Slash the massive subsidies and the so-called wind and solar ‘industries’ would disappear in a heartbeat. The chaotic delivery of part-time power has never made any sense. And the world is waking up to that unassailable fact.

Which brings us to this week’s roundup, starting the team from Jo Nova reporting on BP’s moment of sanity, resulting in its withdrawal from what was once pitched as one of “the largest renewable projects in the world”. The delusion was built on the great ‘green hydrogen’ hoax, and therefore ready for an inevitable financial disaster, which BP sensible chose to avoid.

BP abandons Australia’s biggest renewables project (26GW and $55b) to focus on oil and gas
Jo Nova Blog
Jo Nova
25 July 2025

The Trump administration, true to the President’s word, has launchedan all-out attack on the great wind and solar fraud, starting with the relocation have market distorting subsidies and preferences for part-time power generators.

Ending Market Distorting Subsudues for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources
The White House
Executive Orders
7 July 2025

Naveen Athrappully delivers a timely warning of the clear and present danger that chaotic wind and solar present to America’s power grid, increasing the risk of mass blackouts of the kind recently suffered by wind and solar obsessed Spain.

Existing US Energy Generation Retirements Increase Blackout Risk by 100 Times in 2030: DOE
The Epoch Times
Naveen Athrappully
8 July 2025

Eric Worrall reports on how America’s dominance in the field of AI helps spell the death knell for wind and solar in the US given the exponential increase in the demand for reliable, uninterrupted and affordable power supplies.

How the Trump AI Action Plan will Wreck Green Energy
Watts Up With That?
Eric Worrall
24 July 2025

David Wojick delivers a helpful reality check, setting out why the “batteries will save us” meme is just another ludicrous attempt by rent-seekers to beguile the public into believing that we will all soon be running on nothing but sunshine and breezes.

Making PJM all wind and solar would cost over $2.4 trillion in battery backup
CFACT
David Wojick
12 July 2025

John Hinderaker wraps up this week with a report on the environmental destruction and chaos caused by these things wherever they operate.

Environmental Disaster
Powerline
John Hinderaker
11 July 2025

Stay tuned, STT will be back next week with more.

Africa deserves the same opportunity for development that the West took for granted, unburdened by a green agenda that keeps the continent energy-poor and dependent.

Guest essay by Ronald Stein, Dr. Robert Jeffrey and Olivia Vaughan

For South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa where electricity deficits stifle growth, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) offer a promising solution.

With the Trump Administration poised to reshape global electricity policy, the U.S. has a unique opportunity to lead the West in supporting Africa’s electricity-driven progress through SMRs. The Trump administration should lead Western nations in abandoning hypocritical restrictions and thus become a collaborator in advancing African electricity security

The Electricity Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa faces a dire electricity crisis. Over 600 million people—more than 40% of the continent’s population—lack access to electricity, a figure projected to rise to 657 million by 2030 without intervention. This deficit hampers industrialization, healthcare, and education, trapping millions in poverty. South Africa, with its Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is the only country in Africa with operational nuclear power, yet even here, electricity reliability remains a challenge.

The West has built its prosperity on an abundant supply chain of products and transportation fuels made from fossil fuels, and abundant electricity. Now, through the Marshall Plan, it pressures Africa to adopt renewable-heavy policies that prioritizes climate goals over developmental reality. Solar and wind can only generate intermittent electricity and is costly in regions with limited grid infrastructure, unable to deliver the consistent baseload power required for industrial growth.

Forcing Africa into a renewable-only path risks perpetuating electricity poverty, a form of hypocrisy that is bullying the world’s poor.

Small Modular Reactors: A Game-Changer for Africa

Enter Small Modular Reactors, a technology ideally suited to address Africa’s electricity challenges. Unlike traditional large-scale nuclear plants, which require significant upfront costs and extensive water for cooling, SMRs are compact, scalable, and designed for flexibility. With outputs typically ranging from 10 to 300 MW, SMRs can power small towns, mining operations, or urban centers, making them perfect for Africa’s diverse and often remote landscapes.

South Africa has emerged as a global leader in SMR development, particularly through its Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) and its successor, the HTMR-100. Initiated in the 1990s, the PBMR uses helium gas for cooling, eliminating the need for large water bodies—a critical advantage in arid regions. The HTMR-100, developed privately after the PBMR project stalled in 2010 due to financial constraints, is designed for rapid deployment and affordability, with off-the-shelf components reducing costs. A single unit can power a large town or mining complex, and its fuel can be safely stockpiled for years, ensuring reliability even in remote areas.

Recent developments signal a revival. South Africa’s Energy Minister has committed to a 2,500 MW nuclear build program, explicitly endorsing SMRs.

