Natural Gas Now Best Picks – August 19, 2023
Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
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Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy.
This week: Hawaii suffers from stupid energy policies, a fracking study that doesn’t tell many what they want to hear, it may be time to ban EVs and much more.
Look for these stories below, including links to the original articles!
The Foolish Policies That Produced the Hawaii Fires
Here’s what’s not making it into mainstream media coverage of the Hawaii fires that the New York Times, et al are intent upon blaming on global warming caused by oil and natural gas, of course:
Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.
Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.
The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.
But on the morning of August 8, as winds hammered the old wooden utility poles, this highly electrified area in the dry grasses above Lahaina was quickly becoming dangerous. Yet no formal procedure was in place to shut off sections of the grid in the face of severe fire risks. As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.
This pattern is being repeated everywhere as the unintended consequences of replacing natural gas, oil and coal with expensive, unreliable and downright dangerous renewables become ever more apparent.
Hat Tip: R.N.
That Pitt Study on Fracking? It’s Not What You’ve Been Told!
Yes, the Pitt study being promoted by dishonest fractivists says the opposite of what we’re led to believe dishonest special interest hacks with animus toward natural gas:
A new study attempting to blame natural gas development for negative health outcomes largely shows the opposite: that no linkage exists between fracking, adverse birth outcomes, and nearly all of the cancers studied.
The study, released by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, is the result of a four-year, multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded venture commissioned to study fracking’s effects on childhood cancers, specifically if fracking caused increased incidence of a rare cancer, Ewing sarcoma.
The research found “no associations” with natural gas development:
“There were no associations between unconventional natural gas development activities and childhood leukemia, brain and bone cancers, including Ewing’s family of tumors,” the study says.
…Similarly, the Associated Press reports these limitations:
“The researchers were unable to say whether the drilling caused the health problems, because the studies weren’t designed to do that.”
Even activists say that this study does not determine causation. As reported by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Ned Ketyer, president of the nonprofit Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, warned activists that the study’s findings would not make the case that energy production causes poor health outcomes:
“These studies are not designed to find causation. Especially when it comes to cancer. … If people are expecting it, they will be disappointed.”
So, there you have it. The study, ordered by a pathetic governor and conducted at great taxpayer expense, produced nothing but mush for those with mush for brains.
Hat Tip: N.S.
Is It Time to Ban EVs?
Well, well, well:
The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, “There is not a small amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes.” The resulting fire is “very difficult to extinguish and so it is particularly dangerous.”
Last year there were more than 200 fires from batteries from e-bikes, EVs, and other devices.
A fire ignited at an e-bike shop and killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 20. Two individuals were left in critical condition. The fire commissioner has warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very dangerous and typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible.
FDNY also reports that in just three years, lithium-ion battery fires have surpassed those started by cooking and smoking as the most common causes of fatal fires in New York City. It’s happening all over the country as these blazes have become commonplace. Cars and e-bikes are randomly blowing up in driveways and garages.
Now let’s be honest: 13 deaths in a city the size of New York with some 8 million people is hardly an epidemic. Regulations should always be based on a cost versus benefit calculation, or there would be no cars at all.
And yet the same scaremongers on the left who have zero tolerance and want bans for small risks when it comes to everything from swimming pool diving boards, gas stoves, plastic straws, vaping, fireworks, and so on, have a surprisingly high pain threshold when it comes to people dying or suffering critical injured from “green” electric battery fires.
Or consider this: In 1965, Ralph Nader almost single-handedly helped ban the popular Chevrolet Corvair—famous for its engine placed in the back trunk of the car. Nader’s bestselling shock book “Unsafe at Any Speed” declared the car was deadly. But there was no real evidence of that claim, and to this day there are no reliable statistics on how many passengers—if any—died in Corvairs from rear-end accidents.
What is indisputable is that EVs will cause far more deaths than Corvairs ever did.
Natural gas development has faced barrage after barrage of suggestions that it is dangerous and now the worm has turned. There is no energy source or human activity that is free from danger. Yet, EVs and other lithium dependent sources are being pushed relentlessly without regard for dangers.
Hat Tip: D.S.
And, Briefly…
Indonesia Says Whoa on Western Funded Net Zero Program, from D.S. & R.N.
China and India Playing Us for Fools, from D.B.
1,600 Scientists Say There Is No Climate Emergency, from S.H.
Scientists Say EPA Climate Regulations Based On Hoax, from E.S.
Manufactured Consensus on Climate Tells Us Nothing, from J.S.
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