Prof. Bob Howarth

Gas prices jumped again this morning and are on track to double - a stark reminder of our exposure to fossil fuel volatility.

The real solution isn’t more drilling, but moving away from combustion: electrify, use renewable power, and boost energy efficiency.

George Orwell didn’t even try this. He would probably have thought it wasn’t believable.

The data show that WindWaterSolar saves money, so why is the federal government trying to saddle consumers with high electricity prices by pushing more fossil fuels and nuclear? Not to help the country.

THE CONTRAST IS INCREDIBLE

As the U.S. and Israel launched a war with Iran, Trump emerged from the makeshift SCIF at Mar-a-Lago to make an appearance at his $1M-per-plate fundraiser.

📌 Four U.S. troops have already died in combat.

Just last week the German government gutted the heating law which was supposed to drive a transition away from gas.

The timing could not have been worse: Gas prices are up 50% today and this crisis could worsen significantly. This will happen again and again and the consumer pays the price.

Henry Hub gas prices already hit $7.72 average in January due to Winter Storm Fern and the cold snap across the Eastern US. Daily prices in February were back in the 3s most days. March is going to be brutal for LNG (Iran), we'll see what happens domestically

And this is happening just as US consumers are starting to realize that sharp inflation in electricity costs are due in part to growing exports of LNG from the US. Will political pressure again lead to a ban on LNG exports, as the US had for decades up to 2016?

Gas prices up by around 50% today.

A painful reminder that relying on imported fossil fuels is a risky strategy.

US aircraft leave Spain after government says bases cannot be used for Iran attacks Fifteen U.S. aircraft have left the Rota and Moron military bases in southern Spain since the U.S. and Israel launched weekend attacks on Iran, maps by flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed on ...

US withdraws aircraft from bases in Spain after Spanish government declines US request to authorize their use in bombing raids against Iran. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

On data center developers' use of jet engines to win on "speed to power": these generators are "engineered to meet peak demand, so they’re inefficient, noisy, and dirty. Running them constantly to power data centers would quickly inflate electricity costs and magnify public health damages."

AI: Does not compute Building fossil-fuel infrastructure to power data centers is a poor bet. Renewables are by far the cheaper, faster choice.

Amory Lovins & Justin Locke: "Gas and nuclear vendors that can’t beat energy efficiency and renewables in competitive markets are leveraging [AI and data center] hype into mandates and subsidies to rescue their losers."

Breaking News: Spain has banned the United States from using its military bases for operations in Iran, per Reuters.

Nine tankers have now departed the Moron airbase in southern Spain and are heading towards Germany and France.

EPIC FURY is beginning to look like EPIC FAIL!

The Peril of Talking About Electricity Affordability Rob sits down with Jane Flegal, an expert on all things emissions policy, to dissect the new electricity price agenda.

Very funny that abundance pundits (abundits?) who talked about energy affordability because they thought it'd build support for their preconceived policy preference of building lots of new stuff soured on affordability after learning that it mostly means making better use of existing infrastructure.

NYCC Stop Hochul's CLCPA Attack Memo Don’t Let Hochul Hurt our Communities by Raising Our Energy Bills, Destroying Jobs and Increasing Pollution Reject Governor Hochul’s Trump Math Attack on New York’s Climate Law Governor Ho...

👀 NYCC’s memo opposing Hochul's attack on the NYS climate law. Her Trump math is trash and she's raised our energy bills by ignoring the climate law for years now.

The legislature should reject her Republican talk points and her bums rush in the budget 👀

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Nobel Peace Prize, my ass

BREAKING: Today Bernie Sanders is proposing new legislation to raise $4.4 trillion in taxes from America’s billionaires — a move that would virtually cut their massive fortunes in half.

A chunk of the money raised would go toward sending a $3K stimulus check to every person earning under $150K.

@governor.ny.gov wants to weaken NY's GHG accounting, using lenient accounting for methane to make it easier to “meet” climate goals. This is akin to “improving” public safety by giving weekends off to police to reduce costs & only counting crimes committed on weekdays (to paraphrase Anshul Gupta).

Gas prices soar as Iranian attacks shut down Qatari production Retaliatory strikes also hit Saudi Arabia refinery

Iran attack shuts down Qatar gas production. That leaves the US as the main purveyor of LNG, with exports led by a few firms including Venture Global.

Countries aren't going clean just for the planet anymore.

Ethiopia banned gas cars because they don't want to keep paying for fuel imports. Big hydro dam + excess electricity = why wouldn't you?

@jigarshahdc.bsky.social

Those three downed jets run around $90 million each.

It cost $20 million a year to operate the food kitchens serving 816,000 people in Sudan.

How come “How are you going to pay for it?” is never asked about endless war?

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Iran:

“Remember that one can be against a hateful regime, as is the case with the Iranian regime, as is the whole of Spanish society, and at the same time be against an unjustified, dangerous military intervention outside of international law.”

In a democracy, the war on Iran would not be possible.

Hochul’s push to gut the climate law comes even tho big new clean energy projects are being built now.

They’re late, and Hochul’s sucked it, but its happening:

✅ CHPE (hydro power) connects in the spring
✅ Sunrise and Empire wind (big offshore) connect this year and next
✅ new solar projects

The chairman of the Board of Peace bombed the Gandhi hospital. Process that.

Oil Prices Jump 10% After Iran Attack, Pointing to Economic Risks

One group that stands to benefit from higher oil prices are oil companies, especially the ones in the parts of the world not limited by the Straight of Hormuz.

Natural gas utilities will pass these wholesale price spikes straight through to ratepayers by raising retail prices. Before the late Obama years the US exported almost no natural gas, so domestic prices were insulated from global markets

A big part of the authoritarian playbook is war. War takes over the news. War blots out criticism. War divides a nation’s people, subjecting those against it to being called unpatriotic. War grants leaders all sorts of emergency powers. War consumes everything else.

We mustn’t let this war do so.

Not to mention .... his Kremlin handlers are incredibly happy with the price spike while they are condemning the war.