“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).…

“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.…

Energy, as Julian Simon emphasized, is the master resource. Without energy, other resources could not be produced or consumed. Even energy requires energy: usable mineral energies requires energy to manufacture and to power the requisite tools and machinery. Nor would there be wind turbines or solar panels, which are monuments to embedded fossil-fuel energy.

Fossil fuels upgrade renewable energies to be part of electricity grid. Short of prohibitively expensive storage, natural gas-generated power, in particular, fills in when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine.

As an input to all products and services, energy must be affordable, convenient, and reliable. To this end, public policy should respect consumer preference and allow energy entrepreneurs to meet the demands of the marketplace. This requires a respect for private property rights, voluntary exchange, and the rule of law to facilitate the global exchange of energy and its innumerable subcomponents.…

“In terms of sunk cost and opportunity cost, Trump is the one for liberty. Job #1, after all, is to defeat Biden/Harris or Harris/Biden.” (Bradley, below)

“But these are extraordinary times, and perhaps ‘all things considered, the other guy’s worse’ is a profound compliment. That’s why this libertarian is voting for Donald J. Trump, and recommending that my fellow opponents of the welfare-warfare state do the same.” (D. Dowd Muska, below)

It is fair to say that Donald Trump has upended politics and the Republican Party in the last five years or more. But he has also fractured the libertarian movement too, with some turning into Never Trumpers, even Trump Haters, namely David Boaz, gatekeeper at Cato, and Tom Palmer of Atlas Network.

In contrast, I appreciate the many openings Trump has provided to free-market groups coast-to-coast, border-to-border.…