“In my period at Cato (1990–present), “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’“, is probably our most important Policy Analysis in the energy/environment area. Bradley’s thorough review and analysis (60 pages, 325 footnotes) was a real pushback against the viability of ‘green’ energy in theory and practice.”

– Jerry Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director, Natural Resource Studies, Cato Institute.

On the fifteenth anniversary of “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’” (yesterday), I recall, with no little pride, a lot of hard work that went into supplying the author with information about California’s wind and solar experience.

At the time I was working in the belly of the beast, the California Energy Commission (CEC) in Sacramento. The Commission was a major proponent of all things renewable, almost to the point of fanaticism.…

“Perhaps the main failure of rationality is that of the regulators themselves.”

-Ted Gayer and W. Kip Viscusi, authors, Overriding Consumer Preferences with Energy Regulations

In a working paper for the Mercatus Center titled Overriding Consumer Preferences with Energy Regulations, economists Ted Gayer and W. Kip Viscusi examine several energy use regulations and the accompanying Benefit-Cost Analyses (BCAs). They find the regulations would not pass a BCA (provide net benefits) without two assumptions: first, that individuals make systematic and financially significant mistakes in their energy consumption choices, and second, that government policies can correct these mistakes.

The regulations cited in the paper include mileage requirements for vehicles and energy efficiency standards for household appliances and light bulbs. The BCA numbers are telling – the authors show, for example, that the vast majority (about 85 percent) of the estimated benefits of the mileage requirements proposed in 2011 accrue to the individual user, mostly in the form of avoided fuel costs.…

“In the current energy debate, the diligent amateurs are often the real pros, and too many ‘pros’ are amateurish.”

MasterResource continues apace as a movement-wide voice of free market energy scholarship. Nearly 150 different authors have been featured at our site since its inception in late 2008. Total views have surpassed 1.3 million, with many visits by those searching on a topic relevant to past posts.

MasterResource is rated a top 30 (of 10,000) “green blog,” and a “Top 100” Science blog, according to Technorati.

With 435 categories in our extensive index, MasterResource is a research tool, not only a timely contribution to energy scholarship and current political debates. We are Google friendly with many energy terms (try one with ‘masterresource’).

I have lauded our ‘talented amateurs’ in previous activity reports.…

“Even in flush economic times, carbon taxes would be bad policy. When economies are already laboring under too much spending and are at diminishing-return levels of taxation, implementing a carbon tax would be a mistake.”

– Kenneth Green, Dissecting the Carbon Tax, The American, July 13, 2012.

Open-mindedness is a mark of scholarship. And some great lights of classical-liberal social thought in the 20th century changed their minds for theoretical/empirical reasons from a utilitarian perspective.

F. A. Hayek began as a democratic socialist. Milton Friedman started as a FDR New Dealer and Keynesian. [1] Friedman later in life even moved away from his (naive) view of a fixed-monetary rule where, as he once put it, a computer program could manage the money supply. [2] Turns out that ‘money supply’ is not a fixed, known quantity; turns out that money is a government monopoly subject to politics.…