Sarah Palin’s Energy Plan: Not Much to Like (Republicans had better do better than this)

By Jerry Taylor -- April 27, 2009 11 Comments

Last month, our friends over at the Heartland Institute published a front-page lead story in the April, 2009 edition of Environment & Climate News. Alyssia Carducci’s “Palin Energy Plan Receives High Praise” begins:

“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has announced an ambitious plan to produce half of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Palin’s plan, which empowers local municipalities to identify and develop the most cost-efficient renewable power sources available to them, won immediate praise from environmental groups, consumer groups, and industry.”

This article is yet more evidence that the inexplicable conservative love affair with Sarah Palin remains unrequited—at least, when it comes to economic policy in general and energy policy in particular. But Republicans, as the kids might say, “She’s just not that into you.” Let’s examine the litany of problems with Plain’s approach to energy.…

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W. S. Jevons (1865) on Coal (Memo to Obama, Part III)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 31, 2009 5 Comments

Each renewable energy, Jevons explained, was either too scarce or too unreliable for the new industrial era. The energy savior was coal, a concentrated, plentiful, storable, and transportable source of energy that was England’s bounty for the world.

There was no going back to renewables. Coal–and that included oil and gas manufactured from coal–was the new master of the master resource of energy in the 18th and 19th centuries. As Jevons stated in the introduction (p. viii) of The Coal Question (1865):…

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Obama’s Non-stimulating Stimulus

By Kenneth P. Green -- January 16, 2009 3 Comments

According to USA Today, the energy elements of Obama’s “stimulus” package add up to about $58 billion. He’d use $32 billion to fund a smart electricity grid;$20 billion for Renewable energy tax cuts and a tax credit for research on energy efficiency and clean energy, plus a multiyear extension of the green energy production tax credit; and $6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes.

There’s not all bad here.…

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Energy: The Master Resource (by Robert L. Bradley Jr. and Richard W. Fulmer)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 8, 2025 No Comments

Editor’s Note: This book review was published just short of 20 years ago in The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics [Vol. 8, No. 3 (FALL 2005): 93–95] by Pierre Desrochers of the University of Toronto.

“Austrian economists have so far contributed very little to energy studies…. This book could therefore go a long way in providing a new set of concrete economic examples and principles for use in classroom discussions.”

Despite its obvious economic and social importance, energy (broadly understood) is an understudied field. True, among academics, one can find several engineers and geologists, along with some economists, geographers, legal scholars, and political scientists, who devote much of their research efforts to devising and/or analyzing various energy-related technologies, supply sources, markets, and institutions.

By and large, however, very few individuals have tried to understand how all the various parts of the energy puzzle fit—or not—together, and much—if not most—of the public discussion of the issue is agenda-driven and ignorant of basic physical and economic principles.…

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The Great Texas Blackout of 2021: Triumph of the Unreliables

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 20, 2024 No Comments Continue Reading

Green Hydrogen Needs Vast Subsidies

By Steve Goreham -- October 19, 2023 5 Comments Continue Reading

Paul Bryan on Steven Koonin: Cancel Culture at Work

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 6, 2021 2 Comments Continue Reading

“Energy and Society” Course (Part IV: The Perennial Energy Debate)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 3, 2019 No Comments Continue Reading

“Energy and Society” Course (Part III: Electricity from Hydro, Nuclear, Renewables, Biomass)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 2, 2019 No Comments Continue Reading

“Energy and Society” Course (Part II: Carbon-based Energies)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 28, 2019 2 Comments Continue Reading