https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2011/11/interview-with-alex-epstein-founder-of-center-for-industrial-progress/
JL: What are the primary obstacles to industrial progress?
AE: There are two key obstacles to industrial progress: one is a lack of a positive and the other is a negative, in large part made possible by the lack of the positive.
The lack of a positive is the lack of a clearly fleshed-out pro-industrial philosophy that embraces the progressive transformation of nature through energy and technology. Such a philosophy, among other things, would define the proper political policies under which that transformation should take place—namely policies based on individual rights—and it would morally embrace industrialization.
Without the right industrial philosophy, people don’t value industrial progress sufficiently, and don’t know what policies will nourish that value.
Being clear on the positive is indispensable. For instance in oil, you can see throughout history that it is really important that property rights should be based on the principle that the creator of the value in the resource should own it.…
Finally, the energy literate on the Left understand that politically correct energies for electricity (wind and solar–not nuclear and hydro) are little recipe for anthropogenic greenhouse-gas mitigation. Embedded energy awaiting a payback, small scale, and intermittency/fossil-fuel fill-in leaves a very skinny contribution.
And to the extent that the climate movement is more successful at closing nuclear plants than erecting wind farms and installing solar panels, the alleged problem of climate change is worsened.
James Hansen led the charge on this very issue, and now an organization and movement is mobilizing at this very late date to save a handful of running nuclear dinosaurs from extinction.
Are the climate alarmists bluffing about their cause? Because if they really believed, they would have embraced, before now, the one major emission-free source of central-station electricity: nuclear power.…
“DOE and its environmental allies are trying their best bypass the adaptation of full fuel-cycle analyses through their jihad against carbon; which includes natural gas, or at least its direct use. Apparently, natural gas is still considered to be “clean,” but only if burned in electric power plants.”
MR: Tell us about your interest in the energy efficiency debate from a natural gas perspective.
MEK: When I was a medic during Vietnam, I saw the crucial need for reliable and affordable energy in third-world countries I served in, such as vaccines for refrigeration. So researched and became aware of the term “appropriate technologies,” and I began reading works by Dr. Ernst Friedrich “Fritz” Schumacher. One book was Small is Beautiful.
While Schumacher wasn’t exactly advocating free markets, his writings certainly endorsed free, locally directed, choices as opposed to the imposition of central government dictation of energy programs.…