In the approximately 5,000-word platform of the Republican Party, some 400 (8 percent) explicitly deals with energy. All of the statements (below) are pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, pro-economy, and pro-environment. Not a mention of the tired, half-century alarm of a ‘climate crisis’. No mention of forced energy transformation to dilute, intermittent, land-intensive wind and solar. No mention (just the opposite) of a new energy tax domestically or at the international border. Free and open markets are implied.
The energy mentions in the Republican Platform follow.
“MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR!”
“Unleash American Energy Under President Trump, the U.S. became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.…
Continue Reading“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).…
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