One thousand in-depth posts, 135 different contributors, and 1.2 million views to date–MasterResource has stature as a free-market movement-wide energy blog.
With 415 categories in our index, MasterResource is a lasting research tool, not only a day-to-day contribution to energy scholarship and current political debates. And we have achieved critical mass; ‘Google’ an energy-policy-related term along with MasterResource, and there we usually are!
Our content promises to stand the test of time. Our headlines do not have Stunner or Stunning as does a rival blog selling energy/climate alarmism. Our contributors are wed to reality, not to think-it-and-make-it-is-real and wish-it-and-it-can-happen postmodernism.
Wind Power Niche
One particular niche at MasterResource has been giving voice to the growing, articulate grassroot opposition to industrial wind parks. Such turbines generate a heavy environmental footprint, not only small, unreliable bursts of electricity.…
“In the U.S. energy sector, market reliance has produced economic coordination, fostered economic growth, and democratized wealