Maine households cope with nation’s highest energy burden

"Patrick Drupp, the Sierra Club’s climate policy director, said poor housing stock and financial barriers to clean-energy technologies contribute to the cost."

“Clean energy is obviously the fastest and cheapest form of energy,” Drupp said. “Bringing it on-grid as fast as possible would be one of the biggest things you could do to lower electricity prices for people.”

The entire report:  https://mainebeacon.com/maine-households-cope-with-nations-highest-energy-burden/

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  • Willem Post

    HIGH COST OF OFFSHORE WIND ELECTRICITY PER kWh.

    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-of-offshore-...

    by Willem Post

    .

    The reason costs are ballooning is because the focus has been on the cost of offshore wind electricity, say 15 c/kWh, after the equivalent of 50% federal and state subsidies.

    But then there is the A-to-Z cost (windmill system to land fill) almost all folks ignore. Those costs are about 11 c/kWh. 

     

    1) The European elites have screwed themselves by going hog-wild for wind, solar, batteries, etc.

    They closed their near-zero-CO2 nuclear plants, and their coal plants 

     

    2) Because of grossly too many rules and regulations emanating from Brussels, and a lack of nuclear plant building experience, all recent nuclear plants cost more than $10,000/installed MW and take 10+ years to build; China builds such plant at half the cost and in less than half the time.

    No wonder Europe has become uncompetitive.

     

    3) These dysfunctional elites are encouraging the displacement of native populations. A total of 64.2 million unvetted, uneducated, untrained, non-citizens were in Europe at end 2025 (not counting their children and grandchildren born in Europe). They are the dregs from mostly Islamic Third World countries. The A-to-Z cost was about $160 billion for 2025. How will Europe ever get rid of these people, before its rapidly growing population is greater than the shrinking population of natives?

     

    And more recently:

    4) These elites imposed a ban on Russian low-cost fossil fuels and other natural resources much needed by Europe, so Russia cannot profit from them; the sanctions backfired on Europe.

     

    5) After NATO was established in 1948, European elites, dependent for defense on the US, saved themselves $trillions by spending only 0.5 to 1.5% of GDP on their own defense, while the US spent about 4 to 5% to keep the peace in the world. How can you claim to be sovereign and not be able to defend yourself?

     

    That grossly inequitable situation came to a screeching halt in 2025, when Trump required Europe to spend up to 5% of GDP for their own defense, because the US was “busy elsewhere”. 

    Trump imposed tariffs on European imports to reduce the US trade deficit, will reduce US troops and their costs in Europe, requires Europe pay for its own defense, no longer wants to pay for Ukraine, but will provide US weaponry, if Europe pays for them.

     

    Per US Bureau of Economic Analysis, foreign entities had US holdings (all kinds) of $70.50 trillion and US entities had foreign holdings of $42.96 trillion, a gap of $27.54 trillion, at end 2025.

    The growth of this gap led to 1) the Rust Belt; Watt Street-brokered buyouts of US companies by foreign companies, 2) Dutch/Belgium Agri-businesses owning more than 50% of all US food supermarkets in the eastern US, to provide shelf-space for European farm products, etc.

    Income paid to foreign entities on their US holdings was $6.26 trillion in 2025, income paid to US entities on their foreign holdings was $5.15 trillion in 2025, for a net outflow of $1.11 trillion in 2025; outflows get bigger as gaps get bigger.

     

    NOTE: Another major outflow is the US maintaining a major military presence throughout the world, to “keep the peace”. This presence likely costs at least 50% of the Department of War budget and enables international trade to take place. This peace-keeping freebie is highly profitable for countries the US trades with, and far from profitable for the US.

     

    NOTE:

    Largest creditor nations at end 2025: Germany $4.316 trillion, or $51,000/person; China $4.071 trillion, or $2,900/person; Japan $3.671 trillion, or $30,000/person.

