Tom Tanton Interview (Part I)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 9, 2014 No Comments

“I view my 40+ year career as progressions on a common theme; understanding (and promoting) the role of free markets and technology innovation one to the other, both to improve humankind’s’ lot.”

MasterResource from time to time conducts interviews with leading free-market scholars (see Ken Green here). This two-part interview with Tom Tanton continues tomorrow.

Q. Let’s start with your current position and responsibilities.

TT: I’m currently Director of Science and Technology Assessment at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI). I’m also President of my consulting firm T2 and Associates, which stands for “Trust in Technology” not my initials.

EELI is focused on strategic litigation, such as testing the constitutionality of the renewable portfolio standard in Colorado, and on increasing government transparency through Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation.…

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Energy Postmodernism: Obama Today, Amory Lovins Yesterday (645-page powerplant rule to nirvana)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 4, 2014 2 Comments

All good things to all people. That is how the Obama/EPA Power Plant Rule is being sold this week in the U.S. and around the world.

Lower prices, more jobs, greater security, accelerated innovation. New for old, cleaner for dirtier. Better air and less ailment.  Take the disadvantages of rationing carbon dioxide in U.S. power plants and assert just the opposite. Get others to echo for a ‘shared narrative.’ Think energy postmodernism of wish, want competitive intermittent renewable energy.

Say it is a free lunch. Better yet, say it is a lunch that we are paid to eat.

And all this for a better future. “This is something that is important for all of us,” Obama stated in regard to the proposal. “As parents, as grandparents, as citizens, as folks who care about the health of our families and also want to make sure that future generations are able to enjoy this beautiful blue ball in the middle of space that we’re a part of.”

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Beautiful Progress (Book review, ‘Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper’)

By Josiah Neeley -- May 19, 2014 1 Comment

A few years back a YouTube video of the comedian Louis CK went viral on the internet. Speaking on the Conan O’Brien show, CK called on people to reawaken their sense of wonder at the unprecedented technological marvels of the modern world:

We live in an amazing amazing world… Everybody on every plane should constantly be going “oh my God! Wow!” You’re sitting in a chair in the sky. People say there’s delays on flights. Delays, really? New York to California in five hours. It used to take 30 years.

Robert Bryce’s Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong, published this month by Public Affairs, does not feature Louis CK’s comic rant, which is too bad, as the book is in many ways an extended reflection on the same theme.

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Marcellus: Natural Gas Giant of the East (new technology, new life for 19th century energy fields)

By Fred Lawrence -- May 15, 2014 No Comments

“According to a recent ICF study, the Northeast will host more than one-fourth of all U.S. capacity expansions for natural gas pipeline investment through 2020 and about a third of NGL pipeline capacity. According to the study, the Marcellus, all told, is projected to stimulate nearly $70 billion in investments in natural-gas and NGL-related infrastructure through 2035.”

Pennsylvania was the birthplace of the oil and natural gas industry in the 1800s. A century and a half later, the Marcellus shale play has once again put Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the energy headlines.

This time the focus is on natural gas more than oil–and with wells that are at least one hundred times deeper than the first oil well drilled in 1859. The rapid growth in supplies in an area exceptionally close to major demand markets has been a benefit to regional economic growth and has helped reduce U.S.…

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Electric Reform Needs a Pro-Market Voice (unopposed politicization must cease)

By Ken Malloy -- May 14, 2014 5 Comments Continue Reading

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: May 5, 2014

By -- May 5, 2014 1 Comment Continue Reading

“Advanced Energy for Life”: Peabody Energy Puts Coal on High Moral Ground (energy poverty must end, CEO Boyce argues)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 29, 2014 5 Comments Continue Reading

Stressing the Grid: From Interventionism to Blackouts

By Steve Goreham -- April 24, 2014 No Comments Continue Reading

Common Core’s Climate Indoctrination

By James Rust -- April 21, 2014 8 Comments Continue Reading

LEEDCo Lake Erie Wind Project: Joint Letter of Protest

By Sherri Lange -- April 11, 2014 17 Comments Continue Reading