1Q–2012 Activity Report: MasterResource

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 13, 2012 2 Comments

One thousand in-depth posts, 135 different contributors, and 1.2 million views to date–MasterResource has stature as a free-market movement-wide energy blog.

With 415 categories in our index, MasterResource is a lasting research tool, not only a day-to-day contribution to energy scholarship and current political debates. And we have achieved critical mass; ‘Google’ an energy-policy-related term along with MasterResource, and there we usually are!

Our content promises to stand the test of time. Our headlines do not have Stunner or Stunning as does a rival blog selling energy/climate alarmism. Our contributors are wed to reality, not to think-it-and-make-it-is-real and wish-it-and-it-can-happen postmodernism.

Wind Power Niche

One particular niche at MasterResource has been giving voice to the growing, articulate grassroot opposition to industrial wind parks. Such turbines generate a heavy environmental footprint, not only small, unreliable bursts of electricity.…

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Tucker's Terrestrialism and the Technology of Modernity

By Jon Boone -- January 24, 2012 4 Comments

“The release of energy from splitting a uranium atom turns out to be 2 million times greater than breaking the carbon-hydrogen bond in coal, oil or wood. Compared to all the forms of energy ever employed by humanity, nuclear power is off the scale. Wind has less than 1/10th the energy density of wood, wood half the density of coal, and coal half the density of octane. Altogether they differ by a factor of about 50. Nuclear has 2 million times the energy density of gasoline. It is hard to fathom this in light of our previous experience. Yet our energy future largely depends on grasping the significance of this differential. “

– William Tucker, excerpted from his lecture, Understanding E=MC2

William Tucker has powerfully explained how the future of technologically advanced civilizations depends upon a sophisticated ability to convert the highest energy densities into increasingly denser power performance, and in the process compacting the time and space necessary to do productive work.…

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MasterResource Turns Three (4Q-2011 Activity Report)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 26, 2011 7 Comments

The free-market energy blog MasterResource turns three years old today. On December 26, 2008, the blog started on the strength of several noted free market scholars buying into a ‘movement’ blog instead of an institution-specific one. A thank you at this reflective time goes to Ken Green (AEI), Marlo Lewis (CEI), and Jerry Taylor (Cato), in particular.

MasterResource views stand at 1.1 million. While not a megablog, ours is a high-quality contribution to the current energy debate–and a resource for the historical record (our extensive index categories number 380).

We have published approximately 914 posts from approximately 115 authors. Some are widely published; others are talented amateurs who have chosen to do what the ‘experts’ choose not to do: uncover the problems of politically correct energies. Comments from our loyal, sophisticated readership add substance to many of the in-depth posts.…

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Think, Want Competitive Renewables: Travis Bradford gets Spacy at THE ECONOMIST

By -- November 17, 2011 3 Comments

Travis Bradford, founder and president of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development, joins the postmodern crusade for the affirmative motion over at The Economist magazine: “This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.” (Voting is in its last day.)

Let’s assume (not debate) that fossil fuels are unsustainable, he says. And let’s just believe that a lot of government this-or-that can make the dilute dense and the intermittent firm. Build it, and they will come … or coerce and it will all work out.

Bradford asserts at the beginning:

In an effort to refocus the debate on whether subsidies are a good way to wean the world off of fossil fuels, it might be useful to frame the alternatives instead of rehashing the same old arguments about whether we should.

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MasterResource: 3Q-2011 Activity Report (million moment reached)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 21, 2011 3 Comments Continue Reading

Obama Speech Shocker: "Keynesianism, Malthusianism Have Compromised My Presidency" (Credits IHS seminars for his intellectual turnaround)

By -- September 9, 2011 6 Comments Continue Reading

MasterResource: 2Q-2011 Activity Report

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 8, 2011 No Comments Continue Reading

Is Al Gore Bad for Big Environmentalism? (A shriller gone sour)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 5, 2011 12 Comments Continue Reading

Master Resource Update: 1Q-2011 (a blog for now and the future)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 15, 2011 3 Comments Continue Reading

The Great Texas Wind Swindle: Property Owners vs. the State (Part I)

By Sam Pakan -- March 8, 2011 16 Comments Continue Reading