‘Lure of the Renewables’ (Vaclav Smil in 1987 for today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 18, 2016 6 Comments

“Perhaps the most distressing characteristic displayed by the pushers of soft energy was the intellectual poverty of their grand designs, their impatient dismissal of all criticism, their arrogant insistence on the infallible orthodoxy of their normative visions.”

“There is little doubt about the origins and the real message of soft energy dogma: the roots are in the muddled revolts of young Americans in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the goal is a social transformation rather than simply a provision of energy. The latter fact explains the widespread appeal of soft energy sources among zealous would-be reformers of Western ways.” 

Vaclav Smil is one of the leading energy scholars of our day. He has, time and again, tried to inject energy reality into energy fantasy. Some of his previous posts at MasterResource (see here) include ‘The Limits of Energy Innovation’: Timeless Insight from Vaclav Smil and the five-part Power Density Primer.…

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Questioning “The Secret Dirty War to Stop Solar Power”

By James Rust -- June 23, 2016 7 Comments

“American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past five years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. But none of it has worked.”

In the United States, by mid-2016, the Big Three politically correct renewable energy sources wind power surpassed 75 Gigawatts, solar power surpassed 27 Gigawatts, and biofuels surpassed 16 billion gallons per year (mostly ethanol from corn).

In the article “Obama Legacy Will Be Power Blackouts” June 6, 2016, Professor Larry Bell wrote:

If you have heard some really exciting news that the Obama administration has already doubled the amount of total U.S. energy derived from ‘renewable alternative’ sources (solar, wind and biofuels), that would be true.

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Open Letter to Attorneys General about Climate Change

By E. Calvin Beisner -- June 15, 2016 1 Comment

“[M]aybe, too—before Congress takes you to the woodshed—you’ll decide to back off your potentially felonious conspiracy to ‘injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same,’ for which you could be fined or imprisoned up to ten years, or both (18 U.S.C. 241).”

Dear Attorneys General,

You’re not stupid. Stupid people don’t graduate from law school.

Neither are you generally ignorant. You know lots of law.

But the day of the “Renaissance man,” vastly learned across all fields of knowledge, is long gone. All intelligent and learned people are ignorant about some things.

So, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Attorneys General United for Clean Power, take no offense when I tell you that your intent to investigate and potentially prosecute, civilly or criminally, corporations, think tanks, and individuals for fraud, under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) or otherwise, because they question the causes, magnitude, risks, and benefits of global warming, and the best responses to it, is a dead giveaway that you’re ignorant about climate science and related climate and energy policy.…

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Wind Siting Rules: Kevon Martis Testimony to the Ohio Power Siting Board

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 9, 2016 7 Comments

“Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once stated that ‘The right to swing my fist end’s where the other fellow’s nose begins’. If the State of Ohio deems wind development a worthy prospect, then– at bare minimum — Ohio’s rural residents should first give consent and then receive compensation for the ‘bloodied noses’ from the loss of amenity pervasive wind development brings.”

“By creating siting guidelines that protect private property rights at the property line rather than forcibly donating unleased property to utility scale wind developers, each landowner can determine for themselves what their loss of amenity is worth to them…. Wind developers claim that such reasonable regulations raise the cost of wind energy. So be it.”

My name is Kevon Martis. I am the Executive Director of the Interstate Informed Citizens’ Coalition (IICC) of Blissfield MI.

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Electric Vehicles: Perennial Subsidies, Hope, Fail (data point from 1996)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 1, 2016 1 Comment Continue Reading

Primary Energy Consumption (Part II—Electricity Sector)

By Kent Hawkins -- October 13, 2015 4 Comments Continue Reading

Green Energy Plunders the Biosphere

By Viv Forbes -- July 20, 2015 5 Comments Continue Reading

T. Boone Pickens: Still More from the ‘Man of System’

By -- May 18, 2015 5 Comments Continue Reading

Cornwall Alliance to Pope Francis: Be Realistic for Humanity’s Sake (energy/climate policy in the balance)

By E. Calvin Beisner -- April 28, 2015 2 Comments Continue Reading

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: October 20, 2014

By -- October 20, 2014 1 Comment Continue Reading