The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) remain committed to reducing CO2 emissions from their electric generation infrastructure. Virginia was an RGGI state until 2023 and legislation currently requires the state rejoin RGGI in 2026.

Dear Chief Justice Roberts: The Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence has long been valued by the federal and state judiciary for its neutrality, clarity, and restraint. It is used by more than 3,000 federal judges, many state judges, and has been cited in over 1,700 judicial opinions. Its purpose has always been to assist courts in evaluating scientific evidence—not to advance particular scientific, political, or policy agendas.

In Solar and Storage Marketing we estimated the cost of transitioning a Maryland residence with an existing 18.5 kW solar PV system connected to the utility grid to operate reliably off-grid during recent winter storm Fern, which reduced solar system generation to near zero for a period of 10 days.

Of the hundreds of conferences I have attended in my career, the 16th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC16) held on April 8 and 9 in Washington DC stands out as one of the very best. The several dozen presentations were well researched, right on topic and delivered with the right combination of content, humor and showmanship.

Solar energy system contractors and battery manufacturers have recently expanded their efforts to include battery storage capacity in residential and small commercial solar installations. Some are even teasing the idea of going off the grid. Adding a storage battery to a solar system is not a trivial expense.

The politically promoted concern about “affordability” rapidly focused on electricity rates as a target rich environment. In one sense this is not surprising, since electricity is used almost universally and thus affects virtually everyone. In another sense it is surprising, since electricity is one of the most heavily regulated commodities in the economy.

Last month I wrote a couple of articles about the January 23-27 winter storm and its ramifications on a future electric system that depends upon wind and solar and how it demonstrated that Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) will be needed.

The State of California, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and renewable energy advocates take great pride in the growth of renewable generation in the California market, as illustrated in the Facebook posts highlighted in our commentary “California Dreaming”.

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Protestors stood in the snow outside the offices of Ohio’s utility regulator in January to say they were fed up with rising electricity rates. Even a few years ago, the scene would have been hard to imagine, considering the complexity of utility costs and the obscurity of state regulatory agencies. But rate hikes in Ohio and across the country have provoked frustrated consumers to demand answers.

Politicians looked around for a cause for control, found climate change, diagnosed it as a crisis and applied Net Zero by 2050 as the remedy. The cause of the climate change crisis was diagnosed as anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.

When it comes to renewable energy, Michigan is the state to watch. By law, it must transition from 15% renewable electricity today to 50% by 2030, 60% by 2035, and be powered entirely by “clean” energy by 2040.

Analogy: a : a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect b : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike Extension cord: an electrical conductor used to move electricity from where it is available to where it is needed.

The habitual suspect in the three-decade-old trillion-dollar climate heist is, of course, human caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. But whether or not the temperature rise we’ve experienced is human caused, it could be that the self-proclaimed detectives in the media and public are being misled.

The US Northeast experienced an extratropical cyclone, commonly known as a Nor’easter, on February 23, 2026. The storm affected the East coast from Delaware North through New England, producing blizzard conditions and leaving multiple feet of snow in its wake.

This paper assesses whether direct air capture (DAC) can effectively remove carbon from the atmosphere in a physically, economically, and environmentally viable way and concludes that it cannot. DAC is inherently energy-intensive due to the laws of thermodynamics. Because using fossil fuels to power DAC facilities would reduce or even eliminate the resulting CO2 emissions ...

California state government and the climate and environmental communities take great pride in California’s “progress” toward a fossil fuel free clean energy future, as illustrated by the images and text below, recently published on Facebook.

The Sun’s influence on our planet cannot be overstated—it is the life source of us all, what keeps us warm and the Earth from freezing into a ball of ice. It’s no wonder that it is the primary driver of climate change, though environmentalists and the media, caught up with blaming humans for a climate catastrophe, have lost sight of the obvious.

I discussed factors which contribute to electricity price increases in a previous commentary. Richard Greene, the editor of the Honest Climate Science and Energy blog commented that I had not included the effects of increased natural gas prices. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides the following data on the natural gas prices paid by electric generators.

A few days ago the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new rule that rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding that found that six greenhouse gases emitted from autos posed risks to health and welfare. Also eliminated by the EPA decision are a set of regulations governing emissions from light vehicles and trucks that followed directly from the Endangerment Finding.

