The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).
A key element of AWED’s efforts ispublic education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.
Some of the more thought-provoking articles in this issue are:
Offshore Wind Turbine Maintenance Cost: “100 Times More Expensive Than A New Turbine Itself”!
Professor Investigating Flint: Greed has Killed Public Science
Court Dismisses Claim Against Citizen Advocate (+ More details)
Archive Study: Renewables Won’t Save Us, What Will?…
Continue Reading“Price controls cause shortages, and government allocation exacerbates it. This was learned the hard way during the 1970s, particularly with oil, thanks to Republican President Richard Nixon.”
George Melloan’s review of Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2016) criticized her foray into energy and energy policy:
Ms. Mayer might herself benefit from an economics course. She writes that Richard Nixon imposed economic controls on oil and gas in 1971 to “address the energy crisis.” The Nixon price controls helped to cause the energy crisis.
Intrigued, I bought Dark Money to see exactly what she said. Here is the passage from Mayer (p. 91) referenced by Melloan:
… Continue ReadingThe fossil fuel industry’s fondest wishes were also fulfilled.
“The media tries to glamorize solar power rather than doing a professional job of reporting the obvious story and what’s behind the story.”
A recent news story trumpeted an announcement from the Air University at Mawwell Airforce Base about power from space.
A team from the Air University has proposed installing PV solar panels in space to capture the energy from the sun and transmit it to Earth. The team is in line to receive a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense for the team’s proposal, “Carbon-Free Energy for Global Resilience and International Goodwill.”
The news story didn’t explain why this proposal was any different from those made over a decade ago. Just a lot of hyperbole, such as this lead:
… Continue ReadingSci-fi isn’t all fiction anymore. Harnessing the power in outer space is closer than we think, and in just a few years, electrical energy from the sun could be beamed down to charge the smartphone in your pocket.