Science

Energy Winners Should Be Chosen By Consumers, Not Government

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” – designed to put most of President Trump’s campaign promises into action – squeaked through the House of Representatives on May 22 and was immediately greeted by expressions of horror from activists and corporations invested in so-called “alternative” energy.

The big business interests that drive the solar and wind boom have for years operated at a huge advantage. Most startups historically identify a need and create a quality product or service to meet the demand in the hope of becoming profitable within a few years. By contrast, the “renewables” industry has had the backing of the United States government in the form of tax incentives designed to virtually guarantee success. Even with so much government largesse, it’s astounding how many solar companies have been so badly managed that they have gone out of business.

Still, with Uncle Sam cheering them on, solar companies have converted more than a million acres of cropland and pastures to unsightly collections of solar panels. The rapid deployment often stirred controversy, pitted neighbor against neighbor, and sent state lawmakers scurrying to craft new and evolving rules and regulations.

Many people viewed the encroachment of solar as a blight on generational farmland, as ugly glass and metal panels replaced corn, soybean, wheat and other crops. Some landowners, though, eagerly grabbed the lifeline offered by solar companies in the form of per-acre sale or lease prices that were far above average market values, in many cases allowing them to escape mountains of farming debt.

As I wrote in a Washington Post column a few short years ago about a public hearing I attended on the topic of solar developments in southern Ohio, “The testimony was sometimes heart-wrenching. Some members of multigenerational farm families who have made deals with the solar companies spoke with tears in their eyes. Farming is in their blood, and in a perfect world they would continue the family tradition. But for them, it’s been a long time since the world was perfect.”

The kicker, of course, is that solar companies were able to offer such lucrative deals almost entirely because of subsidies and tax incentives offered by the Obama administration, curtailed somewhat by the first Trump administration, but reinvigorated on steroids by the Biden administration’s misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act.

In a follow-up Post column in 2021, I noted that suspicions about the solar installations were increasing. “Questions are growing about neighboring property values and environmental issues,” I wrote. “What about responsible land practices such as plant maintenance, erosion protection and water runoff? When the solar fields are dismantled someday, will the soil be safe for reuse? Solar companies are providing answers, but trust is not always evident.”

For solar, the return of Trump and GOP congressional control means the gravy train might be rolling to a stop. The budget passed by the House ended many tax credits for companies installing rooftop solar panels, but, more importantly, the bill “also ends the investment and electricity production credits for…

NIH Nixes Fauci Pet Project As Scripps’ Kristian Andersen Fixes To Flee The Country

Authored by Paul Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

Senior officials inside the NIH are working to shut down a Tony Fauci initiative launched in 2020 called the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases or “CREID.” Meanwhile, attorneys inside the Justice Department have launched initial inquiries into one of the CREID grants awarded to Scripps Research Institute researcher Kristian Andersen, who is now in the process of fleeing the United States for a position being created for him at the University of Oslo.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but an NIH spokesperson confirmed the agency is shutting down the CREID grants. “Though the grants have been properly terminated, money will be released to the grantees to assure safe shutdown of these programs in terms of biosafety and security,” said an NIH spokesperson, adding that pandemic preparedness remains important but the dangers of health comorbidities in infectious disease outbreaks was further underlined during COVID. “Strengthening overall health through proactive disease prevention offers a more resilient foundation for responding to future health threats—beyond reliance on vaccines or treatments for yet-unknown pathogens.”

Tony Fauci announced the formation of CREIDs in 2020, awarding 11 grants worth around $17 million, with $82 million in expected funding in succeeding years. NIH did not explain how much of the $82 million slated for CREID had already been spent. Two CREID grantees have been the focus of intense scrutiny since Fauci’s announcement: Peter Daszak of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and Kristian Andersen of Scripps.

Daszak was later discovered to have undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), having provided an NIH subaward to WIV researcher Shi Zhengli. At the close of the Biden Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally debarred EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak from receiving federal funds, in part because “in response to NIH’s multiple safety-related requests” EcoHealth Alliance had not provided WIV records.

Andersen also faced close inspection for his CREID grant. Some months before Fauci gave final sign off on Andersen’s CREID award, Andersen and other researchers published a paper in Nature Medicine titled, “Proximal Origin” that dismissed the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident. Andersen’s paper was widely hailed by scientists as proof, at the time, that discussions of a COVID lab accident was a conspiracy.

Nature Medicine’s editor-in-chief, Joao Monteiro, tweeted that the “Proximal Origin” paper “put conspiracy theories” about the pandemic’s possible lab origin to rest.

Andersen echoed Monteiro’s statement days later, associating “conspiracy theorists” worried about a possible lab accident with people who doubt the Moon landing.

The paper would go on to become one of the most heavily cited scientific papers in 2020. However, emails made public through freedom of information act requests and by congressional investigators later found that the papers’ authors had run it past funders—Collins and Fauci at the NIH, as well as with Jeremy Farrar, then at the Wellcome Trust and now with the World Health Organization.

Congressional…