February 13, 2012
Counterpunch

After years of successful marketing and lavish subsidies from taxpayers, the global wind industry now finds itself facing an unprecedented backlash. And that backlash – largely coming from rural landowners – combined with low natural gas prices, and a Congress unwilling to extend more subsidies, has left the American and Canadian wind sectors gasping for breath.

A new and thoughtful look at the fight against Big Wind is Laura Israel’s new film, Windfall, a documentary that focuses on the fight over the siting of wind turbines in the small town of Meredith, New York. Indeed, Israel’s film underscores an essential question: what, exactly, qualifies an energy source as “green” or “clean”? If you listen to President Obama, nearly every energy source qualifies as “clean” with the notable exception of oil.

February 5, 2012
New York Post

Documentary makers are always hoping that their film will come out at just the right moment, when a favorable news cycle and popular sentiment are converging so that the public is primed for their message.

In 1989, Michael Moore made his career with “Roger & Me,” a documentary that pinned the decline of his hometown — Flint, Mich. — on General Motors. By focusing his fire on GM’s chairman, Roger Smith, Moore tapped into the public’s anger at tone-deaf corporate bosses as well as the growing disenchantment with the American car industry.

February 2, 2012
National Review

In his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama touted renewable energy and declared that he would “not walk away from workers” such as Bryan Ritterby, who is employed by a wind-turbine manufacturer in Michigan.

But in their rush to embrace the wind-energy business, Obama and numerous other politicians are walking away from rural residents such as David Enz and his wife, Rose. A year ago, the couple abandoned their home near Denmark, Wis., because of the unbearable low-frequency noise produced by a half-dozen 495-foot-high wind turbines that were built near the home they’ve owned since 1978. The closest was installed about 3,200 feet from their house.

January 23, 2012
New York Daily News

Amid the ongoing battle in New York and elsewhere over hydraulic fracturing, one thing has become clear: The pro-drilling side is losing the public relations fight.

Any fair-minded analysis of fracking would conclude that the process is having a positive effect on the U.S. economy. Thanks to fracturing, drillers are extracting vast quantities of natural gas and oil from shale deposits.

January 31, 2012
Robertbryce.com

During my reporting on the problem of wind-turbine noise, I have interviewed a number of homeowners who have abandoned their homes due to the noise. One of those people: Wisconsin resident Dave Enz. After talking with him on the phone, he sent me the following statement. I edited only for punctuation. I have added some follow up questions at the bottom of his statement. -- RB

My name is David Enz. My wife and I used to live about 3,000 feet from the nearest wind turbine driven generator. There are five more within about one mile of our home. These Glenmore turbines are some of the tallest in the state at 492 feet.

We raised our children in this house we built in 1978. It was a great place to live but we can no longer live there. We are now living with children, friends and in our RV. So far we have received no offer of compensation. We get sick in an hour or less most times when we return to get food or different clothes. Other people also get sick when they spend time at our place. We found new homes for our dog and chickens so they could be cared for. We try to go to our home when the turbines are down because we are fine then. The turbine owners are going to sound test our home, but it doesn't matter what the test results are, the results for us are we can no longer live in our home. We and others get sick outside and inside the buildings. From the research I have done our symptoms are consistent with the other folks who are driven out of their homes.

January 20, 2012
City Journal

More than three decades ago, the British economist E. F. Schumacher stated the essence of environmental protection in three words: "Small is beautiful." As Schumacher argued in a famous book by that title, man-made disturbances of the natural world—farms, for example, and power plants—should have the smallest possible footprints.

But how can that ideal be realized in a world that must produce more and more food and energy for its growing population? The answer, in just one word this time, is density. Over the course of the last century, human beings have found ways to concentrate crops and energy production within smaller and smaller areas, conserving land while meeting the ever-growing global demand for calories and watts. This approach runs counter to the beliefs of many environmental activists and politicians, whose "organic" and "renewable" policies, as nature-friendly as they sound, squander land. The real organizing principle for a green future is density, which not only provides the goods that we need to survive and prosper but also achieves the land-preservation goals of genuine environmentalists.

January 20, 2012
FoxNews.com

With his win in the New Hampshire primary last week, Mitt Romney may be well on his way to becoming the Republican nominee for president. In my view, he's still unlikely to be beat Barack Obama in November, but never mind that.

If Romney wants to win the White House, he's going to need to embrace big issues that resonate with voters. Given that, here's some free advice for Romney: 1) Come out swinging on the issue of energy; and 2) Declare your intention to make energy as cheap, abundant, and reliable as possible.

January 19, 2012
Wall Street Journal

Nearly four decades ago, British economist E.F. Schumacher stated the essence of environmental protection in three words: Small is beautiful. As Schumacher argued in his famous book by that title, man-made disturbances of the natural world—farms, for example, and power plants—should have the smallest possible footprints.

But how can that ideal be realized in a world that must produce more and more food and energy for its growing population? The answer, in just one word, is density.

December 15, 2011
New York Post

Opponents of gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in New York got a boost last week when the EPA issued a draft report that found that chemicals used in gas wells may have contaminated a shallow-water aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo. With the state Department of Environmental Conservation having extended the comment period on its proposed rules for drilling and “fracking” to Jan. 9, the critics will surely point to the Wyoming case as cause for New York to just ban drilling.

