Best Energy Picks - January 27, 2024
Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy.
This week’s best energy picks:
How Lawfare Is Destroying Our Nation — They’re Coming for Your Fireplaces and Wood Stoves, Too — So, Drilling Is Now Politically Correct, Then? — Alberta Has A Close Call As Wind Is Under the Weather — and much more.
How Lawfare Is Destroying Our Nation
Greedy trial lawyers have long aligned with leftist causes because, as a new-age Willie Sutton might well say "that's where the money is.” Tax-exempt foundations are used by uber-wealthy individuals and families to finance lawfare that promotes their special interests such as killing oil and gas to make room for green grifting. And, the lawyers are making out big-time as this story of utter corruption in our legal system illustrates:
Last summer, the leaders of Multnomah County—the liberal Oregon enclave that includes most of Portland—filed a high-profile lawsuit seeking $1.5 billion in damages from the world's top oil and gas producers. Exxon, Shell, BP, and others, county leaders argued in their complaint, knew that their "fossil fuel products" caused "catastrophic harm" but told the public otherwise, thus making those companies liable for a heat wave that struck the Beaver State in 2021.
The county's complaint made reference to "the world's largest oil companies" and laid out their "international operations," through which the companies produce millions of barrels of oil per day. Left-wing media coverage of the suit also emphasized the defendants' global reach: The Guardian said the suit targeted "major oil and gas companies," while Mother Jones touted the county's work to take on "Big Oil."
One defendant included in the county's complaint, however, was not mentioned in those stories. That defendant, Space Age Fuel, is not among "the world's largest oil companies." Its operations are also not "international"—they're limited to the Pacific Northwest. And unlike the other defendants named in the suit, Space Age produces no oil. The company operates a chain of Oregon gas stations and transports fuel around the state.
Multnomah County's suit nonetheless lumps Space Age together with the oil industry's global leaders, a move that attorneys say isn't truly aimed at collecting damages from the local company. Instead, those attorneys argue, Multnomah County's targeting of Space Age is a cynical move to keep the suit away from federal court—and in front of state judges who are more likely to rule against oil and gas companies…
For Washington, D.C., attorney and former Greene County, Va., prosecutor Matthew Hardin, the county's suit is an example of the left's evolving climate litigation strategy…
But Space Age has conducted no research relating to climate change, its president, James Pliska, swore under penalty of perjury in a court declaration. The company has also "never engaged in any marketing campaign" related to climate change, "never obtained any information" about climate change, and "never released or made any public statement about the causes or science of climate change," Pliska attested. The company does, however, sell gas to everyday Oregonians…
While a judge is yet to rule on the request, similar climate litigation suggests it will fail. In South Carolina, for example, the city of Charleston included two state-based businesses in its 2020 lawsuit targeting Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP. The companies argued that those businesses were improperly included. A judge disagreed, tossing the case back to state court.
Multnomah County is now working to achieve the same result by arguing that Space Age as a gas station operator engaged in "collective culpable conduct" aimed at "deceptively promoting and concealing the dangers of fossil fuel use." The outcome of the case will ride on the court in which it is heard, D.C. attorney Christopher Horner told the Free Beacon.
"The venue question is fatal to their campaign," Horner said. "These cases are dead-letters in the federal courts, and the only chance they have is by keeping it in the family, so to speak."
Should Multnomah County succeed in its effort to argue its suit in state court, fellow D.C. attorney Hardin suggested the precedent could hurt everyday Americans who rely on local oil and gas retailers. Attorneys behind the climate suits can earn millions if they're successful, providing plenty of incentive to target local companies with expensive litigation.
Lawfare is destroying the nation on every level, from our electoral politics to our energy security. It is simply evil.
Hat Tip: S.H.
They’re Coming for Your Fireplaces and Wood Stoves, Too
Read between the lines and it’s clear your fireplaces and wood stoves will soon be outlawed along with gas appliances:
As New York City and the state begin enforcing stringent new climate laws this year, the oldest form of heating – wood-burning – has been excluded from the regulations.
Fireplaces and wood stoves aren’t mentioned in the final rules that went into effect this month for the city's Local Law 97, which forces buildings to cut their carbon emissions. They also were left out of the rules of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA, which are expected to be finalized this year.
Raya Salter, a member of the New York State Climate Action Council that helped craft the CLCPA, says that's by design.
“Wood-burning for residential use is a massive source of emissions in New York state, and also to human health,” said Salter, the executive director of the Energy Justice Law and Policy Center…
That means the dwindling number of New York City homes with working fireplaces can keep lighting logs – for now…
New York City implemented a ban on fireplaces in new construction in 2014, and only around 3,300 legal and functioning fireplaces remain in the five boroughs, according to a 2014 New York Times report.
