A Free-Market Energy Blog

Dear Daniel Yergin: Give Alex Epstein the Microphone at CERAWeek

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 22, 2016

“If good and evil are measured by the standard of human well-being and human progress, we must conclude that the fossil fuel industry is not a necessary evil to be restricted but a superior good to be liberated.”

“We don’t need green energy–we need humanitarian energy.”

“The 2016 election presents us with a once-in-a-lifetime energy opportunity–and energy danger. There is no middle ground. There can be no more standing down. It’s time to stand up.”

– Alex Epstein, “At CERAWeek Fossil Fuel Leaders Should Make A Moral Case For Their Industry,” Forbes.com., February 18, 2016.

For many years, make that decades, I have noted Daniel Yergin’s political bias at the annual CERA conference here in Houston. Nonindustry speakers have routinely been climate alarmists and anti-fossil fuel proponents, picked from both the government and the nonprofit sector.…

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Whales: An Offshore Wind Issue

By Paul Driessen and Mark Duchamp -- February 18, 2016

“Granted, the acoustic pollution caused by sonar – particularly powerful navy systems – is greater than that from wind turbines. But wind turbine noise is nearly constant, lasts as long as the turbines and comes from multiple directions, as in the area where the whales were recently stranded.”

We would be far better off simply ending wayward, wasteful offshore wind energy programs. The free market can neuter wind short of the assessing the environmental damage.”

Between January 9 and February 4, 2016, twenty-nine sperm whales got stranded and died on English, German and Dutch beaches. Environmentalists and the news media have offered all manner of explanations – except the most obvious and likely one: Offshore wind farms. Indeed, the area has Europe’s and the world’s biggest concentration of offshore wind turbines, and there is ample evidence that they can interfere with whale communication and navigation.

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‘Peak Oil’ Over, Economists Study Climate Policy Costs

By -- February 17, 2016

“In a 2014 ‘EV Everywhere Grand Challenge’ study, the US Department of Energy finds that the current battery cost is $325 per kWh. At a battery cost of $325 per kWh, the price of oil would need to exceed $350 per barrel before the electric vehicle was cheaper to operate.”

– Covert, Greenstone, and Knittel. “Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?Journal of Economic Perspectives (30(1), 2016): p. 132.

In the marketplace for ideas, economists are always selling. We see a situation that everyone knows is imperfect, point out the exorbitant costs and likely mistakes on the road to Nirvana, assure our audience that in any case the market can likely manage things better than government. And we hope someone accepts our research and clients retain our consulting services.…

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Julian Simon: A Pathbreaking, Heroic Scholar

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 16, 2016
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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: February 15, 2016

By -- February 15, 2016
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Jane Mayer on Energy Policy: Some Corrections

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 11, 2016
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Solar from Space? (DOE subsidies here too)

By Donn Dears -- February 10, 2016
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NREL to Universities on Solar PPAs: The Whole Story?

By Glenn Schleede -- February 9, 2016
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Taming Turbines for Man and Nature: Comments to the Ohio Power Siting Board

By Thomas Stacy II -- February 8, 2016
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Audubon Goes over the Edge (Jan/Feb 2016 issue promotes anti-science alarmism)

By Robert Endlich -- February 4, 2016
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