    Largest debtor nations at end 2025: US $27.54 trillion, or $80,600/person; Brazil $1.125 trillion, or $5,276/person; France $0.993 trillion, or $14,380/person

     

    Lee Zeldin, US EPA Administrator During Hearings Before the US Senate

     

    EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calls out Democrat Senator Sheldon WhiteClub: “I'm not going to take morality lessons from people who join, you know, all‑white country clubs.”

     

    Zeldin explained: “When predictions are made in the past… will have a range of the pessimistic to the optimistic. And to justify, for example, the 2009 endangerment finding, they were adopting the most pessimistic views of the science.

    Now, when you get to 2026, great news, you're able to rely on present day facts in 2026, rather than any bad assumptions from 2009.

     

    And just because you take exception when a member of Congress says in January of 2019, in 12 years the world's about to end, if we're sitting here today saying, well, gosh, it's only four years and nine months left, I don't think the world is about to end, they want to vilify you as if you're denying science.

     

    I mean, I just saw a clip yesterday where Al Gore was talking about global freezing. I'm having trouble keeping up. I thought it was global warming, and now it's global freezing.

    And I don't know what kind of money is made. You want to know how they’re making money from their climate grift.

     

    Well, what won't get referenced by your colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle, who bring up the greenhouse gas reduction fund is that the money was going to former Obama and Biden officials.

    The money was going to Democratic donors. The conflicts of interests that we saw. The amount of self-dealing, the unqualified recipients.

     

    The Climate United Fund CEO was a special assistant in OMB during the Obama–Biden administration. They received $6.9 billion dollars. And we could go down the list with that entity.

     

    You go through the Coalition for Green Capital, about a Biden–Harris climate advisor serving on the board or joining the board in ’23 while the organization was applying for GGRF.

     

    Power Forward Community CEO, CEO of Fannie Mae during the Obama–Biden administration.

     

    If we had 10 more minutes, I could just go through conflicts of interest. They're not offended by that.

    So, we just want to stick to the truth. We want to stick to the to the science. And if you don't agree with them, you don't follow their logic, well, they'll want to vilify you.

    But hey, as long as we stay true to these facts, it's good to go.

     

    I told Senator Sheldon WhiteClub today that I won’t be listening to, or caring about, any of his lessons on morality knowing that he joined an all-white Rhode Island Country Club.

     

    I’m also done with the likes of AOC, Al Gore, John Kerry, and the rest of the lying cabal that make stupid climate predictions, plunder tens of billions of tax dollars, enrich their well-connected allies, and are committed to strangulating out of existence entire sectors of our economy.

     

    Climate alarmist AOC wants to be taken seriously while also insisting the world is imminently about to end due to climate change (Just under 5 years remain on her nutty Jan 2019 prediction that only 12 years of life are left on Earth).

     

    Al Gore is now speaking publicly about his concern with global freezing after decades of grift-talking about global warming.

    “Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro,” said Gore in 2006 (There’s still snow on Kilimanjaro year-round).

    Gore also predicted in 2009 ice-free Arctic summers within 5-7 years.

    John Kerry warned in 2009 that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013.

     

    All these people, and their followers, are dishonest, power-hungry hacks.

    The GREEN NEW SCAM is DEAD!!!”

     

    Wind, solar, etc., have caused major distortions of the electrical systems in many countries.
    Infrastructures are required to create/support/retire wind, solar, etc.

    Ending wind, solar, etc., is similar to recovering from the damage of a major war.

    Europe has lots of experience recovering from many wars during the past 500 years, but that has come to an end, because Europe lost its colonies to suck from.
    It tried to suck from the US, but Trump is telling them no more sucking, stand on your own.

    Major panic and hand wringing is the result. 

    The European elites are desperate to get to reliable fossil fuels from the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, etc., and are financing Ukraine as a proxy battering ram “for as long as it takes” to get at them for survival.

  • Willem Post

    HIGH COST OF SOLAR ELECTRICITY PER kWh

    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-of-solar-electricity-per-kwh

    By Willem Post

    .

