“The [U.S.] oil industry was a half century old when the depletion allowance and other special tax favors were introduced regarding the relatively new area of business taxation…. The North also taxed crude oil during the Civil War, so there is an offsetting example of a penalty, not a subsidy.”

A half-truth by wind and solar advocates is, ‘the fossil-fuel industries have long had subsidies, so we should have it too.’ This tit-for-tat needs historical clarity to show the difference between consumer-driven industries that really do not need tax breaks (and should not have received them) versus industries that are dependent on special government largesse to exist and grow.

In one of my LinkedIn exchanges with a climate alarmist/forced energy transformationist, my critic stated:

Rob Bradley It would appear you have never read The Prize, which for someone in the oil and gas industry is inexcusable.

“Cutting funding to our Country and our gas projects will condemn us to energy poverty for the next decades. Yes, I understand that climate change is a life or death issue, but so is improving the wellbeing … of Mozambicans…. We need energy and we need it fast.” (Jocelyne Machevo, November 16, 2021)

Accessible, affordable, reliable, sustainable energy is a necessity, not a luxury as in centuries past. And nowhere is this more true than in the developing world. But will the needy get first-class or second-class energy? For the political/intellectual elite wed to climate alarmism/forced energy transformation, wind and solar and batteries are second-class all the way.

This mentality needs to be exposed, challenged, and reversed.

Paul Driessen titled his 2003 book, Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death. Margit Wade’s recent Wall Street Journal piece, “The COP26 Plan to Keep Africa Poor,” began:

As a Senegalese entrepreneur, I can tell you what’s holding Africa back: lack of affordable energy.

Ed. note: This fortnightly Master Resource post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, published every other week by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.

Of special interest in this issue is Henry Geraedts’s article “Inconvenient Realities about Net-Zero,” here.

Wind & Solar Energy:
A green paradox: Deforesting the Amazon for wind energy in the Global North
Quantifying the hurricane risk to offshore wind turbines
Green Technologies Have A Glaring Problem Of Scale
NY Utility Bills to Rise 10± Percent due to Green NYC
Lake Erie wind turbine project subject of upcoming Ohio Supreme Court hearing
Pennsylvania Bill Solar and Wind Decommissioning Introduced
Fire fears over huge battery storage plants for wind project
NC Commissioners rebuff request for 574-acre solar project

Nuclear Energy:
Key Facts about Spent Nuclear Fuel
Closing California’s last nuclear power plant would be a mistake
Nuclear Bans Tumble as Once-Skeptical States Seek Carbon Cuts

Fossil Fuel Energy:
Multistate carbon tax scheme on gasoline collapses
Germany urges US Congress not to sanction Putin’s pipeline
Biden lacks understanding of oil’s contributions to civilization
Inconvenient realities about net-zero
Fifteen States Respond to ‘Woke Capitalism,’ Threaten to Cut Off Banks That Refuse to Service Coal, Oil Industries
China is mining much more coal again and that’s boosting its factories
Elizabeth Warren Goes to War Over Natural Gas Prices She Helped Create!…

“… anti-hydropower interests are attempting to capitalize on a shift in political power together with emotionally charged arguments and opinions to weaken support for hydropower, while falsely promoting wind and solar technologies as environmentally benign replacements.”

“Negative [wind] impacts associated with viewsheds, decommissioning and turbine disposal, tourism, birds, wildlife, and flashing lights were at the top of the list of concerns identified by a Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce opinion survey.”

I recently read an interesting opinion piece by the general manager of the Benton County Public Utility District in Washington State, Rick Dunn, “Clash of Titans: Clean Energy, Conservation and NW Power Grid.” Published in Clearing Up, a Pacific Northwest energy review, the controversies of renewable energy as “clean” and “green” (which I noted back in 1997) come to the fore.…