U.S. EPA’s Adventures In Arithmetic: A Look at the CO2 Car Standards

By Donald Hertzmark -- April 8, 2010 5 Comments

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to effect a reduction in CO2 releases in the U.S. by raising the required fuel economy standards for new cars in 2014 and again in 2016.  The current standard, now at 30.2 mpg for passenger cars (everything here is about passenger cars, the analysis of light trucks will have to wait) will rise to 35.5 mpg in 2016.

EPA claims that they used a carbon price of $21/tonne to establish the appropriate increase in fuel economy.  The EPA also claims that these standards will reduce CO2 releases from the vehicle sector by 21%.  Well, at least they are not using the number 19.  This proposal will have a minute effect on CO2 levels and is unlikely to come in at the very low or “negative” cost per tonne of CO2 claimed by its proponents.…

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The Perfect Energy Course? (Pierre Desrochers’ “Energy & Society” class about as good as it gets)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 6, 2010 6 Comments

Dr. Pierre Desrochers, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto Mississauga, is the scholar’s scholar. In an age where few read all important material on all sides of their subject, this professor stands out.

Can President Obama strike a deal with the University of Toronto to make this course available to his top energy and environmental aides, even smartest-guy-in-the-room John Holdren? Energy legislation is currently stalled, and the summer might be a good time for a “time out” to learn the basics of energy and the free society.

Here is the syllabus for GGR 333H5F

The development of new energy sources has had a major impact on the development of both human societies and the environment. This course will provide a broad survey of past and current achievements, along with failures and controversies, regarding the use of various forms of energy.

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Energy Myths versus Reality

By Tom Tanton -- February 5, 2010 13 Comments

In the face of a changing fiscal and political environment, Congress and various states are belatedly rethinking their far-flung  efforts to restructure and regulate the nation’s energy markets. The opportunity is to change course and base their actions on facts, not emotion–and slow down and even reverse governmental largesse. The global warming scare has been cut down to size, after all, and the problems of politically dependent energies are more evident than ever.

Too many legislators and interventionists cling to basic energy myths, however. Here are five major ones.

Myth: Foreign Oil Provides Most of Our Energy

According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration, oil represents less than 40% of our energy use. A full two-thirds of that oil comes from North America, primarily Canada, not the Middle East.…

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Classical Energy Thinking: Right on Renewables (intermittency), Not-so-Right on Fossil Fuels (coming exhaustion)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 30, 2009 1 Comment

“The winds, turning more mills than ever before, pump water, grind grain, churn, and do a score of little tasks for a surviving domestic industry; but they list not to blow with enough regularity or violence to keep wheels spinning and mills going.”

– Walton Hamilton and Helen Wright, The Case of Bituminous Coal (New York: Institute of Economics/Macmillan, 1926), p. 3.

William Stanley Jevons’s The Coal Question (1865), the book that founded mineral economics, got it right on the limits of renewables for the machine age and the godsend of coal as a superabundant utilitarian energy source.

Previous posts at MasterResource have summarized Jevons’s 19th century wisdom on the primacy of coal (carbon-based energy); the limits of windpower; the limits of hydropower, biomass, and geothermal; and the paradox of energy efficiency.…

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Industrial Wind Power: An Old, Tried Failure (the intermittency curse then and now)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 29, 2009 7 Comments Continue Reading

MasterResource’s 1st Anniversary: 300,000 Views; A Top ‘Green Blog’

By -- December 28, 2009 6 Comments Continue Reading

WSJ’s “Heard on the Street”: Political Energy Down, Market Energy Up Post-Copenhagen (Remembering the risks of Enron’s political capitalism model)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 26, 2009 5 Comments Continue Reading

“The Wind Farm Scam” by John Etherington (the UK environmental civil war builds)

By Glenn Schleede -- December 18, 2009 26 Comments Continue Reading

Windpower Is Not an Infant Industry!

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 13, 2009 10 Comments Continue Reading

MasterResource Surpasses 200,000 Views; Continues to Attract New Talent (3rd Quarter Report)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 3, 2009 No Comments Continue Reading