“The two greatest enemies of free enterprise in the United States … have been, on the one hand, my fellow intellectuals and, on the other hand, the business corporations of this country.”
– Milton Friedman, “Which Way for Capitalism?” Reason, May 1977, p. 21.
Power markets are badly distorted by government intervention. Ratepayer welfare and economic efficiency are routinely sacrificed. Protected companies under public-utility regulation have a me-first ratebase mentality. The worst often get on top, with the real entrepreneurs elsewhere.
In place of more competition, innovation, and growing volumes, political incentives are deciding the what-when-where-how much questions of electricity generation, transmission, and sales. Political pressures in the name of the environment (“saving the planet,” etc.) are now guiding state-regulated utilities to meet state and federal regulation.
The coming of efficiency and climate policies have given the monopolists new territory, particularly as the commodity side of their business has been taken away (such as in Texas).…
Continue Reading“[T]hough the oil-market crash has put the nation’s energy boom on hold, some oil-technology companies are pursuing what they say will be a second American shale revolution … That belief lies partially in re-fracking — giving oil shale deposits a second blast of water, chemicals and sand — to get more oil out of depleted or underperforming wells. The process could be up to two-thirds cheaper than drilling a new well….”
– Collin Eaton, “Oil Firms Promise New Life for Shale,” Houston Chronicle, August 16, 2015.
The fossil-fuel era is new–and in all likelihood still young. In fact, compared to renewables, natural gas, coal and oil are the real ‘infant industries.’ Remember, for most of the last thousand years, and all of the time earlier, renewable energy (primitive biomass, falling water, wind, solar) held a virtual 100 percent market share; carbon-based energies have dominated only since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.…
Continue Reading“The Obama administration crafted the [court invalidated] rule to offer wind farms a legal path to accidentally kill eagles, as long as they agree to a suite of mitigation and monitoring requirements to ensure eagle populations remain stable. But it hit major opposition from bird advocacy groups, which argued FWS lacked the resources or know-how to ensure the permits actually benefit the nation’s official bird and its golden kin.”
– Phil Taylor, “Court Strikes Down FWS’s Eagle ‘Take’ Rule,” E&E News, August 12, 2015.
The American Bird Conservancy, [1] where I am director of public relations, issued the following press release yesterday in response to a U.S. District Court ruling that the federal government should follow federal environmental law.
(Washington, D.C., August 12, 2015) The U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, in San Jose has ruled that the Department of the Interior violated federal laws when it created a final regulation allowing wind energy and some other companies to obtain 30-year permits to kill protected Bald and Golden Eagles without prosecution by the federal government.…
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