A Free-Market Energy Blog

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: 4/1/13

By -- April 1, 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 very much appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.
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Matt Ridley on How Fossil Fuels are Greening the Planet.…

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Cronyism on Trial: Introducing Crony Chronicles.org & Study of American Capitalism Project

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 29, 2013

“How is any American going to feel good about reforming Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security when … businessmen are making off with so many tax dollars?”

– Richard Fink (Koch Industries), quoted in Bill Wilson and Roy Wenzl,The Kochs’ Quest to Save America,” Wichita Eagle, October 13, 2012.

A major political-economy theme at MasterResource is how government intervention stifles value-creating entrepreneurship, or, in the case of mineral resources, resourceship.

MasterResource has chronicled the sorry history of government trying to turn energy losers into winners. Last year alone, this site published 60 blog-posts on the history, operation, and current politics of (government-enabled) industrial wind power. And who can forget Solyndra on the solar side, a name that might enter the textbooks as the Teapot Dome of our time.

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Vogtle Nuclear Project: More Overruns, More Delay (Georgia Power reconfirms the perils of government-subsidized energy)

By Jim Clarkson -- March 28, 2013

Late last month, Georgia Power (Southern Company) filed its eighth semi-annual report on the construction progress of its 2,240-MW two-unit Vogtle nuclear plant to the Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC).

The already bad news got still worse–not surprising for a project that is all but financially insulated from its own failure. As I previously wrote at MasterResource:

With a pending $8.6 billion federal loan guarantee, a cap on liability, production tax credits and pre-collection of profits this makes Georgia Power the nation’s biggest welfare queen.

Georgia Power’s latest report to state regulators indulges in self-praise, shifts blame for growing problems, and employs misleading analysis. The Company asks the GPSC to approve an additional $737 million in cost and add 15 months to the project’s schedule. Since Georgia Power has 45.7% ownership, the entire $14 billion project has additional cost of over $1.6 billion.

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North American’s Energy Boom (will Mexico join?)

By Maureen Crandall -- March 27, 2013
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A Case for Moniz (some intellectual diversity for DOE in the Obama era)

By Ken Malloy -- March 26, 2013
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Congressional Oversight Needed on Wind PTC Rulemaking

By -- March 25, 2013
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Lights On! Human Achievement Hour Tomorrow Night (March 23: 8:30–9:30 pm EST)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 22, 2013
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Anti-Energy Ideology: Where Eco-Imperialism Meets Vulture Environmentalism

By -- March 21, 2013
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Market Investment Outpace/Outperform Federal ‘Clean Energy’ Investment (GHG reductions without social cost)

By Tom Tanton -- March 20, 2013
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Obama 2013–or Jimmy Carter 1977?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 19, 2013
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