Markets? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Markets

Aren’t you glad we have all these hard nosed capitalist business men in charge in DC?
We’ve heard ad nauseam about the terrible subsidies for clean energy, and how evil globalists are “picking winners” by incentivizing clean energy.
So, what does the market think of, say, coal?

Associated Press:

 Federal officials rejected a company’s bid to acquire 167 million tons of coal on public lands in Montana for less than a penny per ton, in what would have been the biggest U.S. government coal sale in more than a decade.

The failed sale underscores a continued low appetite for coal among utilities that are turning to cheaper natural gas and renewables such as wind and solar to generate electricity. Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change, which scientists say is raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.
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So markets seem to be telling us something important about the demand for coal. The reasons for that are obvious if you look at the costs of coal generation compared to cleaner, cheaper, quicker to market competitors.

But, Republican “Business men” in charge are where they are because of donors. And a lot of those donors are fossil fuel barons. And those donors expect some payback.

Indiana Capital Chronicle:

Federal officials have ordered a temporary halt to the planned shutdowns of two coal-burning Indiana power plants amid President Donald Trump’s attempts to boost the coal mining industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy orders issued Tuesday require Northern Indiana Public Service Co. and CenterPoint Energy to keep those generating plants operating despite their intentions of closing them this month.

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Jeff Masters: How to Use the IPCC to Deny Climate Change

Grifters gonna grift.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters breaks down how climate disinformers like Secretary of Energy (and fracking grifter) Chris Wright can pretend to use the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to distort and deny climate reality.

Yale Climate Connections:

The new Department of Energy secretary, Chris Wright, until recently was the CEO of Liberty Energy, the nation’s second-largest fracking firm. In 2024, the firm published a manifesto called “Bettering Human Lives,” in which Wright makes a provocative statement that would be reassuring – if only it were true: 

“Another thing that we often hear about climate change is that it leads to a significant increase in extreme weather events with deadly consequences. This claim is false. Extensive reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) actually show no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or weather-related droughts,” Wright wrote in a CEO letter introducing the report.

The IPCC is a U.N. body with the job of providing information about climate science to governments. Thousands of scientists volunteer to contribute to its reports, which are published every five to seven years. 

Wright’s claim about what the IPCC says is effectively rebutted by atmospheric scientist Jim Kossin, one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, in the video below by Peter Sinclair, a former Yale Climate Connections contributor. 

“We have high confidence that extreme precipitation events are increasing in intensity and frequency and that human actions are playing a substantial role,” Kossin says in the video. Even for drought, where the science is somewhat less certain, “We still have good confidence that drought extremes are increasing and that human actions are playing a role,” Kossin adds.

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Bomb Cyclone Pummels Great Lakes, Testing Grid

Power outages across the Great Lakes region as a Bomb Cyclone moved thru with wind gusts exceeding 50 mph.
Power was down here in my neighborhood yesterday as tree limbs heavy from icy rain came crashing down all over.
Storms are not unusual in the Great Lakes region, but for those who regularly deal with the consequences of weather, there is a recognition of an unmistakeable climate signal.

Detroit Free Press, 10/06/23:

Jackson-based Consumers Energy reported third-quarter earnings Thursday, highlighting the cost-cutting initiatives the utility has taken after the high restoration costs associated with a near-record level of storm activity this year, it said.
“Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen an increase in both the frequency of storms and higher wind speeds, some of the most extreme winds within the last four years,” Garrick Rochow, president and CEO of Consumers Energy, said on the call. “We’re clearly seeing the effects of climate change.”
For example, he said the design standard for its system was to withstand 40 mph winds. Now, that’s been changed to 80 mph.

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2025’s Best Invention? Simple Gizmo Unlocks Big Transmission Gains

We are in an era when daunting technical problems and trend lines that look catastrophic are being rapidly addressed by engineering solutions that might not have been obvious just a few years ago.
The continuing confluence of tech advances, that synergize and amplify each other, can, as in this example, radically simplify a once intractable problem.
One of the biggest obstacles to deploying more renewables has been a lack of transmission capacity to bring solar and wind, often produced in remote areas, to centers of demand.
Building new transmission lines is difficult, hard to permit, expensive, and takes years in the best case. But what if you could get existing lines to carry more power?

