Waxman-Markey: Inconsequential for Sea-Level Rise, Too

By Chip Knappenberger -- July 30, 2009 5 Comments

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, better known as the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, has been shown to be completely ineffective at slowing the rise in global temperature that is projected by climate models to accompany mankind’s continued reliance on fossil fuels for energy production. And this, despite the bill’s mandated cut-back of U.S. greenhouse gases emissions by a whopping 83% below 2005’s levels by the year 2050. As the primary purpose of the bill is to mitigate “global warming” and any follow-on impacts, Waxman-Markey, on its own, would seem an abject failure.

If you need any more proof, consider the bill’s effect on projected sea level rise. Recall that the specter of rapid sea level rise is one of the pillars of alarmist claims for impending climate catastrophe and calls for immediate action.…

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150,000 and Counting –Thank You Viewers!

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 25, 2009 1 Comment

MasterResource, the world’s premier free-market energy blog, began the day after Christmas and is seven months old. Views of 50,000 in our first quarter have been followed by 100,000 in the second quarter. Viewership near one thousand per day is not bad for a scholarly start-up–and much growth potential remains.

Our Model

We are a group blog on the very important and wide topic of energy, including climate change, which is all about energy. Our bloggers come from a variety of institutions, nonprofit and for-profit. We have backgrounds in political economy, economics, environmental studies, philosophy, and engineering. We are thinker-doers who are open-minded and part of a challenge culture. No smartest-guys-in-the-room problem here.

In the increasingly crowded blogosphere, there will be a flight to quality to group blogs that have a clear theme.…

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Forced Coal-Plant Conversions to Natural Gas: False Hope for “Cheap” Climate Action

By Robert Peltier -- July 23, 2009 9 Comments

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance, posits in the Financial Times (July 19) that converting our fleet of coal-fired power plants to natural gas could be accomplished “practically overnight” and will have the effect of “jump-starting our economy….without the expense of building new power plants.” Thus did Kennedy express his new-found love of natural gas: It’s our “bridge fuel to the ‘new’ energy economy.” (Where have we heard that before–wasn’t that Enron’s tag line decade or two ago?)

Yet Kennedy’s proposal ignores the extremely high cost of fuel conversion (upwards of $100 million for a medium-size coal plant) and the added fuel cost to burn gas. He seriously mischaracterizes how an electricity market operates. And Joe Romm (Climate Progress) had added to the confusion by calling Kennedy’s proposal a “game changer.”…

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The Left’s Civil War on Cap-and-Trade: Who Likes Political Capitalism?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 22, 2009 5 Comments

Some environmental leaders have said that I am naïve to think that there is an alternative to cap-and-trade, and they suggest that I should stick to climate modeling. Their contention is that it is better to pass any bill now and improve it later. Their belief that they, as opposed to the fossil interests, have more effect on the bill’s eventual shape seems to be the pinnacle of naïveté.

– James Hansen, “Strategies to Address Global Warming,” July 2009.

Welcome to the science of politics, Dr. Hansen–and welcome to a tradition in political economy that is more than a century old. “I see no force in modern society which can cope with the power of capital handled by talent,” stated William Graham Summer in 1905, “and I cannot doubt that the greatest force will control the other forces.”

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Enron and Waxman-Markey: Response to Joe Romm

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 2, 2009 9 Comments Continue Reading

The Enron Revitalization Act of 2009 (from the Kyoto Protocol to Waxman-Markey)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 1, 2009 12 Comments Continue Reading

Market Conservation vs. Government Conservationism: Understanding the Limits to Energy Efficiency and ‘New-Economy’ ESCOs

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2009 17 Comments Continue Reading

“Green” China: Big PR vs. King Coal (move over dung, primitive biomass, and Waxman-Markey)

By Donald Hertzmark -- June 24, 2009 9 Comments Continue Reading

Left Pushback on Waxman-Markey: Is It Time to Start Over?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 23, 2009 10 Comments Continue Reading

Enron vs. Exxon Mobil: Polar Approaches to Energy and Public Policy

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 15, 2009 5 Comments Continue Reading