A Free-Market Energy Blog

Peak Nonsense

By -- June 26, 2013

“The truth is that, just as so many did in the 1970s, a commodity cycle has been confused with a ‘new paradigm’ and (neo)Malthusian biases have cherry-picked data and made vague pronouncement (“the easy oil is gone”) with little more than some curve-fitting to support their conclusions.”

“We now have an elephant in the room, and its name is peak oil,” states Kjell Aleklett in an interview with James Morgan in ScienceOmega (June 10, 2013). Interviewer James Morgan adds: “Of course, it is possible to argue over the exact point at which global peak oil will arrive, but at some time in the not too distant future, we are going to have deal with this problem.”

And so here we go again on the trial of exhaustion theory, one step removed from the scientism of central planning where decline rates are projected and a social cost of depletion is calculated for an extraction tax.

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‘The Greening of Planet Earth’ (the 1992 video, updated in 1998, needs another update)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2013

“[M]any industry groups have maintained that putting carbon dioxide in the air would produce a general ‘greening’ of the planet. In fact, that’s the thesis of a famous 1992 video, “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which riled the environmental community more than just about anything else [because] … big-name scientists were willing to appear and argue that carbon dioxide will enhance global plant growth.”

– Patrick Michaels, Global Warming Produced a Greener, More Fruitful Planet, September 13, 2001.

Today, President Obama sounds the climate alarm and calls for more regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2). Throwing bad regulation after bad in the name of climate change is all about costs without commensurate benefits. Simple math shows that unilateral action by California or the U.S. or North American will not have a discernible influence on climate decades out.

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AWED Newsletter: June 24, 2013

By -- June 24, 2013

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using real science.

Instead of a science-based approach, our energy and environmental policies are typically written by those who stand to economically or politically profit from them. As a result, anything genuinely science-based in these policies is usually inadvertent and accidental.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Quiz: See how many of the “Mad Men you know.

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Global Savings: Billion-Dollar Weather Events Averted by Global Warming

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 21, 2013
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Carbon Tax: Vote and Eviscerate (depoliticize, not repoliticize, energy)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 20, 2013
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American Lung Association’s Misguided Support for Wind Power

By -- June 19, 2013
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Frac Exaggeration, Wind Blindness: Southern Environmental Law Center’s Double Standard

By Charles Battig -- June 18, 2013
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FERC’s Wellinghoff: An Energy Technocrat Steps Down

By -- June 17, 2013
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Windaction News

By -- June 15, 2013
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The Mighty Bakken (Resourceship in action: II)

By Fred Lawrence -- June 14, 2013
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