In 1920, to protect American shipping from foreign competition, Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, also known as the Jones Act. Section 27 requires that ships carrying goods from one US port to another be built and flagged in the US and owned and crewed mostly by Americans.While they can make sense in terms of national defense if they prevent the country from becoming dependent on hostile foreign nations for commodities and manufactured goods critical for national defense, such … [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...]
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...]
Federal District Court Enjoins Use Of The “Social Cost Of Carbon”
In the U.S. so far, efforts to enact legislation in Congress to “save the planet” by restricting fossil fuels and transforming our energy economy have gone almost entirely nowhere. President Obama’s big idea of “cap and trade” legislation died early in his first term and was never resurrected. President Biden’s “Green New Deal” has so far suffered a similar fate. If the Republicans retake even one house of Congress later this year, prospects for legislation on this subject may be dead for many … [Read more...]
Thinking Biblically about Earth Stewardship & the Conquest of Poverty in the Age of Climate Change
We have created an updated version of this page to reflect changes made for 2023. You can visit the new page here. … [Read more...]
As coal use surges, America finds it’s hard to unplug from carbon
So much for the myriad claims about going “beyond coal.” According to a new report from the Rhodium Group, U.S. coal consumption jumped by 17 percent last year compared to 2020 levels. That’s a huge increase, which Rhodium says was “largely driven by a run-up in natural gas prices.” Rather than burn gas, which averaged about $4.93 per million Btu last year — more than two times the price in 2020 — many electricity producers chose to burn coal instead.The surge in domestic coal use is … [Read more...]
How About A Pilot Project To Demonstrate The Feasibility Of Fully Wind/Solar/Battery Electricity Generation?
At this current crazy moment, most of the “Western” world (Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia) is hell-bent on achieving a “net-zero” energy system. As I understand this concept, it means that, within two or three decades, all electricity production will be converted from the current mostly-fossil-fuel generation mix to almost entirely wind, solar, and storage. On top of that, all or nearly all energy consumption that is not currently electricity (e.g., transportation, industry, heat, … [Read more...]
When The Administrative State Slips Its Constitutional Bonds
For the past few weeks, everybody’s attention has been focused on the looming demise of President Biden’s legislative agenda. Both the massive social spending bill (going by the Orwellian name “Build Back Better”) and the anti-voter-integrity bill, have now conclusively failed, at least in their most recent forms. A major part of the Build Back Better bill was the launching of the Green New Deal, with its attendant suppression of the use of carbon-based fuels.So, at least for now, these things … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- …
- 64
- Next Page »