But it’s a different story outside New York City. The state is the nation's second-largest buyer of firewood, and many of its regions are completely reliant on wood for heat. Just over 113,000 homes burn almost 2 billion tons of trees annually – an amount that is roughly equal to the weight of 5,500 Empire State Buildings.
Although only about 2.5% of the state's households burn wood for heat, this small portion is responsible for 90% of the fine particulate matter pollution attributed to residential home heating, according to a study published in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association…
Nationwide, wood-burning is the largest source of fine particulate matter, exceeding emissions from motor vehicles, according to a study by a coalition of Northeast air quality agencies.
There is no doubt where this is going, despite the protests to the contrary. Read the whole story and see how rich Manhattanites have gotten exemptions for now but their own agenda is clear; they want you to freeze.
Hat Tip: R.N.
So, Drilling Is Now Politically Correct, Then?
Our reader who shared this story with us says there seems to be a double-standard in effect when enviros say “don’t drill, except there.”
A remote community of mud huts and corrugated iron roofs in the arid savannah of West Africa could be a trailblazer for a new form of carbon-free energy. The residents of Bourakebougou in Mali are the only people in the world who get their electricity by burning natural hydrogen. First identified bubbling from the depths through a village water well in 1987, the gas contains no carbon and, when burned, produces only water.
But the Malian pioneers could soon lose their unique status. Geologists who once dismissed out of hand the idea that the Earth’s crust was widely impregnated with stores of hydrogen, now say there could be trillions of tons of it lying unnoticed beneath the planet’s surface, with more being generated all the time.
In recent months, prospectors have been rushing to find it — drilling for hydrogen in northeast France, Australia, Spain, Morocco, Brazil, and, in the United States, in Nebraska, Arizona, and Kansas. Even Bill Gates has joined the hydrogen rush, making a major investment in a company that is exploring for hydrogen in the Midwest.
Proponents are bullish. “Even if we could extract 1 percent of what I believe is down there, we could supply all our hydrogen needs for hundreds of years,” says Viacheslav Zgonnik, a Ukraine-born geochemist who has conducted the most detailed review of the scattered scientific literature on hydrogen finds and is pioneering hydrogen exploration in the U.S. with his Denver-based start-up Natural Hydrogen Energy.
Yes, of course, there is a double-standard. As readers have, no doubt, already heard, the left would have no standards at all if it weren’t for double-standards. But, is hydrogen safe? It probably is but I have visions of an exploding airship in my head, don’t you? Funny how that gets ignored by these folks.
Hat Tip: C.C.
Alberta Has A Close Call As Wind Is Under the Weather
Alberta, like Texas, is quickly realizing wind turbines don’t deliver when they are most needed.
The Canadian province of Alberta nearly lost their electrical grid this week being unable to handle several days of extreme cold weather. Alberta saw a large build up renewable energy in order to fulfill a policy goal of net-zero by 2035 but in 2022, a moratorium on new renewable projects. Being a hydrocarbon-rich province, Albertans have typically relied on coal but in the recent years have relied on natural gas to replace the coal and as backup for when the renewables aren’t available.
Most of the province’s renewable energy “investment” has been in the form of wind turbines and a smaller amount of solar. In 2022 alone, roughly two thirds of Canada’s renewables buildout (2,848 MW wind & 949 MW solar) occurred just in Alberta according to the Canadian Federal Government. Of the 55.5 TWh of electrical energy produced in Alberta, just shy of 11 percent of that was wind, tidal, and solar.
Conveniently left out of all the flowery narrative from the pro-renewables crowd working under Dictator Trudeau is when that 11 percent kicked in. Being that Alberta lies at high latitude, and this is the middle of winter, the sun isn’t out much, and the province is landlocked leaving the tidal category at zero. That leaves the wind, except during cold spells, it tends to be (pun intended) under the weather.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Apologies to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.
Hat Tip: G.L.F.
And, Briefly:
New Jersey Simply REFUSES to Learn, from R.N./S.H.
Snow Is Disappearing But We Have An Electric Snowcat to Sell You, from R.N.
Europe’s Climate Cult Says Get It Done Now Before They Throw Us Out, from I.S.
The Wind Drought Years, from D.T.
New Tires Every 7,000 Miles, from J.C.
Wyoming Temps Are Cold Enough To Freeze Bulls' Balls Off, from E.S.
Joe Biden Sticks One More Knife in America, from C.C.
#Energy #NaturalGas #BestPicks #Climate #GlobalWarming #Wind #Hydrogen
Such a target 🎯 rich environment !