The Nuclear Renaissance and U.S. Leadership

The global resurgence of nuclear power, spurred by the Trump Administration’s recent executive orders, aligns with Africa’s needs. By addressing regulatory, supply, and siting challenges, these orders have ignited a nuclear stock rally, with companies like Nano Nuclear, Oklo, and NuScale leading the charge. As U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum declared, “Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of overregulation.” Whether this marks a true nuclear renaissance or a speculative bubble, the market’s optimism backed by bipartisan support, signals a shift toward nuclear power as a reliable, clean electricity source.

For Africa, Generation IV SMRs offer a transformative opportunity. Their modular design allows factory-based construction and on-site assembly, reducing costs and deployment times compared to traditional reactors. In countries with nuclear experience like South Africa, SMRs could be deployed in as little as about 5 years. Technologies like the HTMR-100, with passive safety features, enhance safety and minimize risks, addressing concerns about radiation and proliferation.

The Role of the Trump Administration

The Trump Administration’s pro-nuclear stance presents a golden opportunity. By investing in SMR projects, the U.S. can support Africa’s electricity goals while fostering economic partnerships. It’s time to reject Western bullying and prioritize Africa’s development, countering its reliance on foreign powers like Russia and China, which dominate nuclear exports to Africa.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) relies on the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model, established in the 1950s, to regulate radiation exposure, assuming all doses linearly increase cancer risk. However, this model is criticized for ignoring biological evidence of DNA repair, apoptosis, and adaptive responses that mitigate low-dose radiation effects, potentially overestimating harm from nuclear power plant releases by orders of magnitude.

Studies, including those from high-background radiation areas and animal models, suggest low doses may stimulate protective responses (hormesis). The LNT model’s adoption, influenced by historical anti-nuclear biases rather than low-dose data, drives overly conservative regulations, inflating costs and public fear.

The NRC should urgently review LNT against threshold or hormesis models, integrating modern biological and epidemiological evidence, to ensure regulations reflect current science and balance safety with practicality.

Seizing the Moment

Africa’s right to develop is undeniable, and SMRs are a critical tool to achieve it. South Africa’s leadership in SMR technology, coupled with growing interest across Sub-Saharan Africa, signals a path to electricity security and economic growth. The Trump Administration can lead the West in supporting this vision, dismantling restrictive green mandates and investing in Africa’s nuclear future. Denying Africa access to electricity is not justice—it’s a betrayal. By championing SMRs, the U.S. can help power Africa’s rise, ensuring prosperity for the continent and stability for the world. The time to act is now.

Originally published July 21, 2025, at America Out Loud NEWS

Guest essay by H. Sterling Burnett

A recent story posted by Reuters blames recent wildfire numbers and severity that have erupted across Mediterranean Europe on climate change. Data and history debunk such claims. Satellite data from Europe and the United States show wildfire is in decline globally, including across Europe, and research and reports show wildfires have been common across the arid Mediterranean region throughout history.

In the Reuters story, “How climate change fuels wildfires in Europe,” writer Kate Abnett writes, “[w]ildfires have burnt 227,000 hectares of land since the beginning of the year – more than double the average for this time of year over the past two decades,” noting that while this years acreage lost to wildfires is far above the recent average (consistent records have only been kept since 2002), it is far below the recent record.

Abnett uncritically blames climate change for causing the Southern Europe’s fires, writing:

Scientists say the Mediterranean region’s hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires. …

Climate change exacerbates this risk, by creating hotter and drier background conditions. In the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, that has contributed to the fire season starting earlier in recent years, breaking records for the intensity of fires, and burning more land.

Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning coal, oil and gas, have heated the planet by about 1.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. Europe has warmed at twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Abnett’s narrative may be compelling, but it is compelling fiction, unmoored from a historical understanding of fire in the region, and refuted by hard data and research.

As a matter of geography the climate of the Mediterranean region is naturally arid, prone to drought, extreme heat, and yes, associated wildfires. Abnett in particular discusses wildfires in parts of France (documented, for example, here and here), Greece (documented, for example, here and here), Spain (documented, for example, here and here), and even Syria (documented, for example, here and here). Syria is not normally considered part of Europe but I guess Abnett threw it into the mix because there are fires burning there and it is located to the Mediterranean Sea. The problem is research and historical reports from each of the countries and regions mentioned by Abnett show that wildfires, often set intentionally by people during wars, have been common there.

Fire helped shape the ecology of the entire region. Some past fires have been huge. For instance, more than 112 years of global warming ago, when global average temperatures were cooler and humans weren’t contributing significantly to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the great Thessaloniki fire burned for 13 days, left more than 70,000 people homeless, and destroyed two-thirds of Greece’s second largest city.

Factions have used fire as a tool to fight wars throughout history. In fact, many of the fires in Syria today have been set during its ongoing political strife or civil war. In the waning days of the Assad regime, it became common for militia’s fighting the government to set fires, which drained resources from the regime. Nowhere in Abnett’s story does she discuss the fact that many fires now burning and that have scorched the region in recent years have been the result of human carelessness, and sometimes intentionally set for political reasons or purely perverse ends.

