A Free-Market Energy Blog

California Energy Update: Part III

By -- December 17, 2013
  • California Valley Solar Ranch Mothballed Morro Bay Gas-Fired Power Plant
  • California Shifting Power Rate Increases from One Set of Customers to Another
  • California Cap and Trade Accused of Double Counting Emissions
  • Will Warren Buffet’s Hydro Prevent CA Electricity Crisis? Part 1;
  • Will Warren Buffet’s Hydro Prevent CA Electricity Crisis? Part 2
  • Will California’s Small is Beautiful Sink Water (and Energy) Plan?

Morro Bay Power Plant Mothballed by California Valley Solar Ranch – Trading Fish Larvae Kills for Bird and Insect Kills

“Another giant Dinosaur has gone extinct.
An ugly power plant that looks like one, I think.
For 58 years, it has been unnecessary.
Sucking all the fish out of my Estuary.
It took a bank of people who were not afraid to fight.
We punched it in the nose and sent it off into the night.

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Wind Power Unclothed: ‘Economics in One Lesson’ Applied (Hazlitt in 1946 versus AWEA today)

By -- December 16, 2013

“Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousand fold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine – the special pleading of selfish interests.”

– Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson (1946)

A year ago, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) was desperately fighting against the scheduled expiration of its most prized federal subsidy, the wind production tax credit (PTC). As I wrote at that time, AWEA’s argument–please government, keep our activity going for job creation and other economic gain–rested on a basic, long-debunked fallacy of economics.

AWEA believes that wind’s “is” equals “ought”–that recorded activity is a per se good.…

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Textbook Government: Time for Real World Teaching?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 13, 2013

[Ed. note: This post reprints Mr. Bradley’s recent Houston Chronicle editorial, Textbooks Fail to Teach Real-World Government, with documentation and slight elaboration. His intellectual-diversity project at the high school he graduated from and taught at is www.freekinkaid.org.]

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, in a much-debated column (“Sorry, kids. We ate it all” – October 16, 2013), made a surprising argument: A Vietnam War–type uprising by today’s youth could result from the federal government’s growing indebtedness and unsustainable social programs. He pointed to signs that the exploited will rise up against this intergenerational injustice in a way not seen since the 1960s. [1]

Having taught high school here in Houston, I know that today’s youth are eager to debate ideologically opposed viewpoints on major intellectual and political issues.

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Linowes: Negative Pricing Distortions of Windpower

By -- December 12, 2013
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Privileged Tax Treatment of Industrial Wind Generation: Time to End

By Kevon Martis -- December 11, 2013
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Wind Power as ‘Misfit Technology’: Comments of Tom Stacy at IER Seminar

By Thomas Stacy II -- December 10, 2013
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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: December 9, 2013

By -- December 9, 2013
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The Great Green Lie: CCS Today Is Not Like Scrubbers in the 1970s (Part II)

By William Yeatman -- December 6, 2013
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The Great Green Lie: CCS Today Is Not Like Scrubbers in the 1970s (Part I)

By William Yeatman -- December 5, 2013
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Nuclear Power: Our High Costs Benefits! (Bastiat, call your office)

By Roy Cordato -- December 4, 2013
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