Bradley has tackled a vast and dynamic energy landscape through the big prism of Enron. He was wise to include necessary contexts for 15 chapters of markets and personalities. Navigating FERC deregulation orders over a decade was a fearsome writing task, done well. Pipeline and power plant deals at home and abroad; solar, wind, and other alternative energies, the list goes on. Politics in Austin, Washington, DC, and foreign capitals. Enron was everywhere.

Robert L. Bradley Jr. has written a very important book about Houston’s most controversial company. This is the first of a two-volume corporate biography chronicling the rise, fall, and aftermath of Enron; his tetralogy has already produced a book on worldview (Capitalism at Work: 2009) and prehistory (Edison to Enron: 2011).

Few observers have been as ideally located to chronicle this modern-day version of a Greek tragedy.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

A moral case for zero emission electricity for all

German Failure on the Road to a Renewable Future

Concerns about Turbine interference with Military are Legitimate

Is The Long Renewables Honeymoon Over?…

… under the Green New Deal, they don’t like clean, beautiful natural gas. They don’t like anything. They don’t know what they like. They sort of like wind, even though it kills all the birds. You want to see a bird cemetery? Go under a windmill sometime….

You know, in California, you go to jail for five years if you kill a bald eagle. If you go under a windmill, you see them all over the place.

– Donald Trump, “Remarks on Promoting Energy Infrastructure and Economic Growth,” Hackberry, Louisiana, May 14, 2019

Back in 1997, I published a long Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute, “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’.” A section of that study, “The ‘Avian Mortality’ Problem,” addressed what President Trump recently said (above) 22 years later.…

“The golden era of American energy is now underway.” (President Donald Trump, The White House, May 14, 2019)

… under the Green New Deal, they don’t like clean, beautiful natural gas. They don’t like anything. (President Donald Trump, “Remarks on Promoting Energy Infrastructure and Economic Growth,” Hackberry, LA, May 14, 2019)

Who has been the most free-market energy President in U.S. history? In modern times, Ronald Reagan comes to mind. He decontrolled crude oil and petroleum products in his first week of office (January 1981), although Jimmy Carter’s phase-out of such regulation had just six months to go. Reagan did some other things to undo a decade of energy statism but fell short of his election goal of abolishing the US Department of Energy. [1]

Enter Donald Trump.…