“Absolutely I think they should build another [nuclear plant], because I think they’ll get better at it, It’s the cleanest energy you can possibly have out there, and we’re gonna need a tremendous increase in energy production.” [Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), quoted in Politico. June 27, 2024]
Nuclear power is a government-created and government-enabled industry. It was born of government largesse and regulatory favor, led by these five policies:
Nuclear’s history of cost overruns, construction delays, and in-progress cancellations speaks for itself. Suffice it to say that the free market would have never allowed this industry to jump from military applications to civilian ones.…
Continue Reading“The infant industry argument is a smoke screen. The so-called infants never grow up.” (Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose, 1979, p. 49)
The idea of a transition to a “new energy future” is historically incorrect with wind power, grid solar, and battery-driven cars and trucks. All have a history of non-competitiveness with or displacement by fossil fuels. Energy density explains much of why the renewable energy era gave way to a far better world of coal, oil, and natural gas in recent centuries.
This is taken from a 2014 article by Zachary Shahan for Renewable Energy World, History of Wind Turbines.
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1887: The first known wind turbine used to produce electricity is built in Scotland. The wind turbine is created by Prof James Blyth of Anderson’s College, Glasgow (now known as Strathclyde University).…
Continue Reading“Between 1970 and 2022, the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 78 percent. This progress occurred while U.S. economic indicators remain strong.” (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Our Nation’s Air Quality: Trends through 2022“)
Having failed to convince skeptics of climate alarm (the science is more settled toward the positives than the negatives of carbon dioxide [CO2]), and with no change in climate policy able to affect climate for decades (if ever), critics of fossil fuels turn to the known criteria air pollutants. The common refrain is that such emissions kill (five million annually), as if the sources of those emissions do not save lives—many more lives—by the minute of every day.…
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