The Increasing Sustainability of Conventional Energy: Shell Offshore

“Major technical and economic advancements are happening within the fossil-fuel industries, not outside of it. The stock energy age–oil, natural gas, and coal age–is still young. The future belongs to the efficient, no taxpayer subsidies or government direction required.”

More than a quarter-century ago, I wrote a policy analysis for the Cato Institute, “The Increasing Sustainability of Conventional Energy.” I concluded:

A ‘reality check’ of the increasing sustainability of conventional energy, and a better appreciation of the circumscribed role of backstop technologies, can re-establish the market momentum in energy policy and propel energy entrepreneurship for the new millennium.

I was reminded of this in regard to offshore oil and gas drilling versus the hyper-expensive, ecologically suspect offshore wind turbines. In this regard, consider this full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal by Shell, reproduced verbatim.…

Breakthrough! Houston Chronicle Publishes Non-alarmist Climate Op-ed

Ed. Note: Today’s post provides the background and significance of Robert Bradley’s recent op-ed in The Houston Chronicle, “World Should be Optim­istic About Our Fossil Fuel Future.”

For more than a decade, my once regular site for climate/energy opinion-page editorials has been off limits, with only a few letters-to-the-editor published. Examples from the good-old-days:

• “ExxonMobil on Right Path” (June 14, 2009)
• “Climate-Change Alarmism Runs into a Reality Check” (January 9, 2009)
• “False Alarms and Climate Change” (March 30, 2008)
• “Al Gore’s Telling Whoppers Again” (June 4, 2006)
• “Shoppers: There is a Bright Side to Rising Gas Prices” (April 18, 2002)
• “President is Correct to Ignore Climate Alarmists” (May 14, 2001)
• “Fear Not: The Energy Malthusians Are Wrong” ( April 21, 2000)

That changed completely when the well-monied Progressive Left captured the Chronicle, probably via grants from Big Green nonprofits that ensured that pro-wind, pro-solar, pro-“energy transformation” reporting was the regular fare–and contrary articles such as my mine kept out (with nary an explanation, much less simple acknowledgement of receipt and/or consideration).…

Rooftop Solar Litigation: Find a Lawyer

Social media is home to a number of legal solicitations regarding rooftop solar contracts where homeowners are tied into long-term solar contracts with bankrupt companies. Lawyers win; everyone else loses. Previous posts at MasterResource (here and here) have documented the collapse of this subindustry.

UPRISE: More Federal Nuclear Subsidization

Wind Ecology Pushback (biodiversity loss joins the list)

Ken Brook takes on Greepeace’s David Ritter

“… as fossil fuel use declines….” Magical energy Thinking in Print

Texas A&M’s Dessler Joins Texas Air Conditioning Contractors Association

Michael Mann Praises Paul Ehrlich (for the record)

Competitive Nuclear: An Exchange