Presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that his policies would cause electricity rates to “skyrocket” and “bankrupt” any company trying to build a coal-fired generating plant. This is one promise he and his über-regulators are keeping.

President Obama energetically promotes wind and solar projects that require millions of acres of land and billions of dollars in subsidies to generate expensive, intermittent electricity and create (really centrally plan) jobs that cost taxpayers upwards of $220,000 apiece – most of them in China.

His Interior Department is locking up more coal and petroleum prospects, via “wild lands” and other designations, and dragging its feet on issuing leases and drilling permits.

Meanwhile, his Environmental Protection Agency is challenging shale gas drilling and fracking, and imposing draconian carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rules, now that Congress and voters have rejected cap-tax-and-trade.…

“… paying anything for resources that yield no or little effective capacity seems deranged as a means of promoting economic recovery for the most dedicatedly modern country on the planet.”

In energy debates (such as held recently by the Economist), arguments can be made against government-dependent renewables on grounds that coal and natural gas are in abundant supply and fossil fuels are being burned cleaner and cleaner.

These arguments, however, are mere body blows. Robert Bryce (see Part I) should have supplied the knockout punch by reminding all that any meaningful discussion of electricity production, which could soon embrace 50% of our overall energy use, must consider the entwined goals of reliability, security, and affordability, since reliable, secure, affordable electricity is the lynchpin of our modernity.…

March Hare (to Alice): Have some wine.

(Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.)

Alice: I don’t see any wine.

March Hare: There isn’t any.

Alice: Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it.

March Hare: It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited.

— From Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

Energy journalist Robert Bryce in Power Hungry foretells an electricity future anchored by natural gas that will bridge the transition to nuclear power. With his third book in less than a decade, Bryce is now a leading light of the energy policy debate, appearing regularly on op-ed pages and on news shows.

Bryce recently participated in two debates. In one hosted by The Economist, he argued for the proposition that “natural gas will do more than renewables to limit the world’s carbon emissions.”…

What did Julian Simon have in common with Bjorn Lomborg? Both had strong statistics experience, and both started their research believing in popular environmental and over-population fears. Both Simon and Lomborg were convinced they could employ statistical  research to document and address these problems.

However, both Simon and Lomborg unexpectedly proved themselves wrong by looking seriously at empirical evidence.  Simon’s Malthusian-paradigm-busting book, The Ultimate Resource (1981), influenced many with its optimistic pro-technology data, analysis, and conclusions. (1) Years later Wired magazine interviewed Julian Simon and put him on the cover, complete with Julian’s little red devil’s horns.

Bjorn Lomborg picked up the Wired issue at the Los Angeles airport and read Simon’s claims with skepticism and even dismay.  Simon had to be wrong! And as a statistic professor, Lomborg was confident he could document and popularize the errors. …