[Editor’s note: With the author’s permission, MasterResource reprints a probing analysis of a recent study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States. Albert Wilson critically examines a genre of analysis used by wind proponents, including government bodies and environmentalists, that produces a desired result. Comments are invited on this paper as well as on other examples of where methodological tricks are used to justify wind power and other politically dependent energy technologies. (Mr. Wilson’s Bio is at the end of the article.)]
WIND FARMS, RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES, AND RUBBER RULERS©
by Albert R. Wilson
I recently examined a document published by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory titled “The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States: A Multi- Site Hedonic Analysis” (hereafter “Report”).…
Continue ReadingOver the past few weeks, with more dents accumulating in the armor of warmism, a new battle line is taking shape: ” The U.S. economy is ill, energy is important, green jobs will save us, promote green jobs, give us your money.” Or something like that.
In fact, the shock troops of the green job army are now promoting the phrase “global weirding” to replacing global warming. There is also terminological retreat on the green jobs side. You see green tech is not actually going to do much positive for the economy, you should think of it rather as a form of “insurance,” against global weirding, I suppose.
As we limp into our second year of crony capitalism under Barack Obama, with small businesses loath to risk their funds in what is increasingly a rigged crapshoot, and the importance of having friends in Washington all the more vital, government-backed green jobs appear to many as the only way out.…
Continue ReadingA good default proposition regarding the government’s role in the economy would state that the government should not loan money to an enterprise if the enterprise in question cannot find one single market actor anywhere in the universe to loan said enterprise a single red cent. It might suggest – I don’t know – that the investment is rather … dubious.
Alas, like all good propositions regarding the government’s role in the economy, this one is being left by the roadside by the Obama administration. Unfortunately, the only complaint being made by a not insubstantial segment of the political Right – frequently, the political crowd that is busy decrying “Bailout Nation” – is that the loan guarantees are not fat enough.
I write, of course, about the $8.3 billion federal loan guarantee announced by President Obama this week for Southern Company to build two new nuclear power plants. …
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