“I might add a prediction—that the hydrocarbon energy age could still be young, even quite young. The much-hyped emergence of a new renewable energy era by mid-century is less our energy future than our energy past…”
I am honored to receive the [2002] Julian Simon award tonight. My thanks go to the Simon family and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for having this annual award to recognize and encourage new contributions in the “sustainable development” field that Simon pioneered.
My appreciation also goes out to a number of groups within the classical liberal “structure of production” that have supported my intellectual development over the last quarter century, and in particular the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, the Cato Institute, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
Julian Simon was very interested in energy and energy-environmental issues.…
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions … adaptation to the unknown can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions…. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.”
– F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), p. 76.
Stephen Chu, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), announced last week his intention to step down once a replacement is found. His 3,800-word resignation letter should be critically studied by students of energy policy and, indeed, public policy more generally.
I offer ten critical points to bear in mind as Chu’s letter is read (other points can be added in the comments section).…
MasterResource, which turned four last month, recorded its best quarter in history with 116,877 views, a 20 percent increase from 4Q-2011. We reached as high as #7 of 9,984 “green blogs” tracked by Technorati in the quarter and currently stand at #40.
With one in-depth post per workday, with occasional weekend fare, MasterResource is the leading voice for free-market, science-of-liberty thought in energy and related environmental issues.
MasterResource features many different writers, some academics, some think-tank analysts, and others citizen-activists. Some areas of emphasis and impact may be mentioned.
Inconvenient Truths of Industrial Wind
Literally dozens of our writers have made MasterResource a leader of the windpower educational movement. Turning wind into electricity is wholly government-enabled; even NIMBYSM that might be criticized in other contexts is justified given that government mandates and special, outsized subsidies enables the rural invasion of wind machinery.…