Energy Archives - Page 20 of 25

It isn’t often that Government gets rid of a tax – Celebrate it!

January 4, 2019 Skip

Especially when it is on something we use everyday (reformatted, emphasis mine): Consumption tax axed With the new year came a little-noticed state tax repeal. It’s the electricity consumption tax, a charge on everyone’s electricity bill created back in 1978 after construction started on the Seabrook nuclear power plant…Lawmakers decided to make this tax go away … Read more

NH Will Defend the Re-distributive Biomass Bailout Bill from Legal Challenge

December 11, 2018 Steve MacDonald

In the last legisaltive session the New Hampshire (Republican Majority™) legislature overrode Governor Sununu’s veto of the Biomass bailout Bill. SB365 forces electricity providers like Eversource to pay above market rates for power from wood-burning plants. That increase is passed on to consumers.

US Oil Exports Increase 80% in 2018 – “Fuel” Job Growth and Economic Recovery

September 26, 2018September 8, 2018 Steve MacDonald

bakken-oil-rig-north-dakota-continental-resources — Bakken Oil Rig – North Dakota

Mr. Obama did a little dance the other day repeating the Trump Derangement Syndrome Narratives while taking credit for the Republican’s Economic recovery. Does that mean that Barry is laying claim to this economic boon?

U.S. crude oil exports saw an 80 percent increase in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest data and analysis issued Thursday by the Energy Information Administration.

That’s an increase of 787,000 barrels per day, to set a new monthly record in June of 2.2 million barrels on average per day.

Brookstone’s Failure Should Send a Message to the NH Legislature About Biomass Bailouts

September 22, 2019September 7, 2018 Steve MacDonald

At the end of August, I shared an email from a reader. They suggested that New Hampshire’s choice of tax policies was somehow tied to a series of business failures (some pending), one of which was Brookstone, a niche specialty items chain that has corporate offices in Merrimack (ack-ack), New Hampshire.

Brookstone is failing, yes. But is it New Hampshire’s fault?

Advocates For Affordable Energy In NH Need To Fight for It

November 30, 2023August 12, 2018 Steve MacDonald

An above-the-fold story on the front of the Sunday Union Leader starts with “New gas pipeline gains support.” The project is an underground pipeline to carry natural gas from Manchester to Stratham. Governor Sununu likes it. The Business and Industry Association likes it. Small and large business owners, as well as ratepayers, might like it.

Where Obama Pretended, Trump Team Supports Real Black ‘Power’

September 26, 2018July 16, 2018 Steve MacDonald

Paul Driessen, writing at Townhall, explains Carbon Colonialism.

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) use manmade climate change alarmism to justify lending policies that reject funding for fossil fuel electricity generation, promote expensive and unreliable renewable sources, and thereby help keep impoverished nations poor.

But something is changing.

Electricity Supply Rate Costs in New Hampshire to Increase 19%

December 11, 2018June 24, 2018 Steve MacDonald

The State Public Utilities Commission has approved a request by Eversource for a 19.1% hike in energy supply charges, according to the Union Leader.

The Public Utilities Commission approved the supply charge to go up from the current 7.903 cents per kilowatt hour to 9.412 cents.

This is a direct pass-through for the price of generated power with no profit going to the utility, Eversource officials said Friday.

And who can we think of that has been at the forefront of ramming expensive uncompetitive energy down our throats?

Gov. Sununu Vetoes “Energy” Bills That Would Drive Up Electric Rates

September 26, 2018June 20, 2018 Steve MacDonald

Last week we shared a rumor that Governor Chris Sununu was prepared to veto SB 365 and SB 466. Both pieces of legislation were bipartisan sops to green energy that would drive up our already unreasonably high electric rates.

That rumor is now a fact.

In his veto statement on Tuesday, Sununu said the two bills would cost Granite State ratepayers approximately $100 million over the next three years in higher electricity costs, placing a strain on the elderly, those on fixed incomes and businesses.

Data Point – Remember that Paris Accord that was never a treaty or an agreement?

September 26, 2018June 17, 2018 Skip

Trump rightfully tossed it onto the ash heap of Obama’s “Arc of History” – it rightfully belongs there because it had no worth. Obama, like many other actions he took during his Presidency, only wanted to be seen as doing something rather than actually doing something and the Paris Accord belongs in it. What worth is there when only a President signs an “agreement”? Nothing – the next President can do exactly what Trump did. Obama was lazy – relying on Executive Orders and bureaucratic rulemaking which meant it could be done away with a flourish of a pen.

Sununu May Veto Net Metering Expansion and Fuel Diversity Bill

September 26, 2018June 14, 2018 Steve MacDonald

veto There’s a rumor goin’ round that Gov Sununu is planning to veto two pieces of legislation. The first, SB446, would drive up electric rates by forcing companies like EverSource to buy more green energy at retail rates (instead of wholesale) for qualified “green energy” from anyone who generates it in the State.

The second, SB365, would also drive up rates by mandating that power companies purchase MORE Biomass “green” energy.

Environmental virtue-signaling costs you more. It costs businesses more. It costs jobs, growth, you get the picture.

