I keep hearing that since solar power is cheap it pays to add it to the generation mix. Sometimes this claim is caveated, saying that it only pays up to a certain fraction of total generating capacity. Typical limits range from 30% to 60%. Moreover this claim that it pays to add solar is made by conservatives as well as liberals. We are, after all, just talking about money, not principles.In reality, this “solar pays” claim is like saying it pays to add a small, high mileage car as a second car. … [Read more...]
The Right Way to Impose Energy Sanctions on Russia
In the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the idea of expanding sanctions on Russian energy is starting to gain bipartisan traction in Congress.This is a complicated issue. Although freedom-loving nations should be ready to use every tool available to push back against the authoritarian greed of Putin, energy sanctions are a double-edged sword.It’s worth thinking through the implications in order to come as close as possible to … [Read more...]
Will the Supreme Court Toss the EPA’s Climate Regulation?
As if the war in Ukraine wasn’t enough to derail global environmentalism, a new legal challenge is threatening to confound the eco-Left’s climate agenda at home. If climate activists aren’t panicking, they should be.On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether the agency has the authority to issue rules capable of fundamentally transforming America’s electricity grid.At stake is not only President Barack … [Read more...]
New Cobalt Mine in Idaho Could Start a Trend Good for People and the Planet
Regardless how stringent climate policies are, or how rapidly we move from internal combustion to electric vehicles, increasing battery needs around the world presage a huge increase in demand for cobalt.Right now, as Ronald Stein and Todd Royal demonstrate in their book Clean Energy Exploitations, most of the world’s cobalt comes from mines with very low environmental protection standards and huge human rights problems—child and slave labor in highly toxic settings, sometimes at the point of a … [Read more...]
Carbon Cutting: Saving the Planet or Virtue Signaling?
Recently, many companies have pledged to go “net-zero.” “Net-zero” means the greenhouse gases a company emits are balanced by the greenhouse gases it removes from the atmosphere. The Paris Agreement suggests such goals. Although former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it, many companies feel the need to demonstrate they are pursuing the targets set in Paris, as we rejoined it under President Biden.In theory, net-zero can be accomplished by reducing emissions or … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Should Cancel the Latest “Witch Hunt”
In the 1690s, a mass panic at Salem, Massachusetts, led to 20 people being executed for witchcraft and 150 being jailed. Then in the 1950s, another mass panic gripped the United States and thousands of lives were wrecked as many were falsely accused of being communists. Yet another in the 1990s wrecked the lives of many preschool teachers with false accusations of sex abuse in the classroom.Having written about these sad episodes in an engineering journal a few years ago, I would be … [Read more...]
Ukraine Conflict Fueled By False “Green” Promises
As surely as the path to hell is paved with good intentions, the slide to the Russia-Ukraine conflict was greased with specious promises of the green lobby.“A year ago, Ukraine’s fate was sealed, and that’s because (President Biden) gave up our energy-exporting business and allowed the Russians” to take it, said former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland. Biden’s policy blunder enriched Russia with revenues from oil and gas and made both Europe and the U.S. more dependent on … [Read more...]
Endangered Species Act: Turning Species Extirpation on its Head
The Endangered Species Act, first enacted by Congress in 1973, has since become a poster child for bureaucratic ineptitude. By 2021 it had fully redeemed from the impending extinction only 3% of the hundreds of endangered species initially added to the list.Our national symbol, the again flourishing bald eagle, is an outstanding exception. The birds are commonly seen soaring above our rivers and lakes wherever the fishing is good.But whooping cranes are holding onto existence by the skin of … [Read more...]
How a Mindless Climate War on Energy Surrendered Ukraine
Delusional Western nation anti-hydrocarbon energy policies premised upon combating climate change as the "greatest existential threat" are being exploited by far more immediate and formidable adversaries.We are currently witnessing tragic consequences play out in failures of Russian oil and gas-dependent NATO allies — Germany in particular — to dissuade and counter savage Putin aggression against Ukraine.Add to this, a concurrent Biden administration policy disaster which has … [Read more...]
“Green” Media Misrepresents World’s Energy Reality
Fossil fuels are out. Coal is no longer king. The Middle East faces an oil crisis. These are typical headlines in the mainstream media. Unreported is the hard reality of the world’s fossil-dependent developing economies. This story goes untold because media in the developed West seek to create a perception of an inevitable transition to energy markets free of hydrocarbons.Whatever is behind the media’s ignorance — or neglect — of the proliferation of coal, oil, and natural gas, it … [Read more...]
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