That’s the history and context Abnett ignores in her rush to climate judgement.

Additionally, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) undermines Abnett’s linking long-term climate change and the increase in wildfires. The IPCC says in Chapter 12 of its Sixth Assessment Report there has been no observable change in the wildfire regime. “There is low confidence in any long-term increases in meteorological drought or fire weather at the global scale,” states the IPCC. The organization goes on say that, based on trends and models forecasts, it does not expect any observable change in wildfire behavior, numbers, intensity, or acreage lost, to arise by 2050 or even by 2100.

On this point, the IPCC would seem to be on solid ground since satellite data sets from NASA and the European Space Agency both show a decline in wildfires in recent decades.

In short, since wildfires are declining, it is impossible for climate change to be making wildfires more frequent or severe.

To the extent that people perceive wildfire trends as worsening it is likely due to the fact that with population and associated housing and infrastructure growth and expansion into regions historically prone to wildfires, more people are being affected by wildfires when they occur even when they aren’t as widespread or severe. In addition, the 24-seven global news cycle, a factor that never existed in human history before the last 50 years, makes people aware of even distant wildfires when they occur, making fires appear more frequent.

In the end, rather than focusing on the real factors behind today’s wildfires, Reuters chose to continue the drumbeat that climate change is behind everything bad that happens. This is especially unfortunate with regard to discussions of how to reduce wildfires, since the story ignores real world means of preventing and/or reducing the extend and damage from wildfires when they occur, such as increased active forest management, improved access for firefighting purposes, and hardening infrastructure. Instead, the story implies falsely that if only humans stopped burning oil, natural gas, and coal, wildfires would be relegated to the history books.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Wildfires are natural. They have been, remain, and will continue to be a fact of life for the foreseeable future, regardless of fossil fuel use. But the judicious use of fossil fuels, can help fight fires, by powering equipment, pumps, and timber removal machinery, for example, and by providing the on demand electric power and plastics which house electronics used to discover, map, track and to pinpoint suppression efforts. Fossil fuels also allow society to to map potential fuel load build ups and favorable meteorological conditions rapidly, to anticipate and possibly prevent fires before they occur. That’s what Abnett would have the world give up to prevent a modest rise in future temperatures.

Via SpaceWeather.com

Earth’s ionosphere is a bit like Swiss cheese. It contains holes called “equatorial plasma bubbles.” If any of these bubbles drift across your sky–grip the steering wheel–your GPS might go haywire.

That’s exactly what happened during a geomagnetic storm in March 2023. A new study published in the research journal Space Weather recounts how  GPS radio signals began to rapidly flicker, akin to the twinkling of a star, causing positioning errors across a wide swath of the Americas.

GPS satellites transmitting through a bubbly ionosphere.

“This is the most intense event we have analyzed,” says Fabiano Rodrigues, a physics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas and one of the paper’s lead authors. “It produced extremely intense disruptions at low latitudes for more than 10 hours and was even detectable by our mid-latitude sensor in Dallas (UTD in the diagram below), which is unusual.”

Completely surrounding Earth, the ionosphere is a shell of ionized gas created by the sun. Solar ultraviolet radiation ionizes air near the edge of space, creating a dynamic layer of plasma that varies with solar activity, time of day, and latitude. The ionosphere plays a critical role in GPS systems by reflecting or distorting radio waves passing through it.

When the sun sets, the ionosphere becomes unstable. This happens because the sun’s ionizing radiation suddenly disappears. A Rayleigh-Taylor instability takes hold, and bubbles of low-density plasma begin to rise, much like blobs in a lava lamp.

These structures are especially common near the magnetic equator, where electric and magnetic fields enhance the effect. That’s why they’re called equatorial plasma bubbles.

The March 23-24, 2023, event was remarkable because the bubbles were so widespread. They are normally confined within +/- 20  degrees of the magnetic equator, but during this storm, they spread at least twice as far, affecting population centers at middle latitudes. Peak position errors were wider than urban roadways.

Above: Red-orange-yellow marks where rapid fluctuations were observed during the March 2023 geomagnetic storm. A plume of yellow extends all the way into Texas.

Savvy readers may wonder if something similar happened during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 2024. After all, that was the biggest geomagnetic storm in decades (G5+), far more intense than the March 2023 storm (G4). The answer, surprisingly, seems to be “no.” The same sensors were running during both storms, yet only the lesser storm produced extraordinary scintillation.

“This is an example of how the ionosphere can respond differently to different magnetic storms,” says Rodrigues. “We still have a lot to learn.”

Do It Yourself: Rodrigues’s team monitors equatorial plasma bubbles using a low-cost sensor called ScintPi, based on the Raspberry Pi computer. You can build one yourself. Hobbyists are using them to observe geomagnetic storms and even solar eclipses.