Relying On Weather Is A Risky Endeavor

• Check out the TEA Newsroom for the latest energy news and opinion, sorting Common Sense from the Nonsense.
• TEA columnist: Let’s commit to “Build, Baby, Build.”
• $131M natural gas facility opens in Pennsylvania.
• Trump officials pressure the world’s top energy agency to drop its climate mission.
• Japan’s top gas importer is considering buying LNG from Alaska.
• Epstein: Canada is squandering the most significant oil opportunity on earth.
• Burgum leans away from ‘all-of-the-above’ energy.
• Woodside gives nod for $17.5B US LNG project.
• Opinion: Trump must avoid ‘all-of-the-above’ rhetoric to achieve American energy dominance.
• The EPA is canceling nearly 800 environmental justice grants.
• Advocates mobilize against Republican plans to tax EVs.
• House votes to overturn CA gas car ban.
• What’s in the US-Ukraine mineral deal?

COURT WINS BOOST ENERGY PROJECTS: The Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) has touted several recent federal court decisions as wins for America’s oil and natural gas.

Why it matters: The agency said recently that recent federal court decisions in four legal cases centered on the Dakota Access Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline in Tennessee, an oil-export facility in Texas and the export of liquefied natural gas from a planned terminal in Alaska were legal “wins” that “underpin the intentions” of President Donald Trump’s executive order to “unleash” American energy.

In layperson’s terms, it’s a victory at last, following a bleak period where American energy producers and consumers paid the price for green extremist policies. Thankfully, those days are over.

Consider: For four years, President Biden and Congressional Democrats used federal agencies and liberal court allegiances to stifle domestic energy production. Finally, President Trump’s team and the courts appear more in lockstep in unleashing affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources.

As the above piece states, it is a tale of two presidents and two distinct visions: Biden demands industry pause until the government can catch up, while Trump orders the government to get out of the way so industry can thrive.

• In a separate case, a Department of Energy authorization for exporting LNG from a planned terminal in south-central Alaska had faced a challenge.
• The environmental group plaintiffs had alleged that the DOE did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and “misconceived the public interest” of the project. According to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, they took issue with mentions of emissions uncertainties related to it.
• That court “denied plaintiffs’ petition for review of a Department of Energy action to authorize” exports of LNG from that site.

These are significant victories. Pipelines and export facilities are critical components of the Trump administration’s desire to “Build, Baby, Build,” a concept strongly supported by The Empowerment Alliance.

Bottom Line: In his first 100 days, President Trump has turned his campaign promises into action by reviving domestic drilling and production, accelerating LNG exports, cutting red tape that held back US energy jobs, and lowering energy prices.

RENEWABLES JUST NOT RELIABLE: A catastrophic power outage plunged millions of people in Spain and Portugal into chaos this week. Blackouts in Europe are a stark reminder to countries not to rely on unreliable energy sources like wind and solar power.

Why it matters: Several experts have said this disaster wasn’t caused by extreme weather or natural disasters; it was driven by a dangerously unstable reliance on intermittent renewable energy. In short, left-wing governments embraced renewable energy while dismantling the infrastructure that once ensured sovereignty and stability.

Consider:

• The generation mix in each country played a significant role.
• Portugal’s renewable generation was hit the hardest, with wind output collapsing by more than 54% during the outage.
• High solar generation also contributed to initial grid fluctuations, as solar accounted for around 29% of Spain’s total generation at the time of the event, making the system more sensitive to voltage instability.

France’s nuclear fleet, however, provided steady baseload generation throughout the event, allowing it to respond swiftly once interconnectors were re-engaged. Spain and Portugal are champions of green energy in the EU, sourcing over 80 percent of their electricity from renewables just before the outage hit on Monday. Just two years ago, it was roughly half that amount.

As Spain’s power recovers, natural gas is making up more of the mix than usual, covering just over 50% of available electricity as of Tuesday. This again proves which fuel sources are reliable and fail to make the grade.

The country officially denies that renewables caused the failure, yet evidence points to the contrary.

Experts have previously said that the rapid expansion of wind and solar power is putting increased pressure on the Spanish grid, which needs an upgrade to handle record volumes of intermittent renewables.

And it wasn’t even that hot. Temperatures across the interior remain moderate, ranging from the mid-50s to the low 70s Fahrenheit, hardly extreme conditions that could credibly destabilize a robust energy system.

Earth science professor Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki notes that the transition to renewable energy, driven by alarmist climate policies, creates vulnerabilities that threaten human lives.

“Spain and Portugal’s blackout must serve as a wake-up call,” he wrote.

Some critics of Europe’s fashionable policies on renewable energy have suggested that the blackouts are to be expected given Europe’s reckless pursuit of unreliable energy sources such as solar and wind power. For example, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform UK Party, predicted that “the lights are going to go out here too” if Britain carries on with “renewable lunacy.”

The world saw that the Iberian Peninsula’s energy grid, heavily reliant on intermittent renewables, is dangerously vulnerable.

Bottom Line: The Spanish blackout is a good reminder for US policymakers that there is no substitute for dispatchable, baseload power. It’s impossible to run a full-time grid on part-time power.

Hearing On DOE Budget: On Wednesday, May 7, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies will have a budget hearing for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Hearing On AI: On Thursday, May 8, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will have a hearing to examine winning the AI race, focusing on strengthening United States capabilities in computing and innovation.

“When you hitch your wagon to the weather, it’s just a risky endeavor. 15 years ago, energy wasn’t that much more expensive in Europe than it was in the United States and our economies were roughly the same size: 25% of global GDP. If you look at that today, the U.S. has gone up to 28% and Europe has shrunk to 18%. And I think the biggest driver of that by far, is just getting energy wrong. If you choose to have expensive, unreliable energy you can’t have a thriving economy.”

— Energy Secretary Chris Wright, when asked in an interview about the blackout on the Iberian Peninsula