“Robert Bradley, of the petro-funded and misleadingly named Institute for Energy Research (Ministry for Fossil Fuel Propaganda, perhaps, would be more precise), continues his lengthy crusade against clean energy with a tirade against subsidies in yesterday’s Washington Times.
Given that Mr. Bradley was director of public policy analysis for seven years at Enron, the natural gas giant that collapsed some years ago in a cloud of falsehoods and lawsuits, one might reasonably question whether his energy policy wisdom should guide the nation.”
– Tom Gray, American Wind Energy Association, “Bradley, IER Continue Long Crusade Against Clean Energy,’ Into the Wind: AWEA Blog, July 29, 2011.
How does one respond to such a statement as this? Mr. Gray may think he is an environmentalist and that windpower is an environmental blessing, but that does not make it so.…
Continue Reading“Green energy is not so green after all. It reduces the supply of food, water and energy available to all life on earth, and it often consumes large amounts of hydrocarbon energy for its manufacture, construction, maintenance and backup.”
The earth has three significant sources of energy: Geothermal, combustible hydrocarbon minerals, and radiation/gravitational pull from the sun/moon.
Geothermal energy from Earth’s molten core and decaying radioactive minerals in Earth’s crust. This energy moves continents, powers volcanoes and its heat migrates towards the crust, warming the lithosphere and the deep oceans. It can be harvested successfully in favorable locations, and radioactive minerals can be extracted to provide large amounts of reliable heat for power generation.
Energy stored in combustible hydrocarbon minerals such as coal, oil, gas, tar sands and oil shale. These all store solar and geothermal energy collected eons ago and they are the primary energy sources supporting the modern world and its large and growing populations.…
Continue Reading“Regulation did not originate as a goodwill gesture from enlightened attorneys who wanted to spread their notions of the public interest…. It emerged in its current shape largely as a way to enforce Samuel Insull’s efforts to protect his empire from competition for the long term….”
Attorney and author Scott Hempling makes his living testifying before regulatory commissions, often on behalf of public interest and consumer groups. He is the author of “Certifying Regulatory Professionals: Why Not?” recently posted on ElectricityPolicy.com, (Part I here; Part II here), from which I quote below.
Hempling’s argument is straightforward. Today, policy and technology are always in flux, which changes the boundary between efficient and inefficient practices. People should know more. Things would surely be better if only regulation were driven by both facts and expertise, an “independent force that aligns interests of the regulated with the public interest.”…
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