“The private sector’s push for rural electrification would be forgotten as electrifying the countryside became a political issue during the New Deal, specifically with the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration in 1935.”

– Robert Bradley, Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies (2011), p. 165.

“Next to their ability to pump water mechanistically, small wind turbines are best known for their ability to generate power at remote homesteads…. During the 1930s, when only 10% of U.S. farms were served by central-station power, literally hundreds of thousands of [“home light plants”] were in use on the Great Plains…. [This industry] collapsed quickly after the introduction of electricity by the Rural Electrification Administration during the 1930s.”

– Paul Gipe. Wind Energy Comes of Age (1995), pp. 125, 131.

The New Deal’s policies toward oil and coal in the 1933–39 era were hardly succeeded from anyone’s perspective.…

“It has become increasingly clear that Donald Trump’s presidency hasn’t just led to the withdrawal of the United States from the landmark agreement. It has also halted the rest of the world’s efforts…. Call it the ‘Trump’ effect.”

– Joseph Curtin, “Trump Has Officially Ruined Climate Change Diplomacy for Everyone.” FT, December 12, 2018.

Another realistic, “defeatist” article about the futile global crusade to cap and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has been published. “Trump Has Officially Ruined Climate Change Diplomacy for Everyone,” subtitled “The evidence is in: the Paris Agreement doesn’t work without the United States,” joins other articles (such as rising global coal consumption, profiled last week at MasterResource) in the death rattle.

Joseph Curtin, senior fellow at the Institute of International and European Affairs, authored the blunt assessment.…

“The modern history of wind power and on-grid solar power can be summarized in four words: economically incorrect, politically correct. U.S. companies invested heavily in renewable energy technologies in the 1970s/80s only to suffer losses and, in most cases, to exit. Only massive taxpayer and consumer subsidies in the 1990s reversed these market verdicts, leading to today’s government dependence.”

Last week, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) published my research paper, The Economic Fall and Political Rise of Renewable Energy. This study is drawn from chapter 13 of Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years, 1984–1996, which reviewed Enron Corp.’s game-changing forays into solar power (1995), wind power (1997), as well as in other alternative energies.

Major Points

The Press Release made these five points:

• Renewable energy had almost a 100% market share throughout human history until it was replaced by more affordable and efficient mineral, carbon-based energies that powered the industrial revolution and vastly increased living standards.

“The Trump folks seem to believe that anything that has Obama’s fingerprints on it, no matter how sensible, they’re going to rescind, revoke and demolish, and it makes no sense at all.”

“[The climate conundrum] is scary and I’m not sure we’re gonna be able to turn it around.”

– John Holdren, December 2017.

This is Part II of a transcribed interview with John Holdren, leader of the energy/climate Malthusian school, by Climate One. Yesterday’s post critically assessed Holdren’s views on federal energy research and development, the Paris withdrawal, and China’s energy policy. Today’s post looks at his views on most other issues in the “energy sustainability” debate.

Holdren quotations are below in red, followed by my rebuttal comments indented in black (subtitles added).

Technology Boom in Renewable Energies

“… there have been huge improvement in battery technology.…