December 8, 2011
National Review

The biofuels bust continues. The latest failure: Range Fuels.

Last week, the company defaulted on a government-guaranteed $80 million loan that it had used to build an ethanol plant in Georgia. AgSouth Farm Credit, the servicer of the loan, will begin a foreclosure sale on the plant in January. The foreclosure provides yet another indictment of the Obama administration’s energy policies.

December 1, 2011
National Review

Electric-car sales are on fire. Okay, well, only a few electric cars have actually gone up in smoke. But with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opening a formal safety investigation into fears about fires started by the much-hyped Chevrolet Volt, it’s become clear yet again that electric vehicles are The Next Big Thing — and they always will be.

November 30, 2011
Counterpunch

On Monday, leaders from dozens of countries began meeting at the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa. They might as well have stayed home.

The meeting in Durban will fail, just as all previous climate confabs have failed, to impose any meaningful limits or taxes on carbon dioxide emissions. Understanding why the Durban meeting will fail doesn’t require any deep political insight or any expertise into atmospheric physics. It only requires an appreciation for simple math and these three numbers: 28.5, 47, and 1.3 billion. 

November 21, 2011
National Review

The two big energy stories of the moment are the Obama administration’s announcement that it will wait another year before making a final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, and the continued pummeling of the Department of Energy and Energy Secretary Steven Chu for their handling of the $529 million loan guarantee to Solyndra.

So how do those two projects compare on critical issues such as economic impact and overall energy use? Even a cursory look at the two deals shows that, once again, the Obama administration’s energy priorities are — how to put this charitably? — misguided.

November 15, 2011
National Review

Ford Motor Company’s most expensive sports car is the Mustang Shelby GT500 convertible, a 500-horsepower rocket sled that retails for about $55,000. Compare that to the $97,000 for the base model hybrid-electric Karma, the high-performance sports car made by upstart Fisker Automotive.

Those two price points should have tipped off the Obama administration as to why providing a $529 million loan guarantee to Fisker would end up a public-relations blunder. But in 2009, the administration went ahead with the deal. “We’re making a bet on the future, we’re making a bet on the American people, we’re making a bet on the market, we’re making a bet on innovation,” said Vice President Joe Biden.

November 9, 2011
National Review

Paul Krugman may be a Nobel Prize–winning economist, but his most recent column in the New York Times, which condemns hydraulic fracturing and praises solar energy, displays an astounding disinterest in numbers and woeful ignorance of the facts.

Without providing any sources, Krugman writes, “We know that [fracturing] produces toxic (and radioactive) wastewater that contaminates drinking water; there is reason to suspect, despite industry denials, that it also contaminates groundwater.”

October 19, 2011
Manhattan Institute Issue Brief

For years, politicians, environmental groups, and the renewable energy lobby have been claiming that widespread use of wind energy would result in substantial reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions. This report—which relies on data published by the Energy Information Administration and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory— finds that if wind energy were to reduce carbon dioxide, the savings would be so small as to be insignificant and so expensive as to be impractical.

Achieving the oft-stated goal of getting 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs from wind by 2030 would require a total expenditure of more than $850 billion. Yet the likely carbon-dioxide savings from that expenditure would be just 2 percent of global emissions in 2030.

October 14, 2011
Slate.com

It’s easy to pick the dominant environmental issue of the last decade. It has been the issue of climate change and what—if anything—the countries of the world can do to limit, or reduce, carbon dioxide emissions.

But during that same decade, global carbon dioxide emissions rose by 28.5 percent to some 33 billion tons. And by 2030, the International Energy Agency expects global carbon dioxide emissions to rise by another 21 percent to about 40 billion tons.

October 12, 2011
National Review

The more people know about the wind-energy business, the less they like it. And when it comes to lousy wind deals, General Electric’s Shepherds Flat project in northern Oregon is a real stinker.

I’ll come back to the GE project momentarily. Before getting to that, please ponder that first sentence. It sounds like a claim made by an anti-renewable-energy campaigner. It’s not. Instead, that rather astounding admission was made by a communications strategist during a March 23 webinar sponsored by the American Council on Renewable Energy called “Speaking Out on Renewable Energy: Communications Strategies for the Renewable Energy Industry.”

October 6, 2011
Wall Street Journal

Wall Over the past two months, environmental activists have held protests at the White House and elsewhere hoping to convince the Obama administration to deny a permit for the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Some of those same activists have launched a series of demonstrations called "Moving Planet" to move "the planet away from fossil fuels towards a safer climate future." And next month, leaders from dozens of countries will meet at the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa.

September 12, 2011
National Review

Over the past two weeks or so, several hundred protesters assembled outside the White House to oppose the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which is designed to transport bitumen produced from oil sands in Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. During the protest, actor Daryl Hannah, climate scientist James Hansen, and author and activist Bill McKibben were among some 1,200 people who were arrested.

The protesters are hoping that President Obama will block the $7 billion pipeline. Their rationale: The pipeline will result in major increases in carbon-dioxide emissions, and therefore it must be stopped or catastrophic climate change will ensue. Protest as they might, a State Department report found that the pipeline will not have a major environmental impact.

Here are ten reasons why the Keystone pipeline will be built.