“Under [Ken] Lay’s direction, Enron would restart the solar industry [in 1995], rescue the US wind industry [in 1997], and help legitimize the climate issue.”

“Enron saw green in green energy. Wind and solar as primary energies had new public policy rationales and powerful political constituencies. Specifically, global warming from fossil-fuel usage (via the enhanced greenhouse effect) was the new neo-Malthusian scare, and post–Gulf War concerns over energy security put petroleum on the defensive. Even more than this, renewables had public cachet for an energy company, particularly one that prized publicity and promoted a momentum stock.”

– Bradley, Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years, pp. 530, 528, respectively.

Rent-seeking … strategic uses of government intervention…. corporativism. Many terms have described business lobbying within political capitalism where the political means replaces the economic means to financial success The result is bad profit, defined by classical-liberal entrepreneur Charles Koch as corporate income not created but politically obtained and thereby lost to the creators in the economic system.…

“Regulations and foreign aid policies restricting low-cost coal power, intended to reduce CO2 emissions, drive up costs and reduce the availability of electricity. In poor parts of the world, this leaves millions more still exposed to much denser and more dangerous indoor air pollution.”

The energy race is on, with separate lanes for teams advancing wind, solar, gas, coal, and oil sands technologies.

Across the world enterprises race to discover and develop new energy-rich places and raw materials, searching for pathways to lower costs, reduce waste, and boost yields. For energy, the master resource, engineers from solar to oil sands test new materials, chemicals, and processes for transforming sun, wind, water, and earth to energy.

Windmill teams design ever larger, more efficient blades, more efficient power transformers, and hopefully more resilient to storms and corrosion.…

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 Trove Of New Research Spells Out The Folly Of Renewable Energy

The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid

What Is The Cost Of Getting To A 100% “Renewable” Electric Grid?…

” … [Alan] Krupnick pointed out that economic realities and state regulations may frustrate the administration’s efforts to boost fossil fuel production….”

So reads one highlight from the 2017 annual report of Resources for the Future (RFF), where wish and want are prone to color the opinions and technical analysis of the richly funded organization’s bevy of PhD economists.

Seen another way, do not expect key scientific and economic terms in the energy debate to appear in this annual report. Government failure–the very term that goes alongside market failure? It’s missing. Unintended consequences of government intervention? Not there. Global greening from carbon dioxide emissions/concentrations? No way. Global lukewarming re the growing gulf between model-predicted and recorded global temperatures? Not a hint of that.

RFF’s common denominator? Assume, don’t debate, fundamental questions that conflict with the funding agenda of problematic climate change.…