“Jimmy Carter was right in exhorting Americans to turn down their thermostats, even if he did look nerdy in a cardigan while urging us to do so.”
“An energy crisis is again upon us. Soaring gasoline prices and oil imports are daggers aimed at the heart of our stumbling economy.”
– Joseph Wheelan, “Is it Safe Now to Admit Jimmy Carter Was Right?” (July 2008).
It’s back to Jimmy Carter with the Biden/Harris (or Harris/Biden) ticket. The Democrats might not admit as much, but the “soft energy path” of the 1970s is back in vogue with climate change replacing fears of oil and gas depletion and of oil imports.
Consider this piece by Joseph Wheelan, “Is it Safe Now to Admit Jimmy Carter Was Right?” (July 2008) that with some updating on the villains could pass for an op-ed today.…
This post summarizes the criticism of Biden’s pro-fracking position from Bill McKibben (New Yorker), Emily Aiken (Heated), Joe Romm (Front Page Live), and David Roberts (Vox), as well as from The Sunrise Movement, 350.org, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Sierra Club.…
“Offshore wind is not cost-effective, and the forecasts of rapidly declining costs through increasing economies of scale are unrealistic. Absent continued subsidies … it is unlikely that any offshore wind facilities will be developed.”
“The experience with offshore wind projects in Europe over the last decade has demonstrated that newer, larger turbine technologies have been accompanied by significant reliability and maintenance issues, causing the amount of electricity that these turbines generate each year to decline by almost half over 10 years.”
An important data source for offshore wind is a new study by Jonathan Lesser, “Out to Sea: The Dismal Economics of Offshore Wind,” just released by the Manhattan Institute.
This major study reviews the history of offshore wind, the subsidies to date in the Northeastern U.S.,…