguing against a demonstration project. From a comment by Richard on my August 10 post:
A good demonstration project that included manufacturing and farming is very likely not needed. A real local utility Nut Zero grid engineering plan on paper would have grid engineers laughing hysterically. The money allocated for backup batteries would be nowhere close to paying for the battery GWh capacity needed. Backup natural gas power plants could do the job, but gas backup is not wanted. . . . 100% wind and solar can never work due to compound energy droughts, wind drought and solar droughts (batteries are far too expensive).
Representative of the pro-demonstration project side is a comment from “dm” on the August 13 post. Excerpt:
Because many people doubt paper analyses, lived experience is a necessary teacher. Thus, demonstration projects are NEEDED to prove the folly of “sustainable” electricity grids. Furthermore, the demonstration projects MUST be in regions heavily populated with nut zero enthusiasts, and ALL costs MUST be paid SOLELY by households, businesses, institutions … located within the demonstration areas.
My natural sympathies here would lie with Richard’s side of this debate. How can spending what would likely be billions of dollars of public money be justified when calculations that I have made or verified myself show that the project will never come close to success?
But then we must look at what is happening in large states and countries that are proceeding toward the stated goal of a zero-emissions grid without ever having had a working demonstration project. In some of these cases (Germany, UK) the wasted resources are now into the trillions, not billions. And at some point the whole effort will inevitably be ended with some kind of hard-to-predict catastrophe (long blackouts? multiplication of consumer costs by a factor of ten or more?). By then, many of the working resources that have made the grid function will have been destroyed and will have to be re-created, at a cost of further trillions.
Consider the case of Germany. Germany is a very substantial country (80+ million people, making it twice the size of California and four times the size of New York), with the world’s fourth largest GDP at over $4 trillion annually. Germany was one of the first to start down the road to a zero-emissions grid back in the 1990s, and formally adopted its “Energiewende” fourteen years ago in 2010. Germany has proceeded farther than any other large country in converting its electricity generation to wind and solar.
And yet, as I look around for information on Germany’s progress toward zero-emissions electricity, I can’t find any concern or recognition that this might not be doable in the end. Perhaps that exists in German language sources that I can’t read. But from anything I can find, it looks like Germany is forging ahead in the blind faith that if only they build enough wind turbines and solar panels at some point they will have the zero-emissions electricity that they crave.
Go to the website of the Umweltbundesamt (Federal Environmental Agency) for the latest information. At least on the electricity front, you will not find any indication that there may be problems in achieving the zero-emissions utopian future:
The “Energiewende” – Germany’s transition towards a secure, environmentally friendly, and economically successful energy future – includes a large-scale restructuring of the energy supply system towards the use of renewable energy in all sectors. . . . [T]he switch towards renewables in the electricity sector has been very successful so far. . . . While in the year 2000 renewables accounted for 6.3 percent of electricity demand only, its [sic] share has been growing significantly over the past years, exceeding 10 percent in the year 2005 and 25 per cent in the year 2013. In 2023 renewable energy sources provided 272 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and account for 51.8 percent of German electricity demand. With wind power being by far the most important energy source in the German electricity mix.
Some 30+ years into this process, and they’re only up to barely over 50% of their electricity from “renewables.” And while they may claim that “wind power [is] by far the most important source in the German electricity mix,” in fact when you get a breakdown you find that wind and solar together provided well less than 50%. According to solar advocates Fraunhofer Institute here, in 2023 “biomass” provided some 42.3 TWh of Germany’s electricity (about 8%), hydro provided 19.5 TWh (about 4%), and “waste non-renewable” (I think that means burning garbage) provided 4.5 TWh (about 1%). That leaves under 40% for wind and solar.
If they keep building solar and wind facilities, and expect batteries to be the backup, has anybody calculated how much battery storage they will need? Not that I can find. Here is a website of a company called Fluence, which is an affiliate of German industrial giant Siemens. They excitedly predict a rapid expansion of grid storage in Germany:
Storage capacity will grow 40-fold to 57 GWh by 2030.
Wow, a 40-fold increase! It may sound like a lot. But Germany’s average electricity demand is about 50 GW, so the 57 GWh of battery storage in 2030 will come to about 1 hour’s worth. Competent calculations of the amount of energy storage needed to back up a predominantly wind/solar grid run in the range of around 500 to 1000 hours.
Here from another website is a chart of the growth of energy storage in Germany up to this year.
Look at that acceleration! But the 10 GWh of storage that they currently have will last no more than about 10 minutes when the wind and sun quit producing on a calm night.
In short, this large and seemingly sophisticated country is completely delusional, with no sane voices anywhere to be heard. A demonstration project that fails spectacularly is the only thing with any hope of saving them.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the costs explode. They can build thousands of wind turbines and solar panels, but they can’t get rid of any of the dispatchable power plants because they are all needed for backup.
A couple of days ago, a Substack called Doomberg had a piece titled “False Utopia.” The piece featured a discussion of a post of mine from February 2023 with the title “We Must Demand A Demonstration Project Of A Mainly Renewables-Based Electrical Grid.” My post argued that we should demand a demonstration project of a mainly renewables-based electrical grid that would include all the key elements — generation mainly from solar and wind, plus sufficient back-up or storage to make the whole thing work for the long term without involvement of the evil fossil fuels, plus any other necessary elements to make the whole thing work.
