"THIS AGREEMENT WILL BE GOOD FOR ENRON STOCK!!" (Enron's Kyoto memo turns 15)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 24, 2012 4 Comments

Last week, a Hall of Shame cronyism memo turned 15 years old. Dated December 12, 1997, it was written from Kyoto, Japan, in the afterglow of the Kyoto Protocol agreement by Enron lobbyist John Palmisano.

Global green planners such as Palmisano were euphoric that, somehow, someway, the world had embarked on an irreversible course of climate control (and thus industrial and land-use control). His memo reflects the train-just-left-the-station mentality, as well as the specific benefits for first-mover ‘green’ Enron. Enron, in fact, had no less than six profit centers tied to pricing carbon dioxide (CO2), and seven if CO2 were capped and traded.) The story of Enron as the darling company of Left environmentalists has been well told elsewhere.)

The Washington Post broke the memo soon after Enron’s demise, showing how Enron was hardly a free-market, capitalistic company. 

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POWER's Peltier: Show Your CO2 Hand or Fold, Windpower

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 18, 2012 19 Comments

“Forgotten by many proponents is the justification for the PTC in the first place: to reduce CO2 emissions…. [Yet] … many utilities with large amounts of wind generation steadfastly refuse to release operating data for analysis. I suspect to do so would mean the release of empirical data to build the opposition’s case for insignificant CO2 reduction and poor operating economics. I was unable to find one study of existing wind energy installations that found the CO2 reductions predicted by AWEA.”

Robert Peltier, editor-in-chief of POWER magazine, is an honest broker. He understands the technical side of electrical generation as a professional engineer. He knows power generation in practice from his years of industry experience on the regulated and the nonregulated sides. He has taught the subject as a tenured professor.

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New York State Windpower: Enough Business/Government Cronyism

By Mary Kay Barton -- December 10, 2012 5 Comments

While Invenergy waits for the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) to be extended by this ‘Lame Duck’ Congress, as expressed in the 12/4/12 Batavia Daily News article: “Orangeville windfarm waits on the tax credit,” there are thousands of local tax- and rate-paying citizens who are eagerly awaiting the expiration, permanent expiration, of this $0.022/kWh subsidy. The PTC is nothing more than a tax-shelter-generator for wealthy, multinational, rent-seeking corporations like Invenergy.

How does a business plan dependent on massive taxpayer-funded handouts for profitability make it past the drawing board in the first place?!? Any of us would have filed such a plan to its rightful place—in the garbage can.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)– with the help of political cronies in high places–have attempted, and failed to push the PTC through various bills, not once, not twice, but FIVE (5) times in a little over a year.…

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ALEC to States: Repeal Renewable Energy Mandates ('Electricity Freedom Act' model bill adopted)

By Todd Wynn -- November 1, 2012 29 Comments

“Households in 29 states are and will continue to see higher electricity rates, lower economic growth and, subsequently, lower standard of livings without outright repeal of these crony capitalist policies.” 

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation’s largest non-partisan association of state legislators boasting more than 2,000 members from all 50 states, recently adopted a firm stance opposing misguided government intervention into the electricity market which works against affordable, reliable electricity.

ALEC’s model bill for state legislators, entitled the Electricity Freedom Act, repeals a state’s renewable energy mandate stating:

“…a renewable energy mandate is essentially a tax on consumers of electricity that forces the use of renewable energy sources beyond what would be called for by real market forces and under conditions of real competition in generation resources…”

Due in part to pressure from environmental groups and the renewable energy industry lobby, a movement began in the late 1990s and continued through the mid-2000s to enact state-based renewable energy mandates.

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Halloween: Neo-Malthusian Day

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 31, 2012 4 Comments Continue Reading

'Let's Go' … Game On for Shell in the Arctic (a milestone in the still maturing hydrocarbon energy era)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 11, 2012 4 Comments Continue Reading

“Not Cheap, Not ‘Green'” at the California Energy Commission

By Tom Tanton -- August 28, 2012 4 Comments Continue Reading

“Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green'” Turns 15

By Jon Boone -- August 27, 2012 11 Comments Continue Reading

Energy at ALEC: Response to Media Matters

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 13, 2012 4 Comments Continue Reading

'Determined Gentleman' vs. Big Wind (E&E News Profiles Droz, Taylor)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 27, 2012 5 Comments Continue Reading