A Free-Market Energy Blog

T. Boone Pickens: Still More from the ‘Man of System’

By -- May 18, 2015

“The man of system … is apt to be very wise in his own conceit, and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it…. [H]e seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board.”

– Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

A recent video is circulating where T. Boone Pickens ranted “I am the expert, not you” to land his point that falling demand, not increasing supply, is primarily behind the oil-price collapse. This outburst reminds me of the quote from the early 20th century humorist Peter Finley Dunne: “It’s not so much what he doesn’t know that worries me, as what he does know that isn’t so.”…

Continue Reading

Seattle Hearing on Shell’s Arctic Rig Docking: A Clash of Visions

By Dave Harbour -- May 14, 2015

“I have observed natural resource hearings for four decades. Never has such a pervasive, activist, elitist, anti-civilization mentality so pervaded our society as that on display at this hearing.”

Earlier this week, a hearing was held by the Seattle Port Authority about the impending arrival of Shell Oil’s offshore drilling equipment, which needs a docking for its Arctic mission this season. The hearing room was packed past overflow for what turned out to be a five-hour debate.

The result will not stop Shell from arriving at Terminal 5, although four of the five commissioners asked for delays as supported by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. A summary of the testimony from a pro-energy, pro-Alaska perspective follows.

Alaska Witnesses

Many testified. All but one (i.e. a Mat-su area environmentalist who criticized Alaska’s position on natural resource development) represented themselves professionally, presenting actual facts and history relating to the century-old relationship between Seattle and Alaska.…

Continue Reading

Carbon Taxation: Remembering When Ken Green (AEI) Went from Aye to Nay

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 13, 2015

“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.…

Continue Reading

‘The New Science & Economics of Climate Change’ (Heartland’s 10th Coming up in Washington, DC)

By Jim Lakely -- May 12, 2015
Continue Reading

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: May 11, 2015

By -- May 11, 2015
Continue Reading

Texas Fight! Abbott, Cornyn, Cruz vs. EPA’s Clean Power Plan

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 8, 2015
Continue Reading

Industrial Wind: A Net Loser, Economically, Environmentally, Technically, Civilly

By Mary Kay Barton -- May 7, 2015
Continue Reading

The Brave Judith Curry (one plus the truth equals a majority)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 6, 2015
Continue Reading

Stephen Ambrose to Canadian Council: Wind Turbine Noise is a Real Health Effect

By Stephen Ambrose -- May 5, 2015
Continue Reading

Resurrecting ‘Limits to Growth’: Dead Men Walking

By -- May 4, 2015
Continue Reading