Biden is having a rough week in more ways than one. The latest episode of The Unregulated Podcast is now streaming on our website or wherever you listen.
"Thanks to the Biden administration’s push for burdensome ESG standards, Americans are now faced with higher gas prices for little gain in terms of reducing carbon dioxide emissions."
Oil Price (7/20/22) reports: "The record-breaking heat wave in Europe doesn't mean record solar power generation, as extremely high temperatures actually reduce the efficiency of solar panels. As temperatures in the UK hit the highest-ever on record at over 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) this week, solar power output hasn't set records and is unlikely to do so amid very high temperatures, scientists say. On Tuesday, a provisional temperature of 40.3 C (104.54 F) was recorded at Coningsby in the UK, the UK's Met Office said, adding that it was the first time on record temperatures in the UK have exceeded 40°C. However, power output during the heat wave has dropped below the levels that are typically reached during the spring when there is sunshine, but temperatures are cooler. 'It's because of this balance between irradiance and temperature that the record for peak half-hourly generation is always in April or May, because that's when we get sunny but relatively cool weather,' Jamie Taylor, a senior data scientist at Sheffield University, told the BBC. While solar output has been relatively high in recent days, it hasn't broken any records, according to trade association Solar Energy UK. 'The heat itself brings down the efficiency of solar panels slightly,' Solar Energy UK's chief executive Chris Hewett told the BBC. 'So don't expect to see records set,' Hewett added. During very high temperatures, a very high number of the electrons on the solar panel are excited, which reduces the generated voltage and the panel's efficiency."
“When people are cold, hungry and broke, they rebel.”
Wall Street Journal (7/21/22) op-ed: "The chattering classes who jet to conferences at Davos or Aspen have for years been telling the rest of us that our biggest immediate threats are climate change, environmental disasters and biodiversity loss. They point to the current heat waves killing thousands across Europe as the latest reason to change our societies and economies radically by switching to renewables. Such arguments are misleading. It’s true that as temperatures rise the world will experience more heat waves, but humans also adapt to such things. In Spain, for example, rising temperatures have actually led to fewer heat deaths, because people have adapted faster than temperatures have gone up. It simply took air conditioning, public cooling centers and better treatment of maladies that are caused or aggravated by heat, such as heatstroke and heart disease. The exclusive focus on heat deaths is also misleading. Across the world, low temperatures are much more dangerous than high ones: Half a million people die each year from heat, but more than 4.5 million die from cold. While rising temperatures will increase heat deaths, they will also decrease cold deaths. A recent Lancet study found that rising temperatures since 2000 have on net reduced the number of temperature-related deaths. Researchers concluded that by the end of the 2010s, rising temperatures globally were causing 116,000 more heat deaths annually, but also leading to 283,000 fewer cold deaths a year. Moreover, politicians’ singular focus on climate change ignores that people are much more worried about rampant inflation, especially rising food and energy prices. And climate policies are making those problems worse."
Renewables are only as good as their backups.
Utility Dive (7/21/22) reports: "Key metrics tracking blackout duration and amounts of unserved energy demand spiked dramatically in 2021, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said Wednesday in its 2022 State of Reliability report. The duration of operator-initiated load shedding events spiked and unserved energy demand reached its highest levels ever, NERC officials said. The changes were driven by the deadly outages in Texas last year caused by Winter Storm Uri. NERC is recommending registered entities “conduct studies to model plausible and extreme natural gas disruptions,” and Director of Reliability Assessment and Performance Analysis John Moura said more investment in gas infrastructure is needed. NERC expects 500 GW of solar and 400 GW of wind to come online over the next decade, and officials say some work is needed to accommodate the shift away from fossil fuels. 'If we’re going to reliably integrate these resources over the next 10 years, we’ve really got to start now,' said Moura. That will mean additional investment in natural gas infrastructure, he said. "
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Tom Pyle, American Energy Alliance
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Phil Kerpen, American Commitment
Andrew Quinlan, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity
Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform
George Landrith, Frontiers of Freedom
Thomas A. Schatz, Citizens Against Government Waste
Richard Manning, Americans for Limited Government
Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks
Craig Richardson, E&E Legal
Benjamin Zycher, American Enterprise Institute
Jason Hayes, Mackinac Center
David Williams, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation
Seton Motley, Less Government
Annette Thompson Meeks, Freedom Foundation of Minnesota
Isaac Orr, Center of the American Experiment
David T. Stevenson & Clint Laird, Caesar Rodney Institute
John Droz, Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions
Jim Karahalios, Axe the Carbon Tax
Mark Mathis, Clear Energy Alliance
Jack Ekstrom, PolicyWorks America
