Tag Archives: alternative energy sources

Another Win For The Supreme Court

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Does anyone remember this gem from 1975:

This is a kid-oriented explanation of how laws are supposed to be passed in America. Unfortunately, many of our laws are currently being passed by unelected bureaucrats in government agencies. These bureaucrats are not held accountable by the people because they never have to run for office. Well, on Thursday the Supreme Court took a small step to bring America back to the lawmaking procedure established by our Founding Fathers.

Red State posted an article on Thursday reporting the decision.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court sharply curtailed the power of the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. In a 6-3 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court sided with conservative states and fossil-fuel companies in adopting a narrow reading of the Clean Air Act.

The Court found that Congress had not authorized the EPA to induce a shift toward cleaner energy sources.

“Congress did not grant EPA…the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan,” the majority wrote.
The ruling was spurred by an appeal to a decision last year that struck down a Trump-era power plant rule.

In appealing that decision, West Virginia asked the court to consider whether the EPA has the authority to try to push the entire system away from coal and reshape the country’s electric grid.

The article notes:

Justice Kagan in her dissent acted as though it was the Court’s responsibility to address climate change, rather than interpret the law and the Constitution.

Maybe she needs to go back and reread the Constitution.

If the Biden administration wants to change the source of America’s energy, they need to ask Congress to pass a bill to do that. Elected officials need to be held accountable for the laws they make. Bureaucrats are not elected and cannot be held accountable. That is why our laws are supposed to be made by Congress and not by bureaucrats.

When Green Energy Kills Wildlife

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On Monday The Daily Caller posted an article about the impact of ocean wind farms on the sonar capabilities of whales and other marine animals. It is known that wind farms impact radar when they are near airports, so it is not really a surprise that they would have an impact of the navigational systems of marine mammals. This report of the death of a family of whales near a wind farm comes from the United Kingdom.

The article states:

The U.K. coastguard received reports of a minke whale calf that had become separated from its mother Friday evening. By the next afternoon, it had been found dead at the mouth of the River Ore, and its mother washed up near Felixstowe. On Sunday, another dead adult whale surfaced, indicating that an entire family could have been killed.

…“There are studies that show that the sounds created by the operational noise of the turbines create vibrations under that may in fact disorient marine mammals like whales,” Bonnie Brady, director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association who regularly discusses the impacts of noise on marine mammals, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “In the case of what looks like this mother and calf, they go on the wrong path and end up disoriented then beaching themselves. The sound kills.”

Both construction and ordinary operations noises from offshore wind turbines can travel immense distances under water. This harms whales, dolphins, marine mammals and fish that communicate with noises in order to breed. For this reason, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) guidelines show that high noise levels can cause marine mammals like whales and dolphins to go deaf and disrupt their vocal communications.

The acoustic disturbances from constructing wind farms and from the wind farms themselves are harmful to fish and water mammals. Combined with the fact that the wind cannot be depended on to generate electricity 24/7 and a backup fossil fuel energy source is needed for those times when the wind dies down, wind energy is not yet at a point where it makes sense. In America, wind farms are killing some of our most magnificent birds. We need to either improve the wind farm technology or look in another direction for alternative energy sources.