Green energy

This morning, I woke up to a message: I had been quoted in The New York Times. The topic? One of the biggest E.V. infrastructure shake-ups on the East Coast. New Jersey has officially begun phasing out Tesla Superchargers along its major toll roads, including the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Instead,... The post Tesla Superchargers Pulled from NJ Turnpike: What It Means for E.V. Drivers Now appeared first on The Green Living Guy.

The Trump White House is taking steps to overhaul the federal environmental permitting regime, which experts have criticized as bureaucratic and pegged as a key reason for slow infrastructure and energy development. In a 37-page report first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, the White House Council on Environmental Quality outlined how it will revamp permitting, mainly by modernizing current antiquated government systems. The federal government, for example, still relies on a paper-based process during environmental reviews—the White House will now begin using a "digital-first" process. The council added that, under its technical reforms, federal agencies conducting environmental reviews for projects will make their permitting timelines readily available for the public to see and track. Thomas Shedd, a top official at the General Services Administration, predicted the reforms would accelerate permitting timelines from taking years to just weeks or months. The actions will impact everything from highways and railway projects to pipelines, green energy development, and mining projects. The Trump approach stands in contrast to the Biden administration, which sought to add more requirements for permitting such projects. "The Trump administration is working tirelessly to implement innovation-driven environmental review and permitting reforms to eliminate needless delays that cripple the growth of the U.S. economy, replacing outdated technology with efficient, speedier solutions," added Katherine Scarlett, the White House Council on Environmental Quality's chief of staff. Since taking office, the Trump administration has made permitting reform a top priority as part of its efforts to rapidly fix deteriorating infrastructure and develop energy projects. "We need to drill more, map more, mine more, and build more—all while innovating faster than our global competitors," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last month. Overall, according to federal data, federal agencies take two to three years on average to complete environmental reviews. And in many cases, reviews can drag on for more than four years, sometimes even taking more than a decade to complete. Environmental reviews often involve several different federal agencies, which can cause delays and create backlogs. The Free Beacon reported in December that an Idaho rare earth mining project deemed vital for national security has waited 14 years for its permits. At least five separate federal agencies conducted lengthy environmental reviews for the project. Both Democrats and Republicans, meanwhile, have backed efforts to enact permitting reform to accelerate both green energy and fossil fuel energy projects, but those efforts have largely fizzled out in Congress thanks to significant opposition from powerful climate groups. Still, industry groups and advocates agree that more power projects need to be developed and quickly permitted to keep up with rapidly rising electricity demand and mass policy-driven fossil fuel retirements. Utility companies nationwide have announced coal-fired plant closures that would take 9,356 megawatts of power off the grid, even as top grid watchdogs warn such retirements could create catastrophic power shortages and blackouts. "A lot of these climate and environmental groups have basically become special interest groups. They reflect narrow interests, rather than what's good and true on these issues, and they've become reflexive NIMBYs that oppose anything really," Chris Barnard, the president of the right-leaning American Conservation Coalition Action, previously told the Free Beacon. "And it's not just fossil fuels. There's examples of them opposing clean energy, whether it's wind and solar or nuclear or geothermal or hydro—they basically oppose everything. They don't want us to build anything," he said. The White House's actions Friday come one day after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that federal regulators are able to narrow the scope of factors they review when conducting environmental reviews for proposed projects. The post Drill Baby Drill: White House Clears Way for New Energy Projects appeared first on .