The graph below shows the demand and fuel mix for the PJM ISO for the seven day period 1/30/2026 – 2/5/2026. This was an abnormally cold period for the region. Peak load during the period was 145 GW at 8 am on 1/30. During the period, nuclear provided a consistent 33.6 GW, while coal contributed 25 - 30 GW. Natural gas generators provided the primary load following generation, varying from ...

From Government Accountability & Oversight 2009 Obama EPA appointees internally called the Endangerment Finding a “decision ready to go,” a “basic fact” and “nothing more than science and common sense”; discussion went straight to timing, suggesting predetermination and a sham notice-and-comment rule making process.

Electricity rate increases have been the focus of much discussion over the past several years. They are currently a specific focus of discussions regarding the current political catchphrase: “affordability”. There are numerous factors which cause or contribute to electricity rate increases. At the national level the primary factor is inflation in the general economy, which affects utility and merchant generator operating costs ...

The world currently has 8.2 billion people and a global economy approaching $120 trillion. The world also routinely experiences extreme weather events like tropical cyclones, floods, and tornadoes. Given these facts, how much economic loss should we expect annually from extreme weather events in the context of the global economy?

The pursuit of the transition of the energy economy has resulted in massive investments in redundant facilities. Redundancy is expensive and wasteful. It has contributed significantly to the inflation in the general economy, primarily as the result of the incentives, subsidies and mandates imposed to advance it.

One year since President Trump took office, his administration, along with Congress, have taken over 250 actions to unleash America’s energy potential. A list of those actions appears below.

Subsidies encourage market participation and support market growth by reducing the market prices of the subsidized products and actions. However, they do not reduce the societal cost of the products or actions and actually increase societal costs since the subsidies are typically provided from borrowed funds.

Back in the days before deregulation, when we had vertically integrated utilities, the cost of generation was less important. The utility owned all the generation they needed; power exchange between large utilities was limited largely to seasonal support and switched back and forth.

Subsidies are used to make the price of an alternative product or action as attractive as, or more attractive than, other available options. The magnitude of the subsidy is determined by the relative cost of the alternatives and their relative acceptability or desirability. Subsidies will cause some percentage of decision-makers to choose the subsidized product or action rather than the available alternatives.

“Canada is warming at roughly double the global average rate,” according to scientists at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). But it looks like this claim, regularly repeated by politicians and media across the board, is yet another example of made up evidence to support a politically correct narrative.

Corporations use incentives in a number of ways to “make things happen”. These are typically short duration programs to accelerate market entry for new products or services, such as reduced prices and warranty extensions, which are terminated when the product or service offering has achieved early market acceptance.

We have been fortunate to witness the largest climate event to occur on the planet since the advent of global satellite records, and possibly the largest event since the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. It is clearly a naturally occurring, externally forced climate event. However, mainstream climate scientists are not treating it appropriately.

The United States will continue on the path to energy independence and energy dominance, relying largely on natural gas while supporting life extension projects for nuclear and coal generators to maintain grid reliability. The US will also support efforts to expand nuclear generation both at GW scale and from SMRs. Uranium mining and fuel processing will be expanded.

The dream customer for a utility would consume a massive amount of power at a constant rate, 24 hours a day, with no seasonal variation. The data center is about as close to that as there is, with an enormous appetite for power and a typical load factor of 86%. The load factor is the utilization rate, defined as the average consumption divided by the peak. The load factor for a large electricity grid, such as ERCOT or MISO, is ~64%. A higher load factor results in lower costs for consumers by maximizing the use of all the equipment.

The year 2025 was all of the above, depending on who you were, what you did and where you lived. For the citizens of the United States, it was the end of the aggressive pursuit of Net Zero by 2050 with its mandates, subsidies and incentives. It was the end of the war on fossil fuels and its termination of oil and gas leases on federal land. It was the end of federal promotion of offshore wind. It was the end of the federal EV charging station program. It was the end of the federal pursuit of all-electric everything.

The Issue Utility-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS), together with wind and solar power, are increasingly promoted as the solution to enabling a “clean” energy future.1 Advocates argue that batteries can store surplus power from wind and solar generation and discharge it when needed.2 As a result, governments, utilities, and investors have directed billions of dollars toward utility-scale battery installations worldwide.

