Energy & Environmental Newsletter: June 4, 2018

By -- June 4, 2018 2 Comments

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:

Study: Wind turbines increase the dependence on fossil fuel plants

Current government renewable energy policies actually benefit fossil fuels

Visualizing the U.S. Clean Air Success Story

NYS’s Green Energy Roulette

Following passage of good wind law, wind developer loses interest in NY town

Renewable Energy Use In Europe Didn’t Stop CO2 Levels From Rising

From Russia With Love

Military review requirement added to Oklahoma wind development process

Is 100% Renewable Energy Possible?

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Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord (one year anniversary today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 1, 2018 5 Comments

[Editor Note: On June 1, 2017, President Trump provided one of the greatest political moments in the history of the sustainability debate between Malthusianism and free-market environmentalism with this decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. His statement (and that of EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt) are reprinted below.


“Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.”

“The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth…. We will be environmentally friendly, but we’re not going to put our businesses out of work and we’re not going to lose our jobs.”

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Energy Realism at RFF (Krugman rebutted, decarbonization drawbacks specified)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 7, 2018 1 Comment

” … there are still numerous economic and societal barriers to rapid decarbonization.”

“And it is not like wind and solar come free of environmental concerns. The sheer size of wind and solar installations needed to underpin our electricity system is significant.”

“… lower income households will bear the largest relative burdens of the higher energy costs that are likely as a result of climate policies. While there are ways of mitigating these unequal impacts, they require difficult trade-offs.”

– Daniel Raimi and Alan Krupnick, “Decarbonization: It Ain’t That Easy, RFF Blog Post, April 20, 2018.

A recent blog post by Daniel Raimi and Alan Krupnick of Resources for the Future (RFF) is unusual, even remarkable, given the institutional history of their organization. For RFF in recent decades has gone Left, way Left, for the cause of climate alarmism/forced energy transformation (see here). 

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Exchange with a Climate Alarmist at R-Street: Part I

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 18, 2018 4 Comments

[Editor note: This exchange at the R-Street Institute website (no longer visible) is posted here and here.]

“From the Club of Rome to the present–with scientific models and articles in Science magazine from the ‘consensus’–the verdict has been wrong, wrong, wrong, and trending wrong. And this is before even considering (non-libertarian) public policy of taxes, tariffs, equity adjustments, private/public cronyism, etc.”

So why have neo-Malthusian natural scientists been so incorrect for so long? We have nearly a half-century of (falsified) doom-and-gloom.

Josiah Neeley of R-Street, once a critic of climate alarmism and wind power (see yesterday), is now desperately trying to make a case to libertarians and conservatives that the climate is in crisis and a carbon tax (and all the global government that goes with it) is necessary.

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California Energy Reform: Shellenberger’s One-Fourth Loaf

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 9, 2018 1 Comment Continue Reading

Twenty-One Bad Things About Wind Energy — and Three Reasons Why

By -- March 22, 2018 49 Comments Continue Reading

Climate Groupthink: Understanding Intellectual Error

By Christopher Booker -- February 22, 2018 6 Comments Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: February 19, 2018

By -- February 19, 2018 1 Comment Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: January 29, 2018

By -- January 29, 2018 1 Comment Continue Reading

Anatomy of a Debate: When Renewables ‘Lost’ at The Economist

By Jon Boone -- January 15, 2018 2 Comments Continue Reading