Editor’s note: Notwithstanding some recent gains, e.g. Cape Wind’s Interior Department permit, the projected U.K. Thames Array, and the politically motivated Danish pronouncement of renewed offshore installations, global offshore wind has progressed very slowly, especially in Germany. This article by Ms. Linowes, founder of the Industrial Wind Action Group, provides some of the reasons why offshore wind is such an environmental and economic troublemaker.
After nine years of debate and millions of public and private dollars, the decision to permit America’s first offshore wind project fell on the shoulders of one man, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. Hindsight notwithstanding, there was no chance Salazar could disapprove the Cape Wind application. Does anyone doubt the Obama administration would dare to ignore the tsunami of political favoritism already bestowed on the project, no matter how unjustified?…
Continue ReadingAnother breach in the badly aging Kyoto wall has been opened.
After the failure of the Copenhagen meeting, the Italian Senate passed a motion calling for a re-assessment of European Union climate policies as well as a review of the IPCC process. The motion, presented by Sen. Antonio D’Alì (chairman of the Environment Committee) and Sen. Guido Possa (chairman of the Education Committee) as well as many other Senators, is a powerful sign of wide and growing dissent in many EU member states.
The EU is the largest economy to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, under which it is committed to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 8% below 1990 levels in 2008-12. The EU has subsequently adopted a package of directives, the so-called “20-20-20,” that mandates a 20% reduction of GHG emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 and that 20% of total energy consumption will be provided by renewable sources, with a non-mandatory target of a 20% increase in energy efficiency.…
Continue Reading[Editor note: A profile of Guillermo “Billy” Yeatts, an Argentinean and energy expert, author, and free-market philanthropist, is at the end of this post.]
The history of oil and gas production in Latin America has been characterized by a continuing tug of war between the state as owner of the subsurface (Spanish colonial tradition) and private producers in pursuit of profits. Private participation in the industry has been limited to brief periods and restricted to specific phases of oil and gas production.
The typical pattern is that foreign oil and gas companies are allowed into a country to locate and initiate production. Once oil is flowing, governments nationalize the companies’ facilities – with or without compensation – and hand them over to government-owned and operated monopolies.
Whether the oil or gas is produced by private corporations or by a government monopoly, it is almost always the government that receives most of the profits.…
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