The Doomberg guys called my post “brilliant,” which is very flattering. I would not say it was brilliant, but only that it says obvious things that for some reason few other people are saying. Among the people who will definitely not mention the need for an all-element fossil-fuel-free renewable grid demonstration project are government officials and green energy advocates. The reasons they won’t mention this need could be (1) they are not bright enough to understand the subject, or (2) their understanding is impaired because they are too blinded by religious fervor to “save the planet,” or (3) they are intentionally deceiving the public to make money or fame or career advancement for themselves. Or it could be all three!
Meanwhile though, the government “net zero” or “Green New Deal” (or whatever they are currently called) promotional sites are full of talk of things they call demonstration projects. So are they responding to my demand? The opposite. All of what they call demonstration projects follow a common approach, which is only to attempt to demonstrate various portions of the full system that would be needed to provide reliable 24/7/365 electricity from predominantly wind and solar generation.
Consider for instance the latest news on energy storage. A few days ago on October 13, the Department of Energy announced big new grants and subsidies for a series of what they call “hydrogen hubs.” Here is a report from E&E News Energy Wire. Excerpt:
The Department of Energy on Friday announced seven projects that will receive $7 billion to build landmark hydrogen hubs, delivering a major boost to a nascent U.S. industry. The long-awaited move is a key piece of the Biden administration’s climate agenda. On Friday, the White House said it expects the DOE funding to help cut 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, roughly equivalent to removing 5.5 million gasoline-powered vehicles from the road each year. “With this historic investment, the Biden-Harris administration is laying the foundation for a new, American-led industry that will propel the global clean energy transition,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
According to this further piece from Energy Wire on August 21, the Biden Administration has set a goal of having the U.S. produce 10 million metric tons of “green” hydrogen (by electrolysis from water) by 2030. The E&E piece states that the massive funding for “hydrogen hubs” is coming from a part of the Energy Department called the “Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations,” and also cites the Department as calling the hydrogen hubs “demonstrations.” So this must be the demonstration project we are calling for!
Not quite:
DOE envisions the hydrogen hubs as a demonstration of production, storage, transport and consumption.
I guess at least this is intended to be a demonstration of more than just production of the hydrogen. But still, they are clearly leaving out the critical piece of the puzzle, which is the demonstration of how much of this hydrogen, and capacity to make more of it, will be needed, and at what cost, to get the country — or even some small town — through a full year (or two or five) without need for fossil fuel backup. That completely obvious elephant is not part of this multi-billion dollar “demonstration.”
And DOE is not putting all of its energy storage eggs in the hydrogen basket. They separately have another big bucks effort called the “Long Duration Storage Shot” that is throwing bucketsful of cash at various research efforts into batteries. But the battery efforts are even farther removed from any relevant demonstration project. From DOE’s opening webpage describing that initiative (with a date of September 2021):
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Earthshots Initiative aims to accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions within the decade. Achieving the Energy Earthshots will help America tackle the toughest remaining barriers to addressing the climate crisis, and more quickly reach the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 while creating good-paying union jobs and growing the clean energy economy. . . . The Long Duration Storage Shot establishes a target to reduce the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% for systems that deliver 10+ hours of duration within the decade.
On September 22, 2023 the Administration announced some $325 million for “15 projects across 17 states and one tribal nation” to “accelerate the development” of these “long duration” battery technologies. The $325 million may seem rather paltry compared to the $7 billion just thrown at the hydrogen hub thing last week; but don’t worry, they have many billions more to spread around on this over the coming months.
So are these battery technologies, or any one of them, even a potential solution to the problem of making a mostly wind/solar electricity grid work without fossil fuel backup? Again, you will not find any mention at those links, or at other government or advocate sites discussing the issue of how many of these batteries would be necessary and at what cost to actually fully back up a predominantly wind/solar grid and make it into a functional 24/7/365 electricity system. Indeed, you will not find any mention at any such sites of the fundamental problem with all batteries as the means to back up an intermittently-supplied grid, as identified in the big (and otherwise badly flawed) Royal Society energy storage report that came out in September. That problem is that stored energy as the backup mechanism entails engineering requirements that no battery can ever meet. Those include: holding at least several months of average usage, being capable of keeping that energy in storage for years in anticipation of worst-case once every multiple decades wind “droughts,” and being capable of discharging over the course of months if not a full year. The “10+ hours of duration” mentioned as the goal of the Energy Department’s battery program is almost trivial against the real engineering requirements.
Hydrogen, by contrast, has the theoretical capability of meeting all of those engineering requirement. However, there are many elements that don’t currently exist that would be needed to make a fully-functioning wind/solar/hydrogen storage 24/7/365 electricity grid. These include not just the electrolyzers, but also storage for huge amounts of hydrogen (underground caverns?), a full collection of thermal power plants capable of meeting peak demand burning pure hydrogen, and a transport system (pipelines?) to take the hydrogen from the electrolyzers to the storage caverns and then on to the power plants.
I could do a back-of-the-envelope calculation on this to get a rough idea as to cost, which would come to a multiple (not necessarily a huge one, but nonetheless a multiple) of what our current electricity system costs. But I’m not going to do it. The reason I’m not going to do it is that there as an obvious fact that tells you all you need to know, which is that no one in the country is spending their own private money to build out this system. They are all waiting for the government handouts. If this system could be built profitably at a cost competitive with what we have, there would be investors falling all over themselves to build it. When Thomas Edison built his first electricity plant, he did not go to the government for handouts to build it.
Because this is all a fantasy kept alive by government handouts, as soon as the handouts go away or even slow down, the whole thing will dry up and fade away.
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