    The video linked below shows, among other things, a comparison between the

    Blevin Solar Complex in Texas, a 270 MW solar complex covers 2300 acres.

    Bridge City gas plant, 1200 MW, covers 26 acres, or 88 times smaller area than solar complex. 

    Gas plant nameplate rating 4+ times Solar Complex.

    Gas plant annual production about 1200 MW x 8760 h/y x 0.8 CF = 8,409,600 MWh, 24x7x365

    Solar Complex annual production about 270 MW x 8760 h/y x 0.22 CF = 520,344 MWh

    Gas plant production is 16.2 times greater than Solar Complex

    Solar Complex life about 20 – 25 years

    Gas plant life about 40 - 45 years

     

    The Solar Complex required mining ore-laden materials, extracting minerals and refining them, transporting the refined materials to a solar panel manufacturing plant. All these steps are very energy intensive, require lots of electricity, usually produced by coal in China. The panels are transported to Texas for building the Solar Complex. Ultimately the solar panels need to be stored in a hazardous waste landfill.

     

    Solar production peaks around noontime, when demand is low. That means the OTHER plants must reduce their outputs as solar production increases in the morning, then they must increase their outputs as solar production decreases to zero during late afternoon and early evening peak hours, to maintain the production-demand balance on the grid, 24/7/365. Then the solar production is zero from early peak hours to early morning hours the next day. That means the OTHER plant have must provide the entire electricity supply for that period to satisfy demand.

     

    In colder climates at higher latitudes, the solar capacity factors, CFs, are less, say about 0.15, which means the Solar Complex would produce a lot less electricity and would have a higher capital investment per MW. 
    Also, during winter, solar panels likely would be covered with snow and ice for a week or more, which means near zero solar electricity production, which means the OTHER plants must provide all electricity, 24/7/365

    https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/sunblock-the-global-fight-to-save

    https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/mines-minerals-green-energy-reality-checkMM.pdf

  • Willem Post

    THE IMPOVERISHED, DYSFUNCTIONAL STATE OF MAINE

    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-dysfunctional-stat...

    By Willem Post
    .

    The over-taxed, over-regulated, already-impoverished Maine people are super-screwed, trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real-growth Maine economy
    The Maine economy has lots of low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit, bull shit jobs
    The Maine economy has lots of woke, leftist, self-serving bureaucrats.
    Screwed-over Mainers also have to pay for poverty-stricken, illegal walk-ins/fly-ins of mostly Islamic cultures from all over, who enter the US from shithole, Third-World countries that keep no records so nothing can be vetted.

    The Islamic culture is alien to American culture. Muslims aim to have Sharia law take precedence over US law.

    Most Muslims are the dregs of shithole, Third World countries, sent to Maine by their US-hating, leftist, woke governments, in cahoots with Soros/Biden-financed NGOs
    .

    Like Islamic Somalis in Maine, they mainly suck from various government tits: These unvetted, illegal, often voting aliens are getting free housing, free food, free SNAP, free EBT, free childcare, a never-empty credit card, free phones, free healthcare, free education/job training and whatever other goodies they want.

    - have no skills, no training, no education, no modern industrial experience.
    - will take low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit jobs at 30% less than screwed-over Mainers.
    - are often good at crime, murder, rape, drug and human trafficking, and driving vehicles into native merrymakers.

    - the tens of millions of incompatible, subversive, walk-ins would rather undermine, instead of fight for traditional European and US values and culture.

    - Islamic men force their (multiple?) wives to be pregnant, because each child is a US citizen at birth, and comes with multiple government checks attached. A total scam to screw US taxpayers.
    .
    Borders must be closed and many millions of illegal aliens per year must be shipped back to where they came from, before they forever ruin the US culture, as they have ruined Europe, France, the UK, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.

