Did anything good come from Glasgow? Well, that depends on how far back you go. Go back 245 years and you get Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776. That was most definitely good, the University of Glasgow professor of moral philosophy solidifying the growing case for free-market economies, arguably indispensable to the Industrial Revolution’s lifting more and more of humanity out of extreme poverty. Go back another 8 years and you get Rev. … [Read more...]
Stop worshipping the sun: Biden’s solar power enthusiasm is unmoored from reality
On September 13, the New York Daily News ran my piece on the Biden Administration’s recent report which claimed the US could be getting 45 percent of its electricity from solar by 2050. (Never mind that Biden has said he wants to decarbonize the electric grid by 2035). In any case, I began the piece: Hyping solar energy is one of Washington, D.C.’s most renewable resources. Back in 1979, President Jimmy Carter declared the U.S. needed to capture more energy from the sun … [Read more...]
Keeping People in the Dark is Easy—Just Keep Them in the Dark
It's long been clear that electricity, by putting enormous power at the fingertips of billions of ordinary people, has been crucial to their conquest of poverty. Just now, though, a short article by energy journalist Robert Bryce turned a new light on for me: Electricity is crucial to keeping people free, too. Why? Because information and its rapid, unrestricted sharing feed freedom. And electricity facilitates that rapid sharing of information---through telephones, radio, television, the … [Read more...]
Why Do Taxpayer-Subsidized Businesses So Often Fail?
Subsidize renewable energy? What a great idea! If you like wasting money. SunEdison, which once described itself as the "largest global renewable energy development company" and was America's fastest-growing renewable energy company, filed for bankruptcy April 21. It seems that $1.5 billion combined subsidies and loan guarantees (including $650 million in grants and tax credits---i.e., outright handouts) wasn't enough to make up for the combination of hubris-driven over-expansion, … [Read more...]
