High gasoline prices are not a "bug" in the view of the Biden Administration, but a "feature." Environmentalists with enough money to pay the premium are giddy because high prices make expensive wind and solar energy more competitive. So, forget about the days when the most cost-saving ideas win in the marketplace, we are now in the era when government policies and regulations determine market prices. Hmmm ... sounds like the old U.S.S.R., eh? How did that work out? It remains to be seen if … [Read more...]
Why “cheap” solar increases the price of power
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...]
Naïve Young Republicans Embrace Climate Care
I came of age politically in the age of William F. Buckley, Jr and Ronald Reagan, which means I escaped being indoctrinated into the progressive ideology behind John Maynard Keynes’ economics and Rachel Carson’s environmentalism. So I was baffled by a recent article in World Magazine discussing how many of today’s young “conservatives” embrace the ideas I avoided 40 years ago. The article, Young Republicans embrace climate care, begins with a profile of the 24 year old Andrew Eisenman, a recent … [Read more...]
John Kerry: Putin’s Useful Climate Idiot
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the West’s Era of Illusions. It was an era in which Western elites were obsessed with solving climate change because the climate crisis was far more dangerous than issues of war and peace and the stability of the international system. They even convinced themselves that climate change causes war, so climate change policy could double as national security policy; and, for many years, the annual round of kumbaya UN climate talks was the apogee … [Read more...]
Biden and Europe Should Respond to Russian Aggression by Scrapping Extremist Climate Policies
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was facilitated by alarmist policies enacted by the United States and Europe, meant to combat alleged runaway global warming.Germany, for example, decided to abandon coal and nuclear energy in favor of supposed climate-friendly “renewable” energy sources. And in the United Kingdom, after briefly considering allowing fracking a few years back, the government has basically doubled down on wind and solar, erecting bans or nearly insurmountable hurdles to natural gas … [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...]
“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...]
Pennsylvania Power Plant Closures Would Cause Real Harm for Illusory Environmental Gains
Visible from Western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountain ridges are coal-fired power plants—and their plumes of water vapor—that have been integral to much of the regional economy for 50 years. But maybe not for much longer.Three plants east of Pittsburgh directly employ 550 people and support an estimated 8,100 jobs, according to Power PA Jobs Alliance, a coalition of labor and industry groups. Now, two of them—the generating stations of Conemaugh on the Indiana-Westmoreland County … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- Next Page »
