Mainstream Media Knows No Bounds When It Comes To Renewable Energy

Read this linked article, sent to me by Don. Reuters is reporting that South Africa's energy grid is about to fail:

South Africa's failure to invest in new power plants nearly two decades ago meant it paid dearly in 2008 when the grid nearly collapsed, leading to power cuts that cost the economy billions of rand in lost output and dented investor confidence.

State-owned power utility Eskom is scrambling to finish new power plants, including Medupi and Kusile, massive coal-fired outfits with a combined capacity of about 9,500 megawatts (MW).

But they are still several years away from completion, and in the interim Eskom will be battling to keep the lights on, nursing its fleet of ageing generating units and hoping breakdowns do not reduce reserve margins to critical levels.

The article goes on and on and on. And on and on and on. It's all about bad choices (failure to manage the nuclear energy program appropriately) and reality (evil coal). And then at the very end, the absolute very end, the truth comes out. [Actually the fifth sentence before the end.) The real reason the country is in trouble.

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President Obama appears to have accomplished what no one thought possible: renew the Cold War. The dots are easy to connect, starting with the "apology tour" and ending with the "red line" in the Black Sea."

The AFP is reporting that state television says Russia could turn the US to radioactive ash.  

A leading anchor on Russian state television on Sunday described Russia as the only country capable of turning the United States into "radioactive ash", in an incendiary comment at the height of tensions over the Crimea referendum.

"Russia is the only country in the world realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," anchor Dmitry Kiselyov said on his weekly news show on state-controlled Rossiya 1 television.

Kiselyov made the comment to support his argument that the United States and President Barack Obama were living in fear of Russia led by President Vladimir Putin amid the Ukraine crisis.

I guess that pretty much completes his trifecta (but he has 1,040 days left):

• ObamaCare
• a nuclear arms race in the Mideast
• a return to the "Cold War"

I track his legacy here.

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Unlike the Keystone, This Project Will Be Fast-Tracked

The AP is reporting that Kansas farmers don't want a high-powered transmission line crossing their farmland:

The windy plains of Kansas could be a treasure trove in the nation's effort to harness clean energy, but a major proposal to move wind-generated electricity eastward is running into a roadblock: Farmers who don't want high-power transmission lines on their land.

Clean Line Energy Partners wants to spend $2.2 billion to build a 750-mile-long high-voltage overhead transmission line. Towers 110 to 150 feet tall, 4-6 per mile, would carry lines with power generated by Kansas' modernistic windmill turbines through sparsely populated northern Missouri, through the cornfields of Illinois and to a substation in Sullivan, Ind. The exact route has not been finalized.

Unfortunately they will have little say in this. The project will be fast-tracked and if push-comes-to-shove, President Obama will mandate it by executive order. 

Interestingly, the farmers know that the transmission line is the least of their worries. This is what they are concerned about:

Kansas figures to benefit the most. Clean Line projects that more than $7 billion of new wind projects will be needed to meet demand created by the line, potentially creating thousands of new jobs in Kansas and making the state a hub of wind energy.

Rural Kansas will become one huge wind farm. So much for "their" way of life. So much for migratory birds. So much for the sandhill cranes on their way to Nebraska.

I don't have a dog in this fight; this will be fun to watch.