     

    Visual Ugliness of wind and Solar: Down-trodden, screwed-over Mainers have to endure the visual ugliness and noise of hundreds of windmills, that are often idle, because of too little wind year-round, and many thousands of acres of solar panels, that are often covered with snow and ice in winter; there is no solar at night. Wind and solar are totally unreliable.

    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-power-is-not-the-...

    .

    Mini-brain Ed Miliband and his band of economic illiterati are on their way out, as are the highly unpopular Starmer, Macron and Merz, aka, the Three Blind Mice.
    The cost of electricity from an offshore wind system on the US East Coast is about 15 c/kWh.

    New York State utilities are forced to buy at 15.5 c/kWh. That cost would be 31 c/kWh, but the equivalent of 50% US and State tax credits and other project-enabling subsidies are provided to the risk-free, lucrative tax shelters of European $developers. 

    Hidden Costs: Filling-in capacity, balancing capacity, counteracting capacity, grid extension/reinforcement, etc., about 11 c/kWh; power-plant to landfill basis. 

    Europe, which lacks fossil fuels, has impoverished itself and made itself uncompetitive by “going wind and solar”

    The self-serving elites of Europe, who pushed for wind, solar, batteries, etc., had no idea about all those hidden costs, 

    When these costs were pointed out to them by very experienced energy systems analysts in 2000, these elites, using their Media foghorn, denied, obfuscated and vilified, already for at least 25 years. It will take years and many $billions to unravel that mess.

    .

    Europe had about 64.2 million unvetted, uneducated, inexperienced, foreign-born, walk-ins/fly-ins/float-ins, from mostly Islamic Third World countries at end 2025 (not counting their many children and many grandchildren born in Europe).

    A large percentage of those folks are sucking from multiple government programs. This accelerated Europe’s impoverishment.

    Since 1945, Europe screwed the US out of $trillions for defense. Europe will finally be spending 3 to 5% of GDP on its own defense, instead of 1 to 2%. This will further accelerate Europe’s impoverishment.
    The native folks of Europe are so screwed.

    .

    In the US, illegals often engage in payroll tax evasion, concealed-account ownership, off-the-books wage schemes, labor trafficking, and the use of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) without verified legal presence documentation.

    .

    Girls Competing with Boys on Girls Teams: Down-trodden Maine families also have to endure the insults of government-imposed mandates of having their girls compete with “boys” on girls’ teams, and “sharing” girl bathrooms and locker rooms, and “losing” their matches to the “boys”, all as mandated by woke Governor Mills, surrounded by her cabal of idiots and her ingrown clique of bureaucrats sucking from the government tit.
    .
    Experience of Denmark with Palestinians; Denmark keeps good records

    The first generation (1992 arrivals):

    Total accepted: 321 Palestinians

    Still in Denmark by 2019: 270 people; about 84% remained.

    Convicted of crimes: 204 people (63.6%).

    Prison sentences: 71 people (22.1%).

    Welfare dependency:

    In 2003, 238 of 321 (74%) received some form of benefit.

    In 2019, 176 full-time equivalents were on welfare.

    Of these, 122 were on disability pensions; meaning roughly two-thirds of working-age people were on permanent pension payments.

    The second generation (their children):

    Total children: 999 born or raised in Denmark

    Each couple has many children, because each child gets a monthly government check until 18.

    Convicted of crimes: 337 (33.7%).

    Prison sentences: 65 (6.5%).

    This means the crime rate dropped between generations; from 63% down to 34%; but remained far higher than the Danish national average.

    93-95% of Palestinians are Muslim, who do not marry Danish women.

    In 2019, the Danish Justice Minister stated: “These asylum seekers should not have been let in”.

    Norway, Sweden, etc., had similar experiences.

    .

    True Norwegian Experience: Norway keeps good records

    A Pakistani male, 32 years old, dressed in fancy, traditional, Pakistani garb, as if he is an important person, walks several paces in front of his 24-year-old wife, who pushes a baby carriage with 2 children, with 2 on each side holding on, a total of 6 children. 