Could EverSource State Supreme Court Victory Mean Lower Electric Rates in NH?

September 26, 2018May 23, 2018 Steve MacDonald

New Hampshire has a resource problem. We’ve too many ax-grinders protesting energy infrastructure projects but you can’t create electricity with those. Not legally. You need something else. Several somethings. But each and every effort to improve energy infrastructure in the Granite State is protested, blocked, or dragged out in court until the developers give up.

If we don’t replace or update aging infrastructure, many of which the same ax-grinders are working to shutter, we’ll be reduced to wood and solar. By that I mean a world lit only by fire.

Republican Legisalture Gives NH Gov. Another Opportunity to Redistribute Wealth

September 26, 2018May 20, 2018 Steve MacDonald

The NH House and Senate have delivered three ‘energy bills’ to Governor Sununu that favor so-called green generation that drives up electric rates. One (SB446) expands net metering which means more pricey power from a wider range of sources. The second (SB365) prop up wood-burning plants. The third (SB577) subsidizes the Berlin Bio-Mass plant. All three divert money via higher rates to other people’s pockets.

At least one of them claims to save jobs, but as armchair economists know this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The state through legislative force is taking money from the marketplace (job creators, consumers, and even municipalities) to prop up their mandates. Money that would otherwise find more productive uses.

The Tyranny of Administrative (Green) Power in New Hampshire

August 31, 2022October 12, 2017 Steve MacDonald

Barry Brownstein, writing at the Foundation for Economic Education, outlines the problem and abuses of administrative power, right here in New Hampshire, summed up in his closing paragraph.

Economic Malpractice

July 15, 2024August 15, 2016 Steve MacDonald

We continue the discussion with Greg Moore from Americans for Prosperity on Government meddling with medical care and coverage and the economic malpractice that results–fewer startups, employment stagnation, wage deflation, and other symptoms of this regulatory disease, including those specific to New Hampshire.

Power Play

July 15, 2024December 21, 2015 Steve MacDonald

We explore energy deregulation and its effect on rate payers, power plants and providers, investment, and cost-recovery, with industry expert Susan Olsen. Full podcast here.

Data Point – A Time to Drill

September 26, 2018April 29, 2013 Skip

It is clear that if energy is needed, and it is found, it can be drilled for and drilled quickly. It is also clear that Obama’s Administration does not believe it is needed nor wanted, so they slow walk it (if moving forward on one’s knees is construed as reasonable progress). (H/T: RedState)

Data Point – US Energy Consumption per Dollar of GDP

September 26, 2018April 28, 2013 Skip

Efficient! (H/T: AEIdeas)

But can you get a Bachelor’s in both kinds of stupid?

September 26, 2018February 11, 2013 Steve MacDonald

Following in the footsteps of Steve’s great post, I thought I ought to mention (if you hadn’t already heard) there is a student- advocacy organization at UNH called the Student Environmental Action Coalition pressing the university to divest itself from ‘oil and other fossil fuel’ companies. Mimicking other non-reality-based schools, these little darlings seem to want the world to be run on nothing but clean, green, renewable energy, thus saving the world if not for their progeny (what with free contraception and all that), at least for the polar bears and unicorns. Just how much of UNH’s (2011[i]) $227 million endowment is invested in one form or another of nasty fossil fuels, I do not know. But I’m pretty sure that none of the university’s or the town of Durham’s utilities or municipal services are currently fueled by solar, wind or fairy dust.

On the contrary, it appears as though electricity is supplied by PSNH and the NH Electric Coop; natural gas is supplied by Northern Utilities; the university has its own water system but the town runs the wastewater treatment plant and trash pickup.

Another stupid TV anchor – one of the MSM’s finest sounds a bit off key.

September 26, 2018February 11, 2013 Skip

Progressives – the ones that claim that they are the reality based ones that are science oriented. Well, Steve’s got the CNN looney bird that thinks approaching asteroids are due to our so-called “global warming” – her exclamation had to be both reality and scientifically based, eh? And now, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell decides to lend her most informed opinion to the fray:

Think about it – we can hamstring our economy just to make her feel good – after all, she is pretty well insulated from the actual industries that, you know, use energy to create wealth generating products and services. She earns a 1% living – far above what others do. Yet, while she could absorb the extra energy costs with ease, most normal folks can’t (they’re struggling now with gas prices that are spinning the dials faster and faster the last couple of weeks). But that’s the least of the idiocy:

Why Did We Need RGGI?

September 26, 2018January 4, 2013 Steve MacDonald

With the recent approval of significant electric rate increases that will allow PSNH to recover some $67 million dollars a year in costs related to legislated state energy mandates (NH Renewable Standard and the RGGI tax), having this fall into my in-box could not have been more fortuitous.

From the journal Earth System Dynamics billed as “An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union” comes this paper which suggests that the posited AGW forcing effects simply isn’t statistically significant in the observations, but other natural forcings are.

What that means is that a European Science journal is reporting a study that tried to consider all the data and all the factors that might influence global temperature change and human activity (AGW) was deemed statistically insignificant. The things that drive temperature change–natural forcings–are what makes the world get warmer and cooler.

So why did we need RGGI?