October 15, 2023

Keeping You Up To Date On New York's Progress Toward Green Energy Utopia

October 15, 2023/ Francis Menton

Consider Manhattan Contrarian as your go-to source for the latest on New York’s progress toward green energy utopia.
Can you remember all the way back to December 19, 2022? That’s the day that New York’s Climate Action Council officially adopted its “Scoping Plan,” telling us all how we are going to achieve, among other goals, 70% of statewide electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030 and a zero-emissions electricity system by 2040. The biggest part of the grand plan consists of some 9,000 MW (nameplate capacity) of offshore wind turbines to be built by 2035. As of the time of the Scoping Plan, the state claimed that some 4,300 MW out of the 9,000 MW of upcoming offshore wind projects were under “active development.”
On the very day that the Scoping Plan got finalized, I had a post titled “On To The Great Future Of Offshore Wind Power.” That post noted that even of the 4.300 MW of offshore wind supposedly under “active development,” not one turbine was operating, or even under construction. Several developers had made bids that had been accepted by the state, and some of those developers were getting kind of close to applying for permits. My prediction was: “Expect long delays and demands for lots more money before anything gets built.” Boy, can I call these things.
Shall we check back in for the latest information?

October 12, 2023

A Visit To The Trump Civil Fraud Trial

October 12, 2023/ Francis Menton

One of the benefits of living in Manhattan is that there are many interesting things to go and see. For example, there are lots of plays, concerts, museums, and even the occasional political show trial.
Today, I thought I might stop by the state government’s civil fraud trial against ex-President Trump, to see how it’s going. The trial, now nearing the end of its second week, is taking place at the main state courthouse at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan.
The last time I dropped in on a political trial in Manhattan, it was the New York AG’s case against Exxon for supposedly defrauding its investors by using different valuation methodologies to assess projects for internal versus external corporate purposes. I covered that trial in an October 2019 post titled “A Serious Contender For The Stupidest Litigation In The Country Goes To Trial.” The AG quickly lost that case ignominiously, which I covered in a further post in December 2019.
Is this case any better?

October 11, 2023

October 11, 2023/ Francis Menton

Among the trendy Left, and particularly on elite academic campuses, hatred of Israel, and by association of all Jews, has long been on the ascendant. The Anti-Defamation League traces the origins of the “Boycott, Divest, Sanctions” movement against Israel to the early 2000s.
By the time we get to the most recent ten years, every elite academic institution has multiple student groups and scores of faculty members advocating for delegitimizing Israel as oppressors of the Palestinians, or even as an “apartheid state.”
And thus the current wave of atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israel has brought out statements of support from some 30+ student groups at Harvard, from the Student Bar Association at NYU, from a group of students at Stanford, and many other such around the country.
In the bigger picture, the treatment of Israel and Israeli Jews by Muslims is not at all unique.

October 09, 2023

October 09, 2023/ Francis Menton

A key claim of the green energy movement has long been that the intermittent “renewables” — wind and solar — provide the cheapest form of energy. Therefore, the advocates say, just build enough wind turbines and solar panels, convert all use of energy to electricity, and sit back and enjoy a future of affordable energy without adverse environmental consequences.
Meanwhile a key theme at this blog has been exposing the incompetence and chicanery of the claims of low cost for electricity from wind and sun.
Although it may often seem as if nobody is listening, I reassure myself that when the full costs of wind and solar electricity eventually get exposed, the people will catch on and not allow themselves to be impoverished.
Over in Europe, it looks like enough of the costs have now gotten exposed to cause the beginning of a public awakening.

October 05, 2023

October 05, 2023/ Francis Menton

Offshore wind turbines — those are the magical solution to all our energy problems. The wind is clean and free. And way out in the ocean — where you can barely even see the towers — the wind blows steadily almost all the time. Just put up a few turbines to catch the breezes, and those evil fossil fuels will quickly be banished.
Anyway, that has been the talk for at least three decades. After 30 years of talk, the number of actual functioning wind turbines out in the Atlantic Ocean off the U.S. coast is now exactly seven: five off Block Island (part of Rhode Island), and two off Virginia. Those provide some tiny fraction of 1% of the electricity for the mid-Atlantic states and New England.
But the Biden Administration has much grander plans.

October 03, 2023

October 03, 2023/ Francis Menton

If you wonder why people in New York City seem to have a terribly warped view of reality, look no farther than the New York Times. The Times is where all the seemingly well-educated and sophisticated upper income New Yorkers get their “news.”
Consider, for example, the question of education funding for PreK-12 schools. If you know anything about that subject, even if you don’t know any details, you know that the New York City public schools are far and away the most lavishly funded in the country. How they can spend so much money and fail to achieve even mediocre results for the students is a shame and a disgrace.
Of course, the New York Times has an entirely different take.
So let’s compare the New York Times’s view of New York City education funding with some reality.