“The Utter Complete Total Fraud of Wind Power’ (Matt Ridley presents the facts)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 19, 2017 12 Comments

“[I]t is utterly futile, on a priori grounds, even to think that wind power can make any significant contribution to world energy supply, let alone to emissions reductions, without ruining the planet. As the extraordinary polymath Sir David MacKay pointed out, the arithmetic is against such unreliable renewables.”

– Matt Ridley, “Wind is an Irrelevance to the Energy and Climate Debate“(May 15, 2017)

An op-ed and blog post several months ago by Matt Ridley is still making the rounds. A great thinker, Ridley gets to the essence of things. He is hard to ignore, even by his critics. Ridley’s book The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010), is a seminal contribution in the Julian Simon tradition. (His other work can be found here.)

Here are some salient excerpts from his op-ed/post:

“[Wind power’s] contribution is still, after decades — nay centuries — of development, trivial to the point of irrelevance.

Continue Reading

Tesla Stumbles: Bad EV Economics or Something Else?

By -- July 26, 2017 2 Comments

“Given Tesla’s multiple business lines – leading edge EVs, auto financing, solar roof tiles, battery storage projects, and tunnel boring – more investors lump the company in with technology companies, meaning investors focus on the ‘dream’ rather than the results.”

“In 2016, the global motor vehicle population of cars and trucks was estimated at 1.4 billion, but just 2 million of them are EVs, or a 0.0014% market share.”

After spending three months as the world’s most valuable auto manufacturer, Tesla Inc.’s (TSLA-Nasdaq) share price has fallen due to perceived problems with its business model. Tesla reported its second quarter shipments at the end of June, results that were not as robust as many investors had hoped (being at the low end of management’s guidance).

As the quarter ended, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted details about the timing of production and delivery for the new Model 3 units, the company’s electric vehicle (EV) targeting the mass market.…

Continue Reading

‘Lure of the Renewables’ (Vaclav Smil in 1987 for today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 18, 2016 6 Comments

“Perhaps the most distressing characteristic displayed by the pushers of soft energy was the intellectual poverty of their grand designs, their impatient dismissal of all criticism, their arrogant insistence on the infallible orthodoxy of their normative visions.”

“There is little doubt about the origins and the real message of soft energy dogma: the roots are in the muddled revolts of young Americans in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the goal is a social transformation rather than simply a provision of energy. The latter fact explains the widespread appeal of soft energy sources among zealous would-be reformers of Western ways.” 

Vaclav Smil is one of the leading energy scholars of our day. He has, time and again, tried to inject energy reality into energy fantasy. Some of his previous posts at MasterResource (see here) include ‘The Limits of Energy Innovation’: Timeless Insight from Vaclav Smil and the five-part Power Density Primer.…

Continue Reading

Low Climate Sensitivity: Accumulating Evidence

By Chip Knappenberger -- October 2, 2014 2 Comments

“But while the IPCC chooses to look the other way, the scientific evidence supporting low equilibrium climate sensitivity continues to pile up…. This is all around good news, for it means that we can focus more on expanding energy access (via fossil fuels) around the world rather than curtail our energy growth.”

There are basically three key parameters that determine the pace and magnitude of future climate change: 1) how much carbon are we going to emit, 2) what percentage of those emissions will remain in the atmosphere (as opposed to being taken up by the biosphere), and 3) how much will the climate warm as a result of what remains in the atmosphere. We understand these things a lot better than we often let on.

The first parameter seems difficult to assess on timescales that exceed a couple of decades.…

Continue Reading

BC’s Carbon Tax: Inapplicable to America

By -- September 3, 2014 No Comments Continue Reading

“More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment” (Part II: Julian Simon 1994 essay)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 25, 2014 No Comments Continue Reading

Tom Tanton Interview (Part I)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 9, 2014 No Comments Continue Reading

“Killing Wildlife In the Name of Climate Change” (Part II: Gas, Nuclear, Little Else)

By Robert Bryce -- March 20, 2014 No Comments Continue Reading

‘Climate Change’: Unpacking a Political Term (looking through the looking glass)

By -- January 15, 2014 18 Comments Continue Reading

Superstorm Sandy (Part III: Political Actions)

By Paul Driessen and Patrick Moffitt -- February 2, 2013 14 Comments Continue Reading