“With climate change politics a given, Yergin surveys history with a dose of political economy to see two energy worlds: conventional, consumer-chosen, taxpayer-neutral, dense, reliable minerals vs. government-dependent, politically powerful, dilute, intermittent wind and solar, as well as battery-powered electric vehicles.”
Daniel Yergin’s tomes are fun reading and great cliff notes to the sweep of energy history. With many hundreds of energy books on my shelf, I find myself pulling down The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1990), The Commanding Heights (1998), and The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World (2011). I also peruse his edited/coauthored Energy Future (1979) to note Yergin’s incorrect embrace of the soft energy path when it was ‘the thing.’
His latest is The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations (Penguin Press, 2020).…
The United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 26) concludes this week from Glasgow, UK. The general consensus is that no progress was made–and all will try again November 1–12, 2021, in the same location.…
“Renewables will never catch up to modern, efficient sources of energy. But this hasn’t stopped federal, state and local governments from continuing to force consumers and taxpayers to subsidize renewable energy companies, making energy in America less affordable and reliable in the process.” (- Bill Peacock, below)
Four years ago, after the election of Donald Trump, I contacted the head of the editorial page of the Houston Chronicle requesting a visit with the editorial board to introduce myself, the Institute for Energy Research (IER), and the classical-liberal worldview applied to energy. I got no response.
I then resent the request and got a curt no caps rely from the gentleman as in don’t-have-time-for you. I then responded with the fact that IER was a go-to Trump think tank, and my being the founder and from/in Houston would add interest.…