“When an abundant natural fall of water is at hand, nothing can be cheaper or better than water power. But everything depends upon local circumstances. The occasional mountain torrent is simply destructive. Many streams and rivers only contain sufficient water half the year round and costly reservoirs alone could keep up the summer supply.”

-W. S. Jevons (1865)

Serious students of energy policy should read the blogs at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), not only those at this site. The current blog at IER, “Renewables Generated 103 Percent of Portugal’s Electricity Consumption in March [2018],” explains that country’s unique situation of being hydro-dependent and wind-tied. And so it is that abnormally high rainfall has blessed Portugal this year–quite the opposite from a year ago.

Enter the wisdom of the ages, which in this case gets to W.…

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:

Why some rural communities are fighting back against wind development

Wind turbines delivering next to nothing to grid despite hysteria

Environmental activists ignore energy security realities

America’s Next Energy Crisis

Short video: Overcoming Bias in Energy Conversations

The World Bank’s anti-energy policy betrays its core development mission

Offshore Wind States: Beware

Wind Projects Worry Federal Meteorologist

Environmental justice and the expanding geography of wind power conflicts

Duke Energy Considering Extending Nuclear Plant Life to 80 years

Study: Wind turbines impact bat activity, leading to high losses of habitat

Study: Gone with the Wind – Wind Development and Raptors

All wind energy avian mortality research and reporting is just deception

Solar panels could be a source of GenX and other perflourinated contaminants

Study: Model falsifiability and climate slow modes

IPCC report deleted uncertainties about human caused climate change

Climate Change, Catastrophe, Regulation and the Social Cost of Carbon

Climate Change Wackos Exposed in California Court

Four Questions on Climate Change

DDP: Ten Key Questions about Climate Change

A Challenge to the American Planning Association (re Sustainability)

Startling New Discovery Could Destroy Global Warming Doomsday Forecasts

Scott Pruitt – Warrior for Science

Crushing the Global Warming Cult at the EPA

Inventory of U.S.…

[Editor note: This exchange at the R-Street Institute website (no longer visible) is posted here and here.]

“From the Club of Rome to the present–with scientific models and articles in Science magazine from the ‘consensus’–the verdict has been wrong, wrong, wrong, and trending wrong. And this is before even considering (non-libertarian) public policy of taxes, tariffs, equity adjustments, private/public cronyism, etc.”

So why have neo-Malthusian natural scientists been so incorrect for so long? We have nearly a half-century of (falsified) doom-and-gloom.

Josiah Neeley of R-Street, once a critic of climate alarmism and wind power (see yesterday), is now desperately trying to make a case to libertarians and conservatives that the climate is in crisis and a carbon tax (and all the global government that goes with it) is necessary.…

“China’s new strategy is to rely mostly on a switch from ‘dispersed coal’ to clean coal, bolstered by generous doses of natural gas and all of the above—and more natural gas storage.” (Xizhou Zhou)

Last month in conjunction with CERAWeek, the Wall Street Journal published a Special Advertising Feature by Xizhou Zhou, “How China’s Anti-Smog Campaign Triggered a Natural Gas Crisis and a Switch to ‘Clean Coal’,” (March 7, 2018).

It was an article that contradicted the mainstream media story about how China energy policy is all about going ‘green giant’ in renewable energy (such my criticism of Amy Myers Jaffe). Donn Dears, too, jumped on Zhou’s piece in “The Truth About Coal, China, and Smog.”)

Basically, China is going clean coal, as in applying modern pollution control technology to reduce real pollutants (CO2 is not a pollutant in the classic sense). …