Editor Note: The post below, published at MasterResource in June 2009, has profound challenges for the notion that self-interested business underinvests in energy efficiency, giving a “market failure” rationale for government investments in and mandates for energy efficiency. This post introduced the term conservationism to differentiate government conservation from market conservation. It also documents the market failure of Joe Romm’s shuttered nonprofit, the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions.
…“Enter the energy outsourcing model of energy service companies (ESCOs) in the 1990s, widely heralded as a ‘new economy’ breakthrough and a new feature of ‘natural capitalism’. Enron Energy Services (EES), in particular, the energy outsourcing division of the late Enron, was the next great thing…. ‘ESCOs are DEFINITELY the future,’ exclaimed Joe Romm. ‘I intend to work with the big ones to transform the market, which I think will take about two or three years.’
“I have found that if we reframe the conversation to always focus on the full context of human flourishing, many people will be won over.” (Alex Epstein)
Fasten your seatbelts. This is the year of energy realism and elevating the politically incorrect, economically correct into the mainstream. Donald Trump energy policy promises to be free-market-oriented in a way that has been absent through recent Republican and Democratic administrations.
A leading voice for an energy/climate realism is Alex Epstein, a one-man dynamo for clear thinking in a field dominated by want it, think it, emote it … and it is.
In writing and by lecture, Epstein is ready to convince a Rotary Club or Prime Time America on the benefits of consumer-chosen, taxpayer neutral, economical, reliable energies. He will debate anyone anywhere–and should get more chances than ever in this new policy era.…
“Big Government Democrats are not the cure to Big Government Republicanism. Oil, natural gas, and coal are middle class, working class energies. Wind and solar are for the rich…. Maybe, just maybe, these parasitic, inefficient energies will get the scrutiny they deserve from all sides of the political spectrum.”
The beginning of the Obama presidency was less than one month away. Things looked bad for energy. Climate exaggeration and alarmism as US policy was coming up. And there were very few of us in the free market camp to fight against climate/energy statism.
Eight years ago this month, I got in touch with these few–Marlo Lewis (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Ken Green (American Enterprise Institute), and Jerry Taylor (Cato Institute), and a few others–to launch a new website. Two-thousand one-hundred and twenty-seven posts later, we are into year nine of “a free market energy blog.”…