Biden energy loan czar Jigar Shah signed off on a $1.6 billion taxpayer-funded loan last year that now appears to have directly benefited his current business partner, Jonathan Silver. Previously unreported corporate filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show that Silver worked as a consultant for the project's developer after spending years on its board of directors. The Department of Energy's loan office, which Shah led between early 2021 and 2025, awarded the lucrative loan to New York-based Plug Power in May 2024 to help finance six of the company's planned green hydrogen production facilities. In one of his final moves before departing the office, Shah's team closed on the loan on Jan. 16, 2025. The timing of the loan disbursement means Silver served on Plug Power's board when the company negotiated with Shah's team and worked as a consultant when the loan was announced. In a disclosure Plug Power filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023, the company said Silver had resigned from its board of directors and entered into a 12-month consulting agreement with it that would be in effect until July 2024. Silver first joined the board of Plug Power in 2018. In that role, Silver earned a cash salary, stocks, and options totaling as much as $143,645 per year, additional filings showed. The revelation that Silver worked for Plug Power while the company engaged directly with Shah and his team at the Biden DOE raises key ethics questions in light of the pair's announcement last month that they would launch a green energy advisory firm together. In a LinkedIn post, Shah said he and Silver would help accelerate the growth of green energy startups in exchange for "modest equity stakes." In response to questions about how much they discussed Plug Power's loan with each other in their former positions, Shah and Silver denied having any interactions. Shah said he never worked directly on loans and that Plug Power applied for the loan before he joined, though records suggest his team encouraged the company to pursue the loan and he personally met with the company's CEO. "I didn’t work on the loans directly. I focused on building our team and getting folks to apply for loans," Shah told the Free Beacon. "Plug had already applied before I even joined LPO." Plug Power did submit the first part of its loan application with the DOE before Shah joined the loan office, but was invited to submit the second part of its application in April 2021, a month after Shah joined the office. And, one month after that, Shah personally met with Plug Power executives, according to a copy of his calendar obtained by the Free Beacon. "I had no involvement with Plug Power’s loan application and no interaction with either Jigar or the Loan Programs Office about the loan," Silver told the Free Beacon. "Our boutique advisory services firm does not interact with the loan program." The situation adds to questions about possible impropriety surrounding Plug Power's loan—the company has already faced scrutiny over its relationship to Shah. The Free Beacon reported last year that Shah invested $100 million in Plug Power through his former green energy-focused private equity firm prior to joining the Biden administration and Plug Power once described Shah's former firm as its "longstanding partner." "This is yet another glaring example of the revolving door between government power and green energy profiteering," Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Free Beacon. "The American people are footing the bill for an elite climate cartel that cycles in and out of Washington, doling out billions in taxpayer-backed loans to their future business partners." "The $1.6 billion Biden DOE loan to Plug Power reeks of the same Solyndra-style cronyism that defined the Obama era," he continued. "These backroom deals masquerading as ‘climate action’ should outrage every American who believes in accountability and fair markets." Silver served as the director of the DOE's Loan Programs Office during the Obama administration. In one of his first moves, Silver signed off on a $535 million loan to solar panel maker Solyndra, which then filed for bankruptcy just two years later. Solyndra has since become synonymous with wasteful federal spending. Michael Chamberlain, the director of conservative watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust, added that Shah and Silver's relationship appears "very swampy." "This appears to be just the latest incident demonstrating why the American public’s trust in its government virtually disappeared during Shah's tenure," he said. Plug Power CEO Andy Marsh echoed Silver's comments, telling the Free Beacon, "Plug Power is not aware of any interactions Mr. Silver has had with the DOE related to Plug, either during his board tenure or under any subsequent consulting agreement." It's a precarious time for Marsh and Plug Power: The company continues to report less-than-stellar earnings and recently announced a fresh round of layoffs in a desperate attempt to save money. In 2024, Plug Power reported losses in excess of $2 billion, a year-over-year increase of 50 percent, and reported losses of nearly $197 million in the first quarter of 2025. Plug Power's poor financial performance means it would likely be unable to receive a $1.6 billion loan from private investors and highlights how the green energy industry is largely dependent on government grants, loans, and subsidies. As part of President Donald Trump's effort to cut spending and weed out waste from government, meanwhile, Energy Secretary Chris Wright is conducting a broad review of all of his agency's spending, including loans Shah's office doled out. Some reporting suggests hydrogen projects like Plug Power's are on the chopping block, though the DOE has downplayed those reports. Overall, the Biden DOE closed on 25 loans worth $61 billion and issued conditional commitments on loans for 27 projects worth $47 billion, according to a Free Beacon analysis of federal filings. The post Biden Energy Loan Czar Awarded $1.6B Government Loan to Company Advised By His Current Business Partner appeared first on .

The CEO of a Dutch weather forecaster recently suggested that Belgian wind farms are inadvertently “stealing” wind from his own country’s wind farms in the North Sea. In an interview with Belgian broadcaster VRT, Remco Verzijlbergh, the CEO of Dutch weather forecasting service Whiffle, claimed that Belgian wind farms in the North Sea have an advantage over Dutch ones because of their placement, adding that they are effectively “stealing” Dutch wind. Verzijlbergh claimed that Belgian wind farms are taking up to 3 % of wind energy from Dutch installations, adding that wind speeds measured behind a wind turbine are measurably lower. He clarified that the phenomenon is purely accidental because of the location of the wind turbines, pleading for better coordination between countries in the near future. Read More