A New Energy Blog

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 26, 2008 7 Comments

“… our blog name is inspired by the late Julian Simon (1932–1998). He labeled energy the master resource because it is the resource needed to bring other resources from a state of nature to one of human usefulness. Simon also used the term the ultimate resource to describe human ingenuity.”

We are just getting started here, but some of us veterans of the energy debate from a private property, free-market perspective have teamed together to offer our thoughts on late breaking energy items. When I read my newspapers each day, I have some thoughts that I wish I could share with folks from a historical, worldview perspective. I think we all have something to add–and thus the inspiration for this endeavor.

We have a good core group of principal (and principled) bloggers, as well as a growing list of guest bloggers.…

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Those Energy Company Advertisements

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 27, 2008 5 Comments

There is way too much money being spent on advertising by the major energy companies–at least from the viewpoint of a nonpolitical energy world.

The December 8, 2008, Wall Street Journal, for example, contains a phenomenal 4 1/12 pages of industry ads. For the 20-page front section A, that comes out to about 20%–surely an all-time record. There was a lot of industry advertising back during the energy crises of the highly regulated 1970s, but nothing like this! …

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Screwing Up the Auto Industry

By -- December 29, 2008 5 Comments

Despite all the pressure on him, energy is the perfect area for Barack Obama to do nothing hasty. For decades, activists and foreigners have lamented the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have an energy policy. This is, of course, nonsense. Simply because we don’t have a big E big P Energy Policy doesn’t mean we don’t have one at all. Compared to most other countries, our energy policy is most notable for the things it doesn’t do, as in the doctors’ creed, “First, do no harm.”

And energy policy is now threatening to intersect with economic policy, first, as rising unemployment suggests to many that renewable energy subsidies offer an attractive use of funds but also as the government considers assistance for the US automobile industry (at least the home-grown sections of it).…

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John Holdren on Global Cooling (Part I in a Series on Obama’s new science advisor, ‘Dr. Doom’)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 30, 2008 16 Comments

Skeptics of climate alarmism have often trotted out the fact that a number of climate scientists sounded the alarm over global cooling before they sounded the alarm over global warming–an argument for humility in the face of complexity, uncertainty, and change.

Global cooling was more than fringe thinking. As Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich wrote in their 1996 book, Betrayal of Science and Reason (p. 34): …

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John Holdren on Global Warming (Part II in a series on Obama’s new science advisor)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 31, 2008 4 Comments Continue Reading

Doesn’t Anybody Read History? (False alarms recycled from the 1970s)

By -- January 26, 2009 12 Comments Continue Reading

The Buzz about Antarctica

By Chip Knappenberger -- January 29, 2009 4 Comments Continue Reading

ExxonMobil’s Tillerson on Renewable Energy: Realism amid Politics

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 7, 2009 12 Comments Continue Reading

CO2 Regulation under the Clean Air Act: Economic Train Wreck, Constitutional Crisis, Legislative Thuggery

By -- March 19, 2009 23 Comments Continue Reading

The 70s: Bad Music, Bad Hair, and Bad Energy Policy (What Obama can learn from Carter)

By Donald Hertzmark -- March 25, 2009 6 Comments Continue Reading