“If I wanted to kill [tax subsidies], the thing to do is for Exxon Mobil to go and invest heavily in [wind and solar] and then Congress would immediately cancel the tax subsidy. Actually what they would do is they would just cancel it for us…. So we are not going to go into investments that are dependent on a government providing a tax system to make them viable.”
– Rex Tillerson, Quoted in Russell Gold, “Exxon Mobil: We Like Renewable Energy Subsidies. Wink, Wink.” Wall Street Journal (March 6, 2009).
Last week at MasterResource, I posted on current US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s 2013 views on climate science in light of consumer energy needs. He referenced the pause in increasing global temperatures in light of rising concentrations of greenhouse gas concentrations.…
Continue Reading“Less expensive natural gas is a boon to drilling host communities because it is a boon to natural gas customers. Wind energy is a boon to local communities looking to make a buck off of forced government wealth transfers — aka ‘picking winners and losers.’ That government force comes in many forms, such as special taxpayer-funded production subsidies, local tax abatement, and state renewable energy mandates.”
Tom Stacy is, indeed, a “heroic Ohioan for affordable electricity.” Underpaid and overworked, he speaks truth to wind power at every opportunity in his state and beyond. His advice?
… Continue ReadingProtest loudly, politely, and often, and sue at every turn. Expose greed and support sound science…. Finally, always speak from a position of integrity and truth and NEVER exaggerate the way the wind industry does.
“[I]t is utterly futile, on a priori grounds, even to think that wind power can make any significant contribution to world energy supply, let alone to emissions reductions, without ruining the planet. As the extraordinary polymath Sir David MacKay pointed out, the arithmetic is against such unreliable renewables.”
– Matt Ridley, “Wind is an Irrelevance to the Energy and Climate Debate“(May 15, 2017)
An op-ed and blog post several months ago by Matt Ridley is still making the rounds. A great thinker, Ridley gets to the essence of things. He is hard to ignore, even by his critics. Ridley’s book The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010), is a seminal contribution in the Julian Simon tradition. (His other work can be found here.)
Here are some salient excerpts from his op-ed/post:
… Continue Reading“[Wind power’s] contribution is still, after decades — nay centuries — of development, trivial to the point of irrelevance.