“Ignoring how competitive markets operate–and pretending that wind energy is exempt from the basic rules of economics–will not change the fact that windpower is an expensive, unpredictable resource that cannot compete without enormous public hand-outs. If the PTC were permitted to expired today, the wind industry might be forced to increase its efficiencies and lower project costs, but the effect on electricity prices at large would likely go unnoticed.”
Last fall, utility-giant, Exelon Corp., encouraged Congress to let the federal production tax credit (PTC) expire, citing the subsidy’s distortionary effect on competitive wholesale energy markets. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) slapped back by publicly booting Exelon off its board and unleashing an army of surrogates to control the damage and berate the company for putting its interests first.
The latest attack came July 4th when eco-youth Gabe Elsner, a “public interest advocate” of The Checks and Balances Project, accused Exelon of conspiring with Big Oil to squeeze out cheaper competitors like wind in order to drive up consumer electricity prices and increase profits.…
Continue ReadingWhen asked if a carbon tax was preferable to EPA regulations on greenhouse gases, David Kreutzer, a research fellow with the Heritage Foundation who sat on yesterday’s panel, described the question as a trap.
… Continue ReadingIt’s like asking me what’s the most humane way to execute innocent people …. When conservatives talk about a carbon tax, the headline says, “Conservative supports carbon tax,” So I’m not going to be drawn into this fantasy world where we speculate on what might happen when we know it won’t, when it gives people ammo to misrepresent what I said.
So no, a carbon tax is not preferable to EPA regulations.
– Evan Lehmann, “Conservatives Attack Each Other Over Carbon Tax Plans,” ClimateWire, July 18, 2013.
“[Ken] Green delighted his mostly conservative audience by comparing a carbon tax to a vampire who must be staked, beheaded and sprinkled over water — ‘preferably holy water’.”
“The Eagle Ford, still in an early stage of development, may end up being more complex than some of the earlier big resource plays such as the Barnett or Haynesville … Companies from around the world are interested in being part of the Eagle Ford success, a sign that this evolving transformation is global as well as awesome in scope.”
One of the most remarkable sources of gains in U.S. liquids and natural gas production in recent years has come from Texas’s Eagle Ford play, thanks to the application and ongoing refinement of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques. These developments have helped put Texas and North Dakota at the top of the list of regions that have been contributing to the brightening U.S. energy picture.
Oil production in the Eagle Ford, in the southwestern portion of Texas, has gone from a minimal level in 2010 to over 300 thousand barrels per day so far this year, plus another roughly 70 thousand barrels per day of condensates.…
Continue Reading