4Q-2012: Continued Progress at MasterResource

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 18, 2013 1 Comment

MasterResource, which turned four last month, recorded its best quarter in history with 116,877 views, a 20 percent increase from 4Q-2011. We reached as high as #7 of 9,984 “green blogs” tracked by Technorati in the quarter and currently stand at #40.

With one in-depth post per workday, with occasional weekend fare, MasterResource is the leading voice for free-market, science-of-liberty thought in energy and related environmental issues.

MasterResource features many different writers, some academics, some think-tank analysts, and others citizen-activists.  Some areas of emphasis and impact may be mentioned.

Inconvenient Truths of Industrial Wind

Literally dozens of our writers have made MasterResource a leader of the windpower educational movement.  Turning wind into electricity is wholly government-enabled; even NIMBYSM that might be criticized in other contexts is justified given that government mandates and special, outsized subsidies enables the rural invasion of wind machinery.

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Towards Sound Energy Policy (Part I – Current Flaws)

By Kent Hawkins -- January 16, 2013 3 Comments

For well-being, present and future, including overall governance, health and medical care, financial, economic, human rights, equality, peace, security and liberty, etc.,[1] we have to stop playing political games with energy policy in the developed countries in the West and turn to sound approaches.

In particular, Europe must withdraw from its desperate and destructive attempts at regaining some measure of world ‘leadership’, which it deservedly lost in the 20th century as a result of succumbing to dangerous extremist policies in many areas, including political, social, judicial, economic, military and international matters.

Europe’s “leadership” conceit includes questionable, radical energy policies, particularly in electricity systems, to “de-carbonize” the world with “new” (really ancient) renewables. This futility is wasting resources on a grand scale as is now beginning to be realized (here and here).…

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Creative Energy Destruction: Renewables Lost Long Ago

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 15, 2013 3 Comments

It is the second most famous term in the history of economics after Adam Smith’s metaphor invisible hand. It describes the competitive market process in the real world. It was coined in 1942 by the famous, iconoclastic Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter, who would reminisce:

I set out to become the greatest lover in Vienna, the greatest horseman in Austria, and the greatest economist in the world. Alas, for the illusions of youth…. As a horseman, I was never really first rate.

“Creative Destruction” …

The best businesses rise to the top in consumer-driven markets. Less competitive firms contract and even disappear. Creative destruction is the process whereby the bad is eliminated, the better replaces the good, and past performance gives way to new strategies and victors. No firm is forever, and financial loss is a characteristic of capitalism, as is the more used term profit.

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Dear Carl Pope: What About the “Cuisinarts of the Air” (Sierra Club term still part of the windpower debate)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 14, 2013 9 Comments

“Tension in the room mounted. The old man … pleaded with the [California] planning commission to protect his pigeons from ‘the Cuisinarts of the air’. The arrow went straight home, sending up a roar from the audience. A new image had been created, and the cameras flashed it across the country. Although often credited to staging by Cerrell and Associates, the term was conceived by the Sierra Club.”

– Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 450.

“I once believed in the Sierra Club, until the CLUB ( an insular bunch of activists who aren’t looking at the entire picture but only at their own agendas) started fully supporting [windpower] …. Everything the environmentalists (including myself for 20 years) have worked so hard to protect, is now being destroyed or in jeopardy.

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Dear Christian Science Monitor: Wind Is Not Sacred but a Sacrilege

By Mary Kay Barton -- January 11, 2013 8 Comments Continue Reading

How the PTC was Extended (Obama to the rescue)

By -- January 10, 2013 4 Comments Continue Reading

Economic Failure at U.S. EPA: NAM Study Raises the Hard Questions

By -- January 9, 2013 3 Comments Continue Reading

Wind Energy Cost: Think Again ($0.15/kWh wholesale prohibitively expensive)

By Tom Tanton -- January 8, 2013 16 Comments Continue Reading

Dishonest Land: Hollywood’s “Promised Land” Slanders the Frac’ing Revolution

By -- January 7, 2013 10 Comments Continue Reading

Wind Power’s Negative Externalities: Here Come the Lawsuits (Part II)

By Sherri Lange -- January 3, 2013 10 Comments Continue Reading