[Ed. note: This is Bradley’s final statement to: “This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.” After nine days and thousands of votes cast from around the world, the opposition is polling very close.]
“A reliable and affordable supply of energy is absolutely critical to maintaining and expanding economic prosperity where such prosperity already exists and to creating it where it does not.” – John Holdren (2000)
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (2011)
Energy density (think energy efficiency) is the most important concept for the House Proposition.…
“They about had an orgasm in Biden’s office when we mentioned Solyndra,” read a Feb. 27, 2010, email from [Ken] Levit to [Steve] Mitchell. A follow-up email from Mitchell to Levit later that day responded, “That’s awesome! Get us a [Department of Energy] loan.”
– Quoted in “Emails Reveal Biden Team’s Enthusiasm Over Solyndra Loans,” Fox News, November 9, 2011.
Kids in the taxpayer candy store. That describes the heady days when Solyndra executives and lobbyists gleefully found out that the politicians loved their speculative, defective product. It turns out that Solyndra was a photo-op for President Obama and his “dream ‘green’ team”–one that may well end up being their undoing. (Does Obama use the term ‘green jobs’ anymore?.)
Enron was the canary in the renewable-energy coal mine.…
The first of two rebuttal phases of the ECONOMIST’s online debate on renewable energy is up. My opening statement focused on energy density by resurrecting the timeless wisdom of William Stanley Jevons. My rebuttal below (against Matthias Fripp of Oxford University) expands the energy density argument to stress that environmentalists must reconsider (not assume) climate alarmism to stop the assault of government-enabled renewables on the environment.
With growing grassroot opposition against industrial wind parks, the supply-side strategy of forced energy transformation is in real trouble. Wind power is not much of a supply source, which raises the question about why anti-fossil-fuel types have not embraced nuclear power.
To play devil’s advocate, is the real strategy of anti-industrialists to purposefully restrict supply to force conservation via high prices? Is the real enemy cheap energy itself?…