Natural Gas Now Best Picks – January 28, 2023

Mississippi residents are consistently told that renewable energy sources, like solar panels, are now the lowest-cost ways to generate electricity, but these claims are based on creative accounting gimmicks that only examine a small portion of the expenses incurred to integrate solar onto the grid while excluding many others.

When these hidden expenses are accounted for, it becomes obvious that solar is much more expensive than Mississippi’s existing coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants and that adding more solar will increase electricity prices for the families and businesses that rely upon it…

Electricity generated by new solar panels would cost $50.67 per megawatt hour when accounting for the fact that monopoly utilities are allowed to increase electricity prices to cover the cost of building any new solar facilities that receive approval from the Mississippi Public Service Commission, plus a ten percent rate of return, shown as “utility profits,” below.

These cost estimates are, I should point out, for the unsubsidized cost of solar – what you might call the real, or underlying cost of producing it. This matters because the Biden administration’s enormous $370 billion so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” offers massive subsidies for solar, which on the surface seem to reduce the cost of solar. In reality, what the IRA subsidies do is reduce the cost paid by some by passing on the costs to the taxpayer. Subsidy, in other words, does not change the underlying costs of solar, which remain unattractive no matter how many inducements the federal government offers us to go solar.

The most affordable electricity in the state was generated by the combined cycle (CC) natural gas units at the Victor J. Daniel Generating Plant at a cost $30.31 per MWh, based on the 2021 delivered cost of natural gas, which was $3.90 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), and electricity generation. Natural gas prices might have risen recently, but even at these increased prices, natural gas gives Mississippians better value than solar…

Not only are solar panels more expensive than the existing natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants on Mississippi’s electric grid, but they also provide less value because they don’t provide electricity if the sun isn’t shining, which is most of the time.

Statistics from EIA show solar facilities in Mississippi only generated about 22 percent of their potential output in 2021, which means utility companies would need to install 450 megawatts (MW) of solar to generate 100 MW of electricity, on average, over the course of a year, requiring a huge overbuild of capacity to get the same annual energy output.

Creating an electric grid capable of incorporating all of these extra solar panels will require taking thousands more of acres of land, building more transmission lines to connect these panels to the grid, and moving the power to where it is needed. These costs, including the property taxes associated with the land, the lines, and the other equipment, will be passed along to customers through their electricity rates…

Lastly, it is important to remember that no matter how many solar panels are installed in Mississippi, the electricity needs of the state will still require the use of natural gas power plants or expensive new battery storge facilities to provide electricity when the sun isn’t shining, which happens every night. As a result, Mississippi families and businesses are forced to pay for two electric systems: one that works when the sun is out, and one that works when it isn’t.

This article is a keeper as it concisely captures the big picture on solar projects, which are invariably and definition boondoggles of the biggest sort.

Hat Tip: D.S.

The Fat Cat Power Seekers Behind the Gas Bans 

The ultra-rich who seek ever power over us are behind the natural gas bans getting attention:

Natural gas bans are more about class than climate change.

The Climate Imperative Foundation is the newest and richest anti-hydrocarbon, anti-natural gas group you’ve never heard of…

Despite numerous claims about how nefarious actors are blocking the much-hyped “energy transition,” the size of Climate Imperative’s budget provides more evidence that the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex has far more money than the pro-hydrocarbon and pro-nuclear groups. Indeed, the anti-hydrocarbon NGOs (most of which are also stridently anti-nuclear) have loads of money, media backing, and momentum…The five biggest anti-hydrocarbon NGOs are now collecting about $1.5 billion per year from their donors…That sum is roughly three times more than the amount being collected by the top five non-profit associations that are either pro-hydrocarbon or pro-nuclear…

Where is Climate Imperative getting its money? The board of directors likely holds the answer. The most recognizable names on the six-person board are Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs…A source with knowledge of the group’s funding told me this week that the majority of the money is coming from Doerr and Jobs. Forbes magazine estimates that Doerr has a net worth of $12.7 billion. Forbes puts Jobs’ net worth at $17.7 billion…

The effort to demonize gas stoves began in early 2020, at about the same time Climate Imperative was launched. That year, the Sierra Club claimed that gas stoves are “linked to respiratory illnesses, and children who live in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to have asthma.” The source for that claim was a paper by the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Colorado-based non-profit founded by renewable-energy promoter Amory Lovins.

