“The use of wind power is as old as history.”

– Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 62.

“The Federal Power Commission became interested in the Grandpa’s Knob [windpower] experiment during World War II, and commissioned Percy H. Thomas, a senior engineer of the commission, to investigate the potential of wind power production for the entire country. Thomas’ survey, Electric Power from the Wind, was published in March 1945.”

– Wilson Clark, Energy for Survival: The Alternative to Extinction (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1974), p. 545.

Last week I posted on the long history of solar energy to make the point that this technology is not an infant industry. The fact that solar cannot compete against grid electricity (off grid is another matter) today is proof positive that there is an inherent disadvantage with the dilute, intermittent flow of sunlight in the thriving carbon-based energy era.…

MasterResource continues to progress in its inaugural year. Our free-market energy blog has a top stable of primary writers, and we continue to attract quality guests that desire a unique home for their commentary.

MasterResource is a scholarly advocacy blog dedicated to energy/climate issues. One question we all ask ourselves is: how will this post appear tomorrow, next month, next year, or in a decade? Are we truth-seekers or mere shouters for the moment?  We advocate private property rights, voluntary market relations (instead of government coercion), and sound science, but our preference cannot come at the expense of scholarship (the factual record; logical and relevant theory). This is our standard, and we invite comments to this end from our readers. (1)

To date we have had 285 posts from 34 authors and approximately 1,750 comments from nearly 400 individuals.…

[This excerpt from Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy prefaces a five-chapter review of energy Malthusianism from the time of Thomas Robert Malthus in the late 18th century through the Julian Simon/Paul Ehrlich debate of the late 20th century.]

“Here is a planet, whirling in sunlit space,” reads the opening of Rose Wilder Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom: Man’s Struggle against Authority, penned during the dark days of World War II. “The planet is energy,” she continues. “Every apparent substance composing it is energy. The envelope of gases surrounding it is energy. Energy pours forth from the sun upon this air and earth.”

Energy is pervasive and liberating. It moves people, makes things, and provides incalculable services. It vanquishes darkness, literally and figuratively. “Since early men ignited the first fires in caves,” it has been noted, “the unleashing of energy for light, heat, cooking, and every human need has been the essence and symbol of what it is to be human.”…

The success of exploration and drilling efforts in the Gulf of Mexico convincingly makes the case for opening up the nation’s other offshore areas for drilling. Yes, that should mean offshore California and the East Coast.

There are no perfect choices in energy, but offshore drilling has proved friendlier to the environment than the alternative of bringing in foreign crude supplies via tanker.

– “Gulf Giant: BP’s Find in the Gulf of Mexico Reminds Us of the Need for Oil Bridge to Greener Future,” Houston Chronicle, September 4, 2009.

Kudos to the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle for stating the obvious: that neighborhood oil which provides government revenue instead of requiring government subsidy is better than importing oil; that expanded domestic offshore drilling is part of the solution, not the problem.…