“We believe energy should be in an upward spiral. Energy is the foundational engine of our civilization. The more energy we have, the more people we can have, and the better everyone’s lives can be. We should raise everyone to the energy consumption level we have, then increase our energy 1,000x, then raise everyone else’s energy 1,000x as well.” (- Techno-Optimist Manifesto, below)
Add a new name to the powerful critics of climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. Marc Andreessen is the author of The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, which draws upon the Julian Simon tradition of free minds and free markets to solve real challenges. This is a refreshing anecdote to the doom-and-gloom neo-Malthusians–and a threat to the climate industrial complex.
Sure enough, the critics are out with swords. Having posted The Techno-Optimist Manifesto on LinkedIn to the Climate Change Professionals Group, I was asked: “How is this diatribe from consume-more economics suitable for climate change professionals group??”…
Continue Reading“Hydrogen from electrolysis, called green hydrogen, typically costs more than $5 per kilogram, or more than five times the price when produced from natural gas.”
“The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act offers an astounding subsidy of $3 to produce a kilogram of green hydrogen, three times the market price. Imagine a subsidy of $150,000 to purchase a $50,000 electric car or a subsidy of $12 to produce a $4 gallon of gasoline. There appears to be no end to the cash governments will pay to try to establish a hydrogen economy.”
World leaders tout “green hydrogen” as an essential fuel in the renewable energy transition. Today, heavy industries use huge amounts of coal and natural gas to produce products needed by society. Governments propose to replace hydrocarbon fuels with hydrogen fuel, using hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies.…
Continue ReadingThe Arab oil embargo was not the cause of the energy crisis in this country: it was merely the straw that showed that the camel’s back was broken. There is no “natural” or geological crisis; there is an enormous political one. It is in the nature of a mixed economy that its policies are rationally inexplicable.
– Ayn Rand, The Energy Crisis, Part I and Part II (November 1973) [1]
Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, known to the world as Ayn Rand, (1905–1982) was a philosopher attuned to the workings of the mind, the economy, and politics. Best known as a novelist, she wrote fiction based on fact and wrote on contemporary issues later in life. She is the inspiration of “free minds and free markets” through her philosophy of Objectivism.
When asked by a Random House salesman to summarize her philosophy “while standing on one foot,” she answered:
… Continue Reading1.