“Federal officials, aware that solar power breakthroughs have shined and faded almost as often as the sun, say the Enron project could introduce commercially competitive technology without expensive Government aid.” (- Allen Myerson, Solar Power, for Earthly Prices, New York Times, November 15, 1994)
Thirty years ago, the ‘newspaper of record’ excitedly reported atop the business section that a breakthrough with solar energy had occurred with the business genius of the upstart energy company Enron. Formed in the mid-1980s, Enron had just entered into the solar business and was destined to revitalize–if not save–the U.S. wind industry just a few years later.
Good press continues to create an Enron-like illusion of the coming competitiveness and profitability of solar and wind energies for on-grid electricity. Basic energy physics explains why the sun’s (dilute, intermittent) flow cannot compete against the sun’s stored (dense) energy embedded in natural gas, coal, and oil.…
This week, a Hall of Shame business memo turns 27 years old. Dated December 12, 1997, it was written from Kyoto, Japan, by Enron lobbyist John Palmisano in the afterglow of the Kyoto Protocol agreement.
Global green planners were euphoric that, somehow, someway, the world had embarked on an irreversible course of climate control (and thus industrial and land-use control). But Kyoto predictably failed, and the Paris climate accord of 2015 teeters, with COP27’s recent failure making COP28’s prospects look grim.
Palmisano’s memo cites the benefits for first-mover ‘green’ Enron. Enron, in fact, had no less than six profit centers tied to pricing carbon dioxide (CO2)–and seven if CO2 were capped and traded. The story of Enron as the darling of Left environmentalists has been well told elsewhere.…
“If you’re pushing fossil fuels at this point, you’re anti-human.” – Andrew Dessler (2022)
“Fossil fuels are shredding our democracy.” Andrew Dessler (2024)
The recent election should have thrown climate scientist/alarmist/activist Andrew Dessler into a funk, even toward self-doubt and need to check his anti-CO2 premises. His all-out exaggeration about a climate emergency was resoundingly rejected by the winning party and abandoned as an important talking point by the losing party. [1]
Dessler will not shout (as before) that Americans are dumb and suicidal by rejecting his wise counsel. [2] He will not engage in some flagrant act of defiance like James Hansen getting arrested at a coal mine or Peter Kalmus disrupting a professional meeting of climate scientists. And, of course, he will not light himself on fire like a few climate crazies.…