Energy Nationalization: Bernie and Before

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 4, 2019 9 Comments

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has come right out and said it: The Green New Deal will require a government takeover of the US energy industries. As reported by Sam Dorman of Fox News:

The “Green New Deal” proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., seeks a complete transition to “energy efficiency” and “sustainable energy” — much of which would be owned and administered by the federal government.

During an appearance on MSNBC Thursday [August 22nd], Sanders told host Chris Hayes that the U.S. needed an “aggressive” federal approach to producing electricity and nodded after Hayes claimed he proposed a “federal takeover of the whole thing.”

Sanders agreed with Hayes’ assessment that he wanted to create a “Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA] extension for the whole country.” “You can’t nibble around the edges anymore,” Sanders added.

“For once I agree with Bernie Sanders,” stated Eric Worrall at WUWT.…

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Charles Koch vs. Crony Capitalism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 15, 2019 No Comments

“Good profit can only result from creating value for the consumer. It is the manifestation of the entrepreneur’s respect for what the customer values.”

– Charles Koch, Good Profit (New York: Crown Business, 2015), p. 244.

Documents Shine New Light on Koch Brothers’ Early Efforts to Abolish the Department of Energy,” reads the headline of a new report about Charles and David Koch by Desmog Blog. This organization/site also announced a Koch Network Database,

a new resource library built by DeSmog to assist journalists, academic researchers, and the public to learn more about the backgrounds of individuals and organizations associated with billionaire fossil fuel industrialists Charles Koch and David Koch‘s free market approach to a broad spectrum of civic issues.

As just a compilation of individuals and groups and their purpose and work, “guilty as charged” would apply.…

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DOE Revisits Forced Electrification (Decarbonization) Rules re Non-condensing Furnaces, Water Heaters

By -- August 1, 2019 9 Comments

“From time to time a statute gets written with a really good intention but reality does not follow that intention. That’s why we’re looking at these rules and regulations from a common-sense approach, we’re looking to get the best result we can.”

– DOE Secretary Rick Perry, quoted in Politico, July 16, 2019.

“According to Consumer Reports, the highest-ranked was an electric heat pump water with an average price of $1,200 (twice that of the runner-up gas water heater) and an average annual operating cost of $240. Second place was an apparently ordinary gas water heater with an average price of $600 and an average annual operating cost of $245.” (below)

On July 11, the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) and request for comments on a petition by the natural gas industry (a.k.a.…

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Milton Friedman on Crony Capitalism in the US Oil Industry

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 31, 2019 2 Comments

“Few U.S. industries sing the praises of free enterprise more loudly than the oil industry. Yet few industries rely so heavily on special governmental favors.” (Milton Friedman, 1967)

In honor of his 107th birthday, MasterResource reprints a 1967 essay by Milton Friedman, “Oil and the Middle East,” which nicely summarized the political power and cronyism of the domestic oil industry at the time. [1] Far from just historical, the animus created by pro-crony policies over a half century came home to roost in the 1970s when Northeast politicians and others imposed price controls and new taxes on the industry. That animus exists today under the hubris of climate policy.

Background

From the 1920s through the early 1970s, the political power of the domestic oil industry (primarily independent oil producers versus the integrated majors) succeeded in having the major oil states (excepting California) artificially restrict (‘prorate’) production to ‘market demand.’…

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U.S. Energy Policy: We Don’t Need One

By Kenneth Costello -- June 27, 2019 4 Comments Continue Reading

CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery (a market niche)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 24, 2019 2 Comments Continue Reading

Remembering the Holdren/Lomborg Debate

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 1, 2019 1 Comment Continue Reading

Trump on Avian Mortality (remembering NRDC’s silence at Altamont Pass)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 20, 2019 No Comments Continue Reading

“Save Earth”: Houston Chronicle Goes 1970s (Malthusian alarm getting long in the tooth)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 30, 2019 2 Comments Continue Reading

US Renewable Statistics: Real vs. Potential Output

By Stanislav Jakuba -- April 16, 2019 4 Comments Continue Reading