Texas’s CREZ Transmission Line: Wind Power’s $7 Billion Subsidy (ratebase socialism as ‘infrastructure improvement’)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 16, 2018

“We see significant promise in President Trump’s plan. With 99 percent of American wind farms built in rural areas, an investment in transmission infrastructure boosts rural economies while improving resilience and reliability, delivering low cost power to consumers and strengthening U.S. energy dominance.”

– Amy Farrell, American Wind Energy Association. Quoted in Ken Silverstein, “Green Energy Is Hoping The President’s Infrastructure Plan Doesn’t Crumble.” Forbes.com, February 13, 2018.

“Regulators and wind power advocates say the build-out, approved by the PUC in 2008, has spurred huge investments in wind energy by assuring developers markets for the energy their turbines churn out.”

– Jim Malwitz, “$7 Billion Wind Power Project Nears Finish,” The Texas Tribune, October 13, 2013.

Do not think that the wind power industry has market viability.…

Julian Simon Remembered (would have been 86 today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 12, 2018

““If environmental alarmists ever wonder why more people haven’t come around to their way of thinking, it isn’t because people like me occasionally voice doubts in newspaper op-eds. It’s because too many past predictions of imminent disaster didn’t come to pass. That isn’t because every alarm is false — many are all too real — but because our Promethean species has shown the will and the wizardry to master the challenge, at least when it’s been given the means to do so.”

– Bret Stephens, “Apocalpyse Not.” New York Times, February 8, 2018.

“[Julian] Simon found that humanity progressed not only by solving immediate problems within the existing institutional framework but also by creatively improving the framework over time. . . . In the short run, members of society adopt localized technical and contractual fixes.

…

‘America’s Vast Energy Potential Awaits, Mr President’ (message to Obama revisited)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 11, 2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbradley/2011/12/27/americas-massive-energy-potential-awaits-mr-president/#447f1f003e66

The fossil-fuel energy era is not waning. Quite the opposite; it is still young.

For decades, activists have been trying to convince the American people that declining resources would forever make us dependent on expensive foreign oil. But according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) on North America’s energy resources, that line of thinking is flat-out false. Based on the latest official statistics, domestic oil, natural gas, and coal deposits are much more extensive than commonly realized.

The real problem is that much of our resources are not being developed because of antiquated, heavy-handed government regulations. As a consequence, the American economy is being deprived of significant job creation and new investments.

Consider this. Total recoverable oil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels, which is more oil than the entire world has used over the last 150 years.…