    He must attend Norwegian classes to receive a signature from the teacher to continue to receive free housing, free food, free healthcare, and a free allowance for incidentals, etc. 

    Dressed as a Pakistani, he goes for interviews for jobs, but he has no education, no experience. He gets a signature from the employer as proof of the interview, to continue to continue sucking from various government tits.

    He came as a “refuge” to Norway, at 22 years old, did not speak a word of Norwegian, married a Pakistani bride, 14 years old, brought in from Pakistan by the Norwegian government. She was pregnant a few weeks after the wedding and produce 6 kids in 10 years. Each child comes with multiple government checks attached.

    Norway is rich, has a $2.3 trillion pension fund, invested in world equities, for 5 million people, of which about 500,000 are “non-Europeans and their children”.

    The Norwegian government rakes off a percentage of the fund each year. 

    The Norwegian government brings in “refuges” to comply with Brussels mandates, which means Norway can trade in the EU as if a member, and well-off Norwegians can have vacation houses in Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, etc., but it also means Germans (hated WWII invaders) can have vacation houses in Norway.

    Prior to Brussels mandates, no foreigner was allowed to own real estate in Norway.

    .

    The “SNAP/EBT moms” problem is pervasive

    Women who game the welfare system (and the taxpayer) by deliberately having multiple children with multiple men and refusing to keep a father in the picture. Those kids often grow up to be “just like their parents”. 

    The “EBT moms” expect to live off a multitude of welfare programs. Many of these women have minimal education and work experience. They live practically for free on the taxpayer’s dime.

    .

    Revelations of an “SNAP/EBT mom”, from X

    If y’all was really smart you’d understand “kids is the biggest hustle out there”. 
    I don’t clock into no job, 
    I let Uncle Sam and baby daddies cut me a check every month. 5 kids = 5 bags. 

    Food stamps, free rent, free healthcare, and child support on top of that. 
    My bills paid before I even wake up. 
    Everybody keep asking why I had 5 kids at age 26, because every single one come with checks attached. 
    My life secured, while y’all stressing over 9 to 5s. 
    Don’t be mad at me, be mad at you ain’t catch on to the hustle.

     

    This is the kind of “English” uttered by a SNAP/EBT “mom”, and there are tens of millions like her sucking tax dollars
    .
    EBT food subsidies, often spent on junk foods, have had the unfortunate side effect of helping to destroy the nuclear family, creating generations of fatherless children and skyrocketing crime rates.
    .
    Around 23% of all US households have single mothers, absent fathers.
    Among black families, 47% are single-mother households, 25% in Hispanic households and 12% in white households.
    About 7% of white families use SNAP/EBT, but 27% in black families and 23% in Hispanic families.
    .
    There is a clear trend here: Single mothers and minority families are the largest contingent of welfare beneficiaries per capita and the system is designed to reward their dependency. They aspire for that “career dependency”, as revealed by above SNAP/EBT mom.

    ,

    Denmark: 72% of gang-crime convicts have non-Western background, i.e. 15% of the Danish population has 5 times the crime rate.

    https://willempost.substack.com/p/denmark-72-of-gang-crime-convicts...

    .

    Minnesota: Almost Every Somali Household with Children Receives Aid from Various Government Programs

    https://willempost.substack.com/p/minnesota-nearly-every-somali-hou...

     

    Europe, the Garden of Eden

    Europe had an estimated 64.2 million unvetted, uneducated, inexperienced, foreign-born, walk-ins/fly-ins/float-ins from mostly Islamic Third World countries, who sucked from multiple government programs, at end 2025 (not counting their many children and many grandchildren born in Europe). This added to wind, solar, etc., accelerated European impoverishment.

     

    Since 1945, Europe screwed the US out of $trillions for defense. Europe will finally be spending 3 to 5% of GDP on its own defense, instead of 1 to 2%. This added to wind, solar, etc., will further accelerate European impoverishment.

    The sheeple, native folks of Europe are so screwed.