One of the first legacy media outlets to publish an article promoting claims about bad air quality from gas stoves was The Atlantic. In October 2020, it published an article headlined “Kill Your Gas Stove.” It may be a coincidence, but The Atlantic is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs…

Since 2020, the Rocky Mountain Institute has continued its anti-gas crusade. Earlier this month, a spate of news stories were published after the group released a paper that claimed 12.7 percent of childhood asthmas are due to gas stoves…

But RMI’s asthma claims don’t stand up to scrutiny…

Where does RMI get the money to push its electrification agenda? Some of it is coming from Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. In 2020, the Bezos Earth Fund gave RMI $10 million, which the group said will be used to “reduce GHG emissions from homes, commercial structures, and other buildings, enabling RMI to increase its current work with a coalition of partners in key states. The project will focus on making all U.S. buildings carbon-free by 2040 by advocating for all-electric new construction…”

The Sierra Club has been a prime beneficiary of former New York City mayor  Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has pledged $500 million to the Beyond Carbon project. In 2019, the pledge was considered the largest ever “philanthropic donation to combat climate change.” The Sierra Club has been a primary beneficiary of Bloomberg’s giving. About two years ago, a Sierra Club employee told me that it is getting about $30 million per year from Bloomberg. On its website, the group touts its role in the Beyond Carbon initiative, calling it “the largest climate campaign in the U.S., with the goal of closing all domestic coal plants by 2030 and stopping the use of gas as a transition fuel.” (Emphasis added.)

Last August, the Sierra Club asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ban all natural gas appliances at the federal level. The group has had success in getting bans adopted in California…

Two final points. The first is the hypocrisy of billionaires funding efforts to slash hydrocarbon use while they are consuming staggering amounts of hydrocarbons. According to a 2020 article in Vanity Fair, Michael Bloomberg owns eight houses in New York state alone, and “he also reportedly owns several properties in London, Florida, Colorado, and Bermuda.” [And] Jobs owns a Gulfstream G650 (list price about $66 million) that burns about 500 gallons of jet fuel per hour. Bezos reportedly owns two Gulfstream G-650ERs. After Bezos flew to the 2021 climate meeting in Glasgow, a representative from the Bezos Earth Fund told Business Insider that all was well because the billionaire “uses sustainable aviation fuel, and offsets all carbon emissions from his flights.”

That line puts the hypocrisy of the billionaires funding anti-hydrocarbon initiatives in a nutshell: Bezos, Bloomberg, Jobs, and other uber-rich, hyper-mobile elites can purchase “offsets” for their private jets and mega-yachts, but the shlubs in the barrio can’t be allowed to use a gas stove to cook dinner because, in the words of RMI’s Talor Gruenwald, “Gas stove emissions are significant contributors to the climate crisis.” Never mind that, as the Breakthrough Institute’s Alex Trembath recently noted, that gas stoves account for just 0.4% of total U.S. gas use.

Reminder, elites absolutely love being called hypocrites because it’s a signal they’re better than us and the ordinary rules should not apply to them. Therefore, the real point of this story is not the hypocrisy, however delicious it may be to us, but the reality of who is funding the nonsense and why (because they seek ever more money and power). Never take your eye off the ball!

Hat Tip: J.S. & S.H.

So, Natural Gas Saves Water, Then…Nice!

Notice the buried lede:

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) today released the final 2022 Pennsylvania State Water Plan and an interactive online atlas of statewide water resources and use trends to inform leaders’ decision making and educate Pennsylvanians on sustainable use of our lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater…

The online water atlas shares data on statewide water use from 2008 to 2020. Overall water use in Pennsylvania decreased 33 percent, as daily withdrawals declined from 7.8 billion to 5.2 billion gallons per day in this time period. Closure of some coal-burning power plants was the primary reason for the decline, followed by reduced water use by some large manufacturers. However, overall water use varied by region, for example, water use ticked up in the Potomac region.

The certainly contradicts the scaremongering perpetrated by frcativists back in the day, doesn’t it? And, notice we’ve reduced water use by a third in 15 years, so tell me why we are doing a new state water plan and why we even need an agency such as the DRBC? Get rid of the damned thing!

Hat Tip: J.F.