A Free-Market Energy Blog

Angry Michael Mann Isolates Himself (climate exaggeration backfires)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 21, 2025

“And yes, there is empirical, peer-reviewed support for the conclusion that climate deniers, in general, are truly awful human beings.” (- Michael Mann, below)

Michael “Climategate” Mann cannot get out of his own way. His arrogant, condescending social tweets speak for themselves–just as the words, sentences, and paragraphs of the East Anglia emails did. He is not the kind of person you would want in just about any endeavor, much less as a climate scientist trying to present a case.

This post traces Mann’s angst on X and then at BlueSky, his successor to X.

This is my final post on this platform (aside from my social media team’s pro forma posts noted below) until it is no longer owned by Elon Musk. “But on X, my social media team is reposting things” [Joe Romm?].

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Solar Bankruptcies: The New Normal

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 20, 2025

“Never again; let the free market choose winners and let government not pick losers.”

Remember Solyndra, a solar panel manufacture that collapsed soon after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the US government back in 2011? This company received the U.S. Department of Energy’s first loan guarantee under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, an infamous beginning that embarrassed President Obama and the “green” energy industry.

Today, 14 years later, the erroneously described “infant” industry is badly listing with its perennial tax subsidies at risk. Grid solar is plagued by failure, with investors facing net zero and employees looking for alternatives. Customers are disgruntled as well.

Enter SolarInsure, whose business is about “safeguarding your renewable energy investment with energy system monitoring and warranties.” SolarInsure has compiled a list of bankrupt solar firms in the interest of filling claims for nonperformance.…

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‘Big Oil’ and Early Solar: Trying and Failing

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 19, 2025

Solar is hardly an infant industry, as documented here and here. And ‘Big Oil’ tried to make it economic a half century ago–and failed. A six-year-old article, “How Big Oil Of The Past Helped Launch The Solar Industry Of Today, by Andrea Hsu tells the story, one that is pertinent today given the bust of the industry (see tomorrow’s post). She begins:

Renewable energy has gotten so cheap that even oil giant Exxon Mobil, which reported $20.8 billion in earnings in 2018, is getting in on the savings. Over the next couple of years, Exxon Mobil will begin purchasing wind and solar power in West Texas, part of a 12-year agreement signed late last year with the Danish energy company Orsted. The plan is to use cheap, clean electricity to power Exxon Mobil’s expanding operations in the Permian Basin, one of the world’s most productive oil fields.

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Energy & Environmental Review: August 18, 2025

By -- August 18, 2025
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AI on Me re Climate and Energy (the consensus strikes again)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 14, 2025
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“Who Are the Climate Deniers Fighting the Endangerment Finding?” (the new majority, DeSmog)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 13, 2025
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Catastrophic Climate Change? (1977 memo to Carter in retrospect)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 12, 2025
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James Hansen’s New Tune (politics or science?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 11, 2025
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Renewable Energy Tales from Enron: Part I

By Robert Bradley Jr. --
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On the CO2 Fertilization Effect (real science for EPA)

By Robert Bradley Jr. --
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