President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil and gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines. “We should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. --Andrew Restuccia, The Hill, 17 January 2012
The progressive movement is in the process of splintering into two groups: white-collar professionals, whose passion for environmentalism and other pet causes comes at little or no expense to themselves, and blue-collar laborers and minorities, whose hopes for higher pay and better benefits often rest on heavy industry. --Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 18 January 2012
Wind farms are receiving millions of pounds to shut down when the weather is too windy, The Times has learnt. Dozens of onshore facilities shared £25 million last year, a 13,733 per cent increase on 2010, after a particularly blustery year, according to the figures released by National Grid. The payments to stop operating are made by National Grid because it cannot cope with the amount of power being fed on to the system when it is very windy. Ultimately, the cost of being shut down is passed on to households because National Grid charges energy suppliers, who add the levy to bills. --Tim Webb, The Times, 18 January 2012
Plans for a massive expansion of renewable energy will cost families an average of £400 a year each, a report warned last night. It accuses Energy Secretary Chris Huhne of ‘misleading’ the public by suggesting energy costs could be lower as a result of the Government’s drive for green power. It said official estimates had grossly underestimated the impact on families by leaving out much of the huge taxpayer subsidy for wind farms and other costly forms of renewable energy. --James Groves, Daily Mail, 18 January 2012
Germany's exit from nuclear power could cost the country as much as 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030, or two thirds of the country's GDP in 2011, according to Siemens, which built all of Germany's 17 nuclear plants. The estimate of 1.7 trillion euros assumes strong expansion of renewables, with feed-in tariffs as the biggest chunk of costs. "This will either be paid by energy customers or taxpayers," Siemens board member Michael Suess, told Reuters. --Christoph Steitz, Reuters, 17 January 2012
