Former Marine Daniel Penny said Tuesday that he stands by his actions, despite enduring years of harsh criticism. (Screenshot/Fox News)

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Mariane Angela

Former Marine Daniel Penny said Tuesday that he stands by his actions on a New York City subway, despite enduring years of harsh criticism.

During an interview with Judge Jeanine Pirro on “The Five,” Penny revealed his motivations and said he intervened to prevent potential harm as he prioritizes the safety of others over his personal comfort with the public and media attention. He added that he would endure a “million court appearances and the hatred and name-calling that comes with them” if it meant preventing even one person from coming to harm.

“This type of this is very uncomfortable. All this attention and limelight is very uncomfortable. I would prefer without it. I didn’t want any type of attention or praise.. and I still don’t. The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt if he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself,” Penny told Pirro when she asked him what made him choose to get involved.

Penny also touched on the broader implications of his experience and criticized the policies of liberal city leaders, which he believes contributed to the subway incident.

“These public officials would do something so self-serving… These political gain, I mean these are their policies and I don’t mean to get political or make enemies, although I guess I have already,” Penny said.

A Manhattan court found Penny not guilty on Monday after the jury dismissed a charge of second-degree manslaughter last week when they could not reach a unanimous verdict. Penny subdued 30-year-old Jordan Neely in May 2023 with a chokehold after Neely began exhibiting erratic behavior on a New York City subway.

Law enforcement sources and witnesses on the F train described Neely as yelling and acting unpredictably, prompting passengers to feel threatened. According to prosecutors, Penny maintained the chokehold on Neely for around six minutes.

Penny’s lawyer, attorney Thomas Kenniff, previously said he was confident that a Manhattan jury would focus solely on the facts, not racial issues, despite a recent refusal to dismiss the case.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

The U.S. power-generation sector has been hit in recent weeks with story after story about Big Tech firms entering into deals with power providers or developers to satisfy their electricity needs with nuclear generation.

Here are some examples:

—In mid-October, Google said it had entered into an agreement to purchase power for its data center needs from Kairos Power, a developer of small modular reactors (SMRs).

—A couple of weeks earlier, Microsoft and Constellation completed a deal that would involve the restart of Unit 1 at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania to power that company’s needs.

—On Dec. 3, Meta issued a request for proposals to nuclear developers to provide up to 4 gigawatts (GW) of electricity to power data centers and AI no later than the early 2030s.

—Perhaps the most extensive development of all came two days after Google’s announcement, when Amazon announced it has entered into deals to support the development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) with three developers in three different regions of the country.

So, what’s going on here? Aren’t all these Big Tech companies supposed to be totally bought into the climate-alarm narrative, a narrative that claims wind and solar are the only real “clean” energy solutions for power generation? Aren’t we constantly bombarded by boosters of those non-solutions that they are able to reliably provide uninterrupted electricity if backed up by stationary batteries?

Certainly, that has been the case in the past — few corporations could hope to match the volume of virtue signaling about green energy we have seen from these tech companies in recent years. That was all fine until, apparently, the AI revolution came along.

AI is an enormous power hog, one that these and other Big Tech firms must now rapidly adopt to remain competitive.

The trouble with AI and the data centers needed to make it go is that it requires the reliable, constant injection of electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days every year. While these Big Tech firms would no doubt love to be able to virtue signal about sourcing their power from wind and solar backed up by enormous banks of batteries, each and every one of them has assessed that option and realized it cannot reliably fill their needs.

Thus, the recent rush to nuclear. After all, once they’ve been built and placed into service, nuclear reactors are a very real zero emissions power source. And unlike wind and solar, nuclear plants do not have to be backed up by an equal amount of generation capacity provided by another fuel, consisting most often of natural gas plants. Nuclear reactors are basically the Energizer Bunnies of power generation: They just keep going and going.

Another big advantage nuclear brings over renewables is the avoidance of the need to invest in massive new transmission networks. This is especially true of SMRs, which can be installed directly adjacent to the contracting data centers. By contrast, wind generation installations must be located in areas where the wind reliably blows. Such areas are often hundreds of miles away from big demand centers, as has been the case in Texas.

Where solar is concerned, the provision of multiple gigawatts (GWs) of generation capacity can require the condemnation of hundreds of acres of land, often thousands. The stationary battery centers for 1 GW of solar or wind would require another large swath of land to be condemned. By contrast, the land footprint for a pair of 500 megawatt (MW) SMRs would amount to no more than a few acres.

Where the deal between Microsoft and Constellation is concerned, sourcing power from an older generation nuclear plant like Three Mile Island will involve interconnecting into an already extant transmission system, though some upgrades and extensions will no doubt be required.

This sudden rush to nuclear by some of the largest companies in the country will benefit all Americans. The massive infusion of capital will accelerate development of SMRs and other advanced nuclear tech, pressure policymakers to modernize antiquated nuclear regulations, and to streamline Byzantine permitting processes that currently inhibit all forms of energy development.

It is a win-win situation for all of us.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.