Who is to blame?

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DAILY ENERGY NEWS | 12/28/2022

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If you spend fifty years weaponizing the administrative state to slow down and halt any construction anywhere you don't get to complain about not being able to build transmission.

NRDC (12/26/22) blog: "With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States has an unprecedented opportunity to dramatically cut our greenhouse gas emissions. To deliver on the promise of the IRA, by 2030, we need to increase renewable energy deployment four-fold over today’s levels. We must also double the rate at which we’re building the transmission system, focusing on larger, interstate lines instead of the small local lines that we mostly build today. To this end, clean energy advocates need to shift from working to make renewables and transmission cheaper to working to make them easier to build. And we must do this while making sure these projects are built responsibly, dramatically increasing conservation, and helping to redress our nation's history of systemic racism and deepening inequality. Congress should pass the EJ for All Act and it should give FERC clear authority to permit large (1,000 MW+) interstate transmission lines. NRDC and other NGOs recently released principles for transmission permitting reform. The Biden administration should leverage existing authorities to move towards a “permit one, build many” model, relying on the aggressive use of programmatic environmental impact statements. Meanwhile, states should set clearer standards for process, inclusion, wildlife protections, and how renewable energy projects can maximize community benefits...The general advocacy approach for renewables has focused on making them more competitive. If renewables are the most economically attractive option, the theory goes, they will be chosen and built by the market. Money greases the wheels of change; if we had another 10 years, the money in the IRA would undoubtedly incentivize renewables permitting at all levels."

"Although the disintegration of ESG as an investment strategy became unmistakable in 2022, its existence as a political doctrine will continue until it is challenged and defeated politically. Defeating ESG not a case of 'who cares wins' but 'who fights wins.'"

– Rupert Darwall,
RealClear Foundation

Feeding the hand that bites you.

Washington Times (12/26/22) editorial: "Gina McCarthy has a long career in and around the federal government. She was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration. She was then chief executive officer of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group. She came back to the federal government for a return engagement during the first two years of Team Biden, where she ran pretty much all of the energy and environmental policy right out of the White House. With a résumé like that, it should come as no surprise that she has done her best to impede the use of affordable, reliable domestic energy sources such as oil, coal and natural gas and make the United States dependent, to the very best of her ability, on more expensive and less reliable energy (like wind turbines and solar panels) that is sourced for the most part from slaving, genocidal communist China, or the child-labor-intensive Democratic Republic of Congo... Ms. McCarthy, as you might imagine, is not our cup of tea. Nevertheless, she is what has always been: a considerable and unapologetic warrior on the left side of the political spectrum. It was with some surprise, therefore, that we learned recently that the Edison Electric Institute — the political association for the nation’s electric utilities — intends to present Ms. McCarthy with the Thomas A. Edison Legacy Award — its highest honor — at its January winter meeting (in Palm Beach, of course). That award is supposed to be for a lifetime of achievement that has advanced the electric industry in some important way. It is not clear how using the coercive power of the state to make electricity more expensive and less reliable for all Americans can be considered an 'achievement' under any conceivable definition of that word."

It didn't have to be like this.

Carolina Journal (12/27/22) reports: "In the past week, Duke Energy systematically shut down parts of the North Carolina and South Carolina power grid in what the utility described as an effort to stabilize energy usage during bitter cold holiday temperatures. Called 'rolling blackouts,' the strategy raised a red flag for public officials and energy policy experts after tens of thousands of customers were without power during Christmas weekend, reportedly not notified ahead of time. 'Due to extreme cold weather causing increased demand and a shortage of available power in the Southeast region, the company was forced to interrupt service to about 500,000 customers to maintain the energy grid and prevent further disruptions,' Duke Energy reported on Christmas Day. As of Tuesday morning, according to Duke’s outage map, there are still 1,600 homes without power across North Carolina, primarily in the Triangle, Charlotte, and Greensboro areas...'Wind and solar are making the grid more unreliable as they gain share,' the NERC report read in July 2022. The Institute for Energy Research also warned of growing disruptions back in the summer of 2022, as usage spiked during remote work and shutdowns. 'The duration of operator-initiated load shedding events spiked, and unserved energy demand reached its highest levels ever' their report read. 'No longer is peak demand the only clear risk to reliability — risks can emerge when weather-dependent generation is impacted by abnormal atmospheric conditions or when extreme conditions disrupt fuel supplies.'"

Don't be too hard on Mayor Pete. The administration's standard practice has been identifying a problem, then making it 10 times worse.

No matter how much you feed the crocodile, it's still gonna end up eating you.

The Guardian (12/27/22) reports: "BP has been accused of prioritising fossil fuels over green energy as it plans to spend as much as double the amount on oil and gas projects than on renewable investments next year. The FTSE 100 company has earmarked up to $7.5bn (£6.2bn) for oil and gas projects, compared with a range of $3bn to $5bn for green energy. BP expects to increase spending on 'resilient hydrocarbons' – oil and gas, refining and bioenergy projects – by up to $1bn in 2023. In 2021 the company’s capital expenditure was $12.8bn and it expected to spend $14bn-15bn this year, and then $14bn-16bn a year between 2023 and 2025. Within this, investment into 'resilient hydrocarbons' will increase from $9bn in 2022 to “$9bn to $10bn a year” from 2023 to 2025, including $7.5bn a year on oil and gas projects. BP intends to invest $3bn to $5bn a year on 'low-carbon' energy projects between 2023 and 2025, rising to $4bn to $6bn a year in the second half of the decade. BP also plans to spend a further $2bn to $3bn in its convenience and mobility division, which includes its fuel forecourts and electric vehicle charging businesses. However, the firm has been criticised for not moving faster into renewables. 'Where you spend your money says a lot about your priorities,' said Mike Childs, the head of policy at Friends of the Earth. 'It’s astounding that in the middle of a climate emergency BP is planning to invest billions more dollars on planet-warming fossil fuels than on clean, green renewables.'"

Energy Markets

WTI Crude Oil: ↓ $79.42
Natural Gas: ↓ $4.97
Gasoline: ↑ $3.13

Diesel: ↑ $4.67
Heating Oil: ↓ $332.22
Brent Crude Oil: ↓ $84.12
US Rig Count: ↑ 869

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