“I see no force in modern society which can cope with the power of capital handled by talent, and I cannot doubt that the greatest force will control the other forces.”
– William Graham Sumner. “Economics and Politics” [1905]. In Earth-Hunger and Other Essays. 1913. Edited by Albert Galloway Keller. Reprint. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1980, p. 329.
“It is precisely the fact that the market does not respect vested interests that makes the people concerned ask for government interference.”
– Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (4th Edition), p. 337.
Jim Rogers (Duke Energy), Aubrey McClendon (Chesapeake Energy), John Rowe (Exelon), T. Boone Pickens, Matt Simmons… The list goes on of the political capitalists (aka “rent seekers”) who, in the tradition of Ken Lay and Enron, are politicizing the energy market for momentary advantage–but all in the name of saving the planet.…
Continue ReadingLast week I summarized the economics literature on the impact of climate change on human well-being. Or more accurately, Richard Tol reviewed the economics literature for the Spring 2009 issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives. I simply told you about it and tossed in a few observations that I thought relevant.
In short, I reported that the peer-reviewed literature suggests that worries about some climate-induced Armageddon are probably misplaced. We will likely gain or lose a year of economic growth sometime in the latter half of this century from forecasted changes in the world’s physical climate. More than that cannot be said with much confidence.
Then, by coincidence, a study crosses my desk from the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU Law School. The study, titled “Economists and Climate Change; Consensus and Open Questions,” reports the findings of a survey of 289 of those economists the institute considers to be “the world’s top economists with expertise in climate change.” …
Continue ReadingMy initial post, “Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling: (Part I: A Framework and Calculator),” provided an overview of a fossil fuel and CO2 emissions calculator. It showed that industrial wind plants do not provide the claimed reductions in these important areas, which brings into question their value as good public policy.
This post provides some background, a base case and the results of taking necessary additional considerations into account. The base case has two scenarios.
The first is that every MWh of wind production directly reduces the full fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions for every MWh of the “displaced” fossil fuel plant, which is a very simplistic view. The second takes some limited considerations into account, which can show that as much of 85 percent of the simplistic-view savings are still achieved.…
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