Dear Mr. Koch,
Recently, at a Wall Street Journal forum, I heard from your company’s environmental, health and safety director, Sheryl Corrigan, that you believe that “the climate is changing,” and that “humans have a part in that.” …. [Let’s] stop denying there’s a problem and get to work solving it.
– Michael Brune, “An Open Letter to Charles Koch.” (May 5, 2016)
Does Michael Brune understand the argument of classical liberals against climate alarmism (neo-Malthusianism) and forced energy transformation (global government)? We understand the Sierra Club’s, so why not the Sierra Club ours?
Assuming that climate changes and humans are a factor in climate change does not assume that there is a global market failure. It does not assume that government can satisfactorily understand the nature of the problem or project the appropriate solution.…
“Clearly the work of the U.S. Government laboratories played a crucial role in wind resource assessment and critically needed impetus to technology development―a role the private sector viewed as either too risky or representing an inadequate business opportunity. NREL has led and nurtured wind technology toward commercial viability since the 1970s and, in my view, this work represents one of the best return-on-investments in energy technology ever made by Uncle Sam.”
– Jim Dehlsen, the founder of Zond Energy Systems (2003)
Enron might have saved the US wind industry in the mid-to-late 1990s. It began with its purchase of Zond Energy Systems in late 1996. At the time, Zond was in financial trouble, and its main domestic competitor, Kenetech, was in worse shape and would soon declare bankruptcy.
With Enron’s capital (and reputation at the time), the renamed Enron Wind Corp.…
“Expanding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be throwing good money after bad. Instead of remaining a valuable asset mired in the political swamp, the SPR can be turned into an entrepreneurial asset. The reserve can be privatized by selling off either the entire operation or its individual parts.” – RLB (1991)
Good analysis on empirical matters, even from long ago (a quarter-century in this case) must stand the test of time.
It is regular fare at MasterResource to document the false claims of energy Malthusians (neo-Malthusians) from the 1970s until the present (now in their fifth decade!). And from time to time, MasterResource produces analyses from the past by free-market scholars for their relevancy and accuracy for current energy debates.
The example below, from 1991, is a quarter-century old. It concerns the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a forgotten, obsolete oil stockpile that could disappear tomorrow and not be noticed by the market.…