Commentary
I know, you’re probably tired of reading about windmills. After a quick review of my blog archives, I noted that I have written a great deal about both wind and solar as alternative energy sources, including “Just Whistling in the Wind, about a year ago.
Sorry, but it’s time for a brief update, because President Biden will certainly be talking about his “successes” in combatting climate change in campaign speeches. That is, if he can stop talking about Donald Trump and the evil MAGA supporters.
First, I want to remind you of what Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, admitted coincidentally three years ago this week, that “the U.S. reducing its emissions to zero wouldn’t make much of a difference in the global climate change fight.”
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “How Climate Policy Went Wrong,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes about those who insist that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and scientists who are deriding international agreements like Kyoto and Paris, while referring to Biden’s climate-centric Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as an “Orwellian” giveaway to special interests. Those involved in wind turbine and solar businesses and the electric vehicle transition.
For example, the IRA offers a 30 percent tax credit for projects that begin construction before 2026 as a way to turbocharge offshore wind development.
Jenkins suggests we may soon know in detail how many trillions we’ve spent on climate subsidies that have had no effect on climate. “A picture of Americans on a path to commit energy suicide in the name of climate change while doing nothing about climate change.”
Last week we learned more about the effect of offshore wind farms on commercial fishing in a piece by Craig Rucker, President of a Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, in RealClearEnergy.
While I have previously written about failed offshore wind projects requiring companies to cancel and repay those states funding them, yet activists are now touting two offshore wind projects south of Long Island.
“These projects and others like them will undermine and perhaps destroy local commercial fishing fleets coastwide,” says Rucker. “We know from experience that offshore wind infrastructure is not compatible with their fishing gear. Radar scatter and false targets create such dangers that fishermen cannot safely access lease areas, if entrance is allowed at all.”
Leave it to big spending liberals like Rep. Ed Markey and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who have crafted bills to compensate fishermen for lost catch. Not only does this not solve the problem, fishermen don’t want a hand out.
“(It could) force us to rely more heavily on farmed and wild-caught seafood from places like Russia and China with non-existent environmental and public health oversight,” according to Rucker.
On Monday, thanks to an in-depth story by Jennifer Hiller in the Wall Street Journal, we learned that not all wind project problems are offshore as she writes about Oklahoma’s Osage Nation’s 13-year fight with Enel, an Italian energy utility.
A federal district judge ruled that Enel should remove the 84 turbines of the Osage Wind Project.
Reportedly, the turbines have been active since 2022 and produce 44 percent of the state’s power generation.
Enel plans to appeal, citing costs of nearly $260 million.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
