“At the heart of The Last Days of Night is the competition between direct current and alternating current, and whether different types of incandescent bulbs infringed on the other’s patent. Underlying all, is how a new technology, electricity, whether via direct or alternating current forced the movement away from other fuels—whale oil, coal gas, kerosene, and natural gas for lighting, and uses other than lighting.”

The book under review, written by an Academy Award screen-writer, is historical fiction based on the fierce rivalry between two 19th century energy titans – Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse.

Yet Graham Moore’s The Last Days of Night also touches on issues relevant to today— free enterprise versus protective regulations, the interrelationship of energy markets, technological change, corporate spying, and the practices used by corporate heavyweights to achieve market dominance, including the manipulation of the press.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

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

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Green Energy is a Charter for Crooks and Liars

NC Legislative Leaders Ask Homeland Security to Review Wind Project

Excellent short video: The “F” Word

Short video: How the energy transition is destroying our environment

Wind Energy – A Runaway Failure for Nearly 4 Decades (Part 1 of 3)

Industrial Wind Turbines “Incredibly Intrusive”

A nuclear America can be a great America

NuScale files first US SMR license application

In 2040: 85%± of our energy will come from fossil fuels and nuclear

Georgia Tech Climatologist Dr.…

“With a new political outlook in Washington, DC with climate and energy policy, Exxon Mobil should formally reject both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax.”

Rex Tillerson, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, presided over a major public policy change while CEO of Exxon Mobil, reversing the prior policy of the principled realist Lee Raymond. Political forces, as well as a doomed attempt at appeasing its enemies (ending up in the state State Attorney General investigative war), led Exxon Mobil to reluctantly embrace a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

My interpretation of Rex Tillerson et al.’s (failed) policy shift finds support for “it was just PR” rather than a fundamental belief in climate peril. As such, this shift is easily reversible by Exxon Mobil’s new CEO, Darren Woods.…

“Some radical environmentalists and religious activists oppose Mr. Pruitt because he does not embrace their exaggerated fears of human-induced global warming—fears that go well beyond the empirical evidence crucial to genuine science—or their antipathy to the development of the abundant, reliable, affordable energy indispensable to lifting and keeping whole societies out of poverty and the disease and premature death that invariably accompany it.”

January 5, 2017

Dear President-elect Donald J. Trump:

We write to you as evangelical and mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish scientists, economists, legal scholars, policy experts, and religious leaders in support of your nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to the office of Administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has the crucial task of writing and enforcing regulations that apply statutes passed by Congress and signed by the President to protect the life and health of Americans.…