[Editor’s note: From time to time MasterResource will interview leading scholars in the free-market energy and environmental tradition. This is our first interview.]

MR: Ken, describe your current position at the Fraser Institute in Canada.

KG: I am Senior Director of Fraser’s Centre for Natural Resources, which studies public policy involving natural resource management. Primarily, we study mining and energy policy, but there are elements of environmental and even agricultural policy that fall under the aegis of my Center.

MR: What is the mission of Fraser?

KG: The informal way I describe our mission is that we study public policy and educate Canadians (and global audiences as well) about the impact that public policy choices have on people’s lives.

Those impacts might be at the level of the individual, where people want to see how schools rank in order to pick a school for their children; the impacts might be at the household level where we show people what a proposed or existing public policy might cost their household on an annual basis; they might be the effects a policy will have on their provincial competitiveness or fiscal stability; and it might be at the global level where we rank the countries of the world on economic freedom, or the hospitality of global jurisdictions to mining investment.…

“It is simply dishonest to state that very high levels of renewables can be accommodated with little problem, while NERC states that until we figure out who pays for all the substantial operational and reliability challenges those VERs bring to the system, higher penetrations (above 20%) become problematic.”

Last fall I entered into a debate in the comment section of a post on The Energy Collective with AWEA’s Michael Goggin. As is his style, Mr. Goggin posted a long series of statements about wind energy suggesting that it is neither more difficult to integrate high percentages of wind into the grid than conventional generators nor does it create significant additional expense for grid operators or ratepayers.

I responded with a post stating that a recent paper by NERC entitled “Maintaining Bulk Power System Reliability While Integrating Variable Energy Resources – CAISO Approach” contradicted nearly everything he stated in his post.…

“From Ireland to New Zealand and Massachusetts to Wisconsin, there is growing outrage among rural and semi-rural homeowners about the encroachment of massive wind projects. The European Platform Against Windfarms now lists some 600 signatory organizations from 24 countries. In the U.K. — where fights are raging against industrial wind projects in Wales, Scotland, and elsewhere — some 300 anti-wind groups have been formed. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., about 150 anti-wind groups are active.”

– Robert Bryce, Smaller Faster Lighter Denser: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong (Public Affairs, 2014)

The World Council for Nature (WCFN) was founded September 20, 2011, to defend Nature against aggression–and perhaps none more egregious than the dilute energy sprawl of wind turbines enabled by government-qua-man. “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul,” John Muir once said.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Greed Energy Economics:

The Levelized Cost of Electric Generation

Electricity Prices Skyrocketing In Largest Wind Power States

High Renewable Energy Costs Damage the German Economy

Merkel Advisers Urge Germany to End Clean-Energy Subsidy Program

Exelon may shut down nuclear plants due to wind subsidies

UK wind project earnings hit by plans to freeze carbon tax

Spain plans to end all pre-2004 wind subsidies

Turbine Health Matters:

A new Innovative infrasound measuring device available

Dr.…