Month: October 2025

“China as a whole is exporting, on a monthly basis, more clean energy technologies than the US as a whole exported natural gas, in the form of liquified natural gas, to the world in 2024.” – Akshat Rathi PhD

As I pointed out in a recent post, the Trump strategy to go all in on LNG and fossil fuels is headed over a cliff.
More confirmation here.

Ashcan Rathi in Bloomberg:

There’s a battle underway to win the energy export market between the world’s two largest economies: the United States wants the world to buy its fossil fuels, while China wants to sell the world its clean energy technologies.

For now, there is a clear winner: China. 

The country’s exports of electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries and other carbon-cutting technology has been climbing for years. Exports hit a record in August, with US$20bil in products shipped globally, according to a new report from the think tank Ember.

“China reached a record value in cleantech exports even as technology prices have fallen sharply,” said Euan Graham, a data analyst for Ember.

The United States, which has positioned itself as a major fossil fuel exporter, sold US$80bil in oil and gas abroad through July, the last month with data available. China exported US$120bil in green technology over the same period.

That’s a continuation of a trend. The United States hit a record in oil exports in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. Yet, China’s clean technology exports were US$30bil higher. 

Dollars only tell part of the story. The price of solar panels is falling, which means that China is exporting more of them per dollar earned. August’s solar export revenue was nowhere near the high set in March 2023, but the 46,000MW of power capacity shipped abroad set a record.

Continue reading “More Evidence: Trump’s Fossil Strategy Plunging Over a Cliff”

Much to the consternation of performative fossil fueled faux “Christians”, the new American Pope, Leo XIV, is continuing the calls of his predecessor, Pope Francis, for attention to climate change, and its impact on the poorest of the poor, and nature itself.

His voice is an important one, and for a billion or so people around the world, maybe the only one who can cut through the noise on climate messaging.
A recovering Catholic schoolboy myself, I fear if I went to communion at this point, I might burst into flame. But I do remember that “Catholic” means Universal, and the best traditions of the Church have long included a strong intellectual stream. The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest and most revered scientific institutions of the world.

National Catholic Reporter:

Those who hoped that Pope Leo XIV would back away from Pope Francis ‘ concerns about global warming and the environment were severely disappointed last week. Instead, Leo firmly embraced the environmental agenda Francis laid out in Laudato Si’, his historic encyclical that put the church firmly on the side of protecting the planet.

Pope Leo did this at Castel Gandolfo in an address Wednesday (Oct. 1) to over 1,000 participants in the Raising Hope Conference on the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’. At the conference, religious leaders, scientists and activists prayed and discussed the role of religion in climate justice.

While a change of administrations in Washington has led the government to abandon efforts to deal with global warming, a change of papacies has shown the church will stay the course in defending God’s creation from wanton destruction.

In his Sept. 23 harangue to the United Nations, President Donald Trump said that in his opinion, global warming is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” He urged nations to embrace oil and gas production.

Responding to Trump without naming him, Leo complained Wednesday that “Some have chosen to deride the increasingly evident signs of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them the most.”

Unlike Trump, Leo acknowledges the reality of climate change and reaffirmed the church’s commitment to protect God’s creation. Those concerned about global warming will be relieved that Leo is not changing course but is fully committed to protecting the environment.

Continue reading “New Pope Joins Call for Climate Action”

Bloomberg:

European countries curtailed a record amount of wind power in the first nine months of the year as excess output overwhelmed infrastructure that was unable to absorb surges in the flow of renewable power.

From January to September, Germany, Spain, France and South Sweden recorded the highest curtailment rates, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group. UK wind curtailment was not included in the dataset. West Denmark saw a slight decline compared to the same period a year earlier.

As Europe has rapidly expanded its renewable fleets without matching grid investments, curtailment — the intentional reduction of wind and solar output — has become increasingly common. Some plants are ordered to shut down when the grid is overloaded, while others do so voluntarily when power prices drop too low. The costs of grid-related shutdowns often end up being passed on to consumers.

Continue reading “Wasted Wind Costing EU Billions – But Big Batteries Bring Bountiful Benefits”

Midland Daily News (Michigan):

That giant sucking sound you hear is money being vacuumed out of ratepayer’s pockets and into the coffers of the fossil fuel industry.

In May, claiming an “energy emergency”, the Department of Energy ordered that the 60-year-old J. H. Campbell plant near Holland, Michigan, which was scheduled to close May 31, remain open an additional 90 days.

Garrick Rochow, CEO of the plant’s operator, Consumers Energy, told an interviewer,“We had people that were going to retire at closure, we had people that were going to move on to other jobs, and so you’re asking people to stay on another 90 days.”

He added, “Many of our coal contracts have expired. We no longer have rail cars. We have to look at leases for rail cars again….is it just 90 days, or is it more than 90 days? We can’t answer that question.” 

Rochow’s query was well founded.

In August the plant  was ordered to stay open another 90 days by the “small government conservatives” openly intervening to pick winners, or in this case, losers, in competitive markets.

Continue reading “Column: Trump’s DEI for Fossil Fuels”

“..It’s organized, it’s deliberate, it’s financially motivated.”
Peter Hotez and Michael Mann writing about the currently ascendant war on science.

Those of us living in the world’s leading petrostate have a special responsibility to push back.

Farm Journal report above.
Just in time to multiply impact of the trade war farm crisis, drought is causing a low Mississippi for the 4th year in a row, hampering grain shipments to Gulf ports.

US Drought Monitor Midwest map.
Some rain did come thru this week, but drought still applies.

Wall Street Journal:

During one of Donald Trump’s first visits to this politically important state, then-Gov. Terry Branstad highlighted a structure on a hilltop during their ride from the airport to a political event on the fairgrounds.

The 133-foot-tall wind turbine, the fair’s tallest attraction, has been there for close to two decades. It is a testament to the longstanding importance of wind energy in a state that put Trump on the road to the White House—twice—with its first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

Branstad and other Iowans managed to convince Trump to support corn-based ethanol—another important energy product in this state. But they have had no luck quashing his hatred of wind turbines, a cornerstone of his broader assault on renewable energy.

“Energy prices have been going down, other than in certain states where you have Democrat-run states, where they put windmills all over the place,” Trump said this summer. “Anytime you see a windmill, you’ll say, they have bad energy costs.”

Branstad, who served as Trump’s ambassador to China during his first term, disagrees with his former boss.

“We want to make sure that he understands wind energy is important for Iowa,” the former governor said in an interview.

Continue reading “Trump’s Wind War Roils Red States”

Right, this is off topic, but if you are a reader here, the videos above and below are most definitely in your lane.

AI Overview:

AI alignment is the practice of designing Artificial Intelligence systems so their goals, behaviors, and actions are consistent with human values, intentions, and societal norms. It is a research field focused on making AI helpful, safe, and reliable by preventing unintended consequences and harmful behaviors, like bias or misinformation, and ensuring human control and trust in these increasingly powerful systems.  

Some of the panic about Data Center driven demand growth could be overheated.

Daily Energy Insider:

Duke University released a study that examines the untapped potential of the U.S. power system to handle more load capacity.

The study, called Rethinking Load Growth: Assessing the Potential for Integration of Large Flexible Loads in US Power Systems, says the U.S. power system has the potential to more quickly add large loads while mitigating the need for costly system upgrades. It adds that this potential exists as long as those loads can occasionally cut their power use when the grid is most stressed.

The analysis also provides an estimate of the volume of new flexible load that could be added within the existing capacity of each of the 22 largest balancing authorities, which represent 95 percent of the power system.

There were three main key takeaways from the report. They are:

1. Load flexibility could be an important tool to support economic growth while maintaining grid reliability and affordability. Load flexibility refers to the ability of customers to temporarily reduce their electricity consumption from the grid. That task could be accomplished by using onsite generators, shifting workload to other facilities or reducing operations. This offers a near-term alternative to more expensive—and less climate-friendly—measures.
2. Balancing authorities could collectively add nearly 100 gigawatts of large loads to the grid with minimal impact. The study introduces a new concept called curtailment-enabled headroom. This concept is used to describe how much additional load the grid can absorb using existing capacity, with modest, brief reductions in usage. The 100-GW estimate assumes that these new loads would be curtailed by an average of 0.5 percent of their maximum uptime each year to help the grid meet peak demand. Peak demand would include extremely hot or cold days. The average curtailment time would be about two hours, which is consistent with the storage capacity of short-duration batteries.
3. The estimated annual curtailment time is comparable to existing demand response programs already in place around the country. These programs incentivize customers, mostly industrial and commercial energy users, to change their electricity usage. The changes help reduce peak loads or provide other services, such as targeted deferral of grid upgrades or integration of wind and solar energy that are available at varying times.

Continue reading “Powering Data Centers a Do-Able Challenge – Duke Study”

We all know it’s coming – big expensive bailouts for farmers.

 Trump has done the impossible, by making consumers pay more than ever for food, while farmers still are going broke, and then forcing us to bail them out with funds from the added tariffs that we already paid.

There’s another way to go, that won’t completely solve the problem of toxic, clueless leadership, but would certainly help a lot of local farmers and rural communities – stop blocking farmers from siting more clean energy.

Tony Zartmann in the Toledo Blade:

As a Paulding County farmer for 25 years, a former Paulding County commissioner, and now the director of operations for the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum, I have seen firsthand how Ohio’s farmers are struggling with rising costs, low commodity prices, and the added pressures of state policies that limit their ability to stabilize their operations through renewable energy development.

The economic struggle in Ohio’s agricultural community is real — and getting worse every day.

The cost of farm inputs, the essential supplies needed to grow our food, has skyrocketed over the past two decades.

U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates show that production costs have increased by more than 220 percent during that period.

At the same time, commodity prices — the market value farmers can expect for their crops — remain stuck at levels last seen in 2007 to 2008.

Agriculture is unique in that farmers plant each season without knowing what price they will receive at harvest.

Imagine running any other business with no ability to predict your revenue — it would be unthinkable. Yet this gamble is the reality every Ohio farmer faces.

The financial squeeze has led to a massive consolidation of farms across the state.

Continue reading “Ohio Farmer: Clean Energy Instead of Bailouts”