In this case, unlocking massive new capacity on existing transmission grids was waiting for:

• Better, more durable sensors.
• Reliable drone operation|
• Climate pressures make compelling economics
• Software able to process more complex data

Time Magazine – Best Inventions of 2025:

Virtually none of the world’s high voltage powerlines have sensors—they operate based on conservative estimates about safe capacity and run below their true peak capability. So Heimdall Power developed the Neuron, its “magic ball.” The round device attaches to power lines to measure conditions affecting capacity (temperature is key) and calculate how much current the line can actually carry, making for more efficient use and improving the safety and reliability of power transmission. It’s already in use in Europe, and an August analysis of the first year of Heimdall’s first big U.S. project in Minnesota found Neurons increased transmission capacity 63% at peak demand and would save an estimated $3 millio

Could Natural Gas Bubble be Ready to Pop?

Matt Randolph, aka Mr Global founded Oklahoma based Sentinel Energy, which operates oil and gas wells

Above, Matt Randolph aka Mr Global, called my attention to a recent article in Reuters which kind of reinforced a number of things I’ve been thinking about, with regard to fossil gas.

The Trump administration’s moves make a lot of sense if you understand the motivation to lock in as much permanent fossil gas infrastructure, both here in the US (by blackmailing New England to build new pipelines by blocking offshore wind) and abroad, (with tariffs as a threat) as possible.
But renewable energy is steadily eating gas’s lunch, particularly with the advent of super cheap solar panels and battery storage.

“So the danger is building a 30 year infrastructure project for a demand curve that may peak and decline much sooner than they initially thought,” says Randolph.

“The global energy system is changing more rapidly than we thought – even if it’s not happening in the United States, it’s happening around the world.”

Antony Currie for Reuters:

Solar, wind power and batteries are set to make life a misery for the liquefied natural gas market. Some fossil fuel executives already think the push by incumbents like Exxon Mobil , Shell and Woodside Energy to hike global production by some 50% by 2030, per the International Energy Agency, is creating a bubble. But renewable energy’s advantages will make the pop even worse.

On the surface, the LNG expansion might look rational. Europe’s share of imports of liquid methane has doubled to 30% since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, per Capital Economics, and the rise of artificial intelligence has created a boom in power-hungry data centres. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is trying to force purchases of more U.S. fossil gas into trade agreements with the EU, Vietnam and others. And the industry argues LNG is the transition fuel to wean the world off coal power – especially Asia, which already accounts for 65% of global LNG imports.

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Are You Dumb Enough to Fall for It? Trump’s Wind Energy BS

David Pakman does a nice job dissecting Interior Secretary Burgum’s BS on offshore wind.
It’s all going to court, and odds are high that this nonsense will not stand. It does discourage capital from these investments, and that’s certainly one motivation for the continued interference.

Fun Fact:

Burgum’s state, North Dakota, where he used to be Governor, and knows very well, saw electricity prices fall as they added more wind and sun, and shut down coal plants over the last 6 years.
On Fox News, he bragged about lower electricity prices in his state, without telling the audience why, and admitting the very reason offshore wind is under attack, because it competes so well with natural gas, and completely obliterates coal.

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What the Clean Energy Industry Must Do in 2026

Above, good overview and pep talk from Jigar Shah, who knows whereof he speaks on clean energy, and what we need going forward. Despite the MAGA blowback, renewables are still the vast majority of new energy, riding a wave of popular support, and beating fossil fuels on Wall Street.

Guardian:

Most Americans now connect the worsening climate crisis with their cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and halt windfarms, new polling has found.

About 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to the polling by Yale University.

Extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves, exacerbated by the climate crisis, are taking a toll on food production, with recent spikes in the cost of coffee and chocolate blamed by experts, at least in part, on global heating.

Meanwhile, many Americans have faced rising home electricity costs and steep increases in home insurance premiums, with both of these areas also influenced by the climate crisis and the Trump administration’s decision to choke off solar and wind power, often the cheapest source of energy.

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“Like Kansas in May” – California Taking a Major Hit

You’re not in California anymore, Dorothy.

Storm Chaser Colin McCarthy on X:

I have never seen a model predict an arc of supercell thunderstorms making landfall in California like this before. The severe weather setup we will see tonight is something you might only experience in this part of the world once a decade, or even less often. The

@NWSBayArea discussion puts it into perspective: “In fact, our next shift just walked in and one of the meteorologists said it feels like Kansas in May out there.” The most dangerous line of severe storms, with the highest tornado threat, will make landfall after midnight along the coast from the Central Coast up to the North Coast. However, lines of strong storms will begin making landfall after 7 PM. Expect widespread wind gusts of 50+ mph, with isolated gusts over 70 mph tonight.

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