(Part 3) NGOs and their fellow travelers and hangers-on “flooded the zone” on social media in November 2025, prior to and during the UNFCCC COP30 in Belem, Brazil. They have published more than 50 posts on Facebook promoting renewable generation, raising concerns about the climate and soliciting support from Facebook users. I have sorted these posts into three categories based on their messages:

There is an old scientific maxim that complex systems rarely behave as planners expect. For decades, environmental policy has marched in the opposite direction—insisting that ever-larger interventions can be sketched out on whiteboards, implemented by decree, and assumed to behave as the architects intend. Offshore wind development is one of the latest manifestations of this technocratic impulse.

(Part 2 of 3) NGOs and their fellow travelers and hangers-on “flooded the zone” on social media in November 2025, prior to and during the UNFCCC COP30 in Belem, Brazil. They have published more than 50 posts on Facebook promoting renewable generation, raising concerns about the climate and soliciting support from Facebook users. I have sorted these posts into three categories based on their messages:

In an earlier essay I explained how positive feedbacks can lead to potentially problematic scientific mono-cultures. I also acknowledged that poor research design and data analysis had become commonplace within the behavioural sciences, largely as a result of a ‘natural selection’, driven by the career enhancement that comes with publication.

(Part 1) NGOs and their fellow travelers and hangers-on “flooded the zone” on social media in November 2025, prior to and during the UNFCCC COP30 in Belem, Brazil. They have published more than 50 posts on Facebook promoting renewable generation, raising concerns about the climate and soliciting support from Facebook users. I have sorted these posts into three categories based on their messages:

Any politician faced with the challenge of protecting the public from a natural threat, such as a pandemic or climate change, will be keen to stress how much they are ‘following the science’ — by which they mean they are guided by the dominant scientific narrative of the day. We would want this to be the case because we trust the scientific method as a selective process that ensures bad science cannot hope to survive for very long.

The graph below shows the generation by energy source for Duke Energy Carolina during the 5-day heat dome which occurred in late June 2025. Duke operated pumped storage hydro generation to meet peak demand on each of those hot sunny days and recharged the pumped storage capacity each night using electricity produced by conventional sources, predominantly natural gas and coal generation.

The Politico reporters claim the DOE report “cherry-picks mainstream research and omits context,” “relies on outdated studies,” “cites analyses that were not peer reviewed,” and “revives debunked arguments.” The reporters cite three examples of alleged cherry picking. First, as described by the reporters, the DOE authors claim that during the past 100 years, “the U.S. saw its most intense heat in the 1930s—and that maximum temperatures have never been that hot again.”

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Give thanks and celebrate. The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, originally predicted to be above average, turned out to be average, but with no landfalling hurricanes. Storm surge and heavy surf caused significant damage along the Carolina coast. However, that damage was far less severe than would have resulted had those two CAT-5 hurricanes made landfall.

Politico recently published an article titled “How a major DOE report hides the whole truth on climate change.” The reporters’ objective is obvious and their strategy simple. They aim to discredit the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to repeal the December 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding by discrediting a Department of Energy (DOE) draft report which is cited in the repeal proposal’s climate science discussion.

This commentary is the 500th in a series of climate change commentaries which began in the Fall of 2015 with the preparation of a climate change overview report for publication at www.therightinsight.org. The commentaries are archived and searchable on the website. Beginning in August, 2022 the commentaries are also cross-published at Climate Change Conundrum (edreid.substack.com) and at Energy Central (energycentral.com).

This is winning and this is getting the word out to a large audience. Richard Lindzen, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. William Happer, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University. Doctors Lindzen and Happer are recognized for questioning prevailing assumptions about climate change and energy policy. https://www.co2coalition.org

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change introduced the concept of “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities” (CBDR) in the global pursuit of climate change mitigation. The intent was to recognize that each nation approached the process from a unique beginning position with regard to economic development status and potential, emissions history and current emissions rates, but that their common goal was to control emissions at a level which would avoid environmental harm.

Net Zero Plans Are Dangerous and Unsupported by Science and the Scientific Method Net Zero initiatives of governments and private organizations are scientifically invalid and will lead to worldwide impoverishment and starvation if implemented, according to a paper published by the CO2 Coalition. The 55-page paper details how the objectives of Net Zero to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and the emissions of greenhouse gases are based on analytical methods that violate fundamental tenets of the scientific method which originated more than 300 years ago.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change introduced the concept of “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities” (CBDR) in the global pursuit of climate change mitigation. The intent was to recognize that each nation approached the process from a unique beginning position with regard to economic development status and potential, emissions history and current emissions rates, but that their common goal was to control emissions at a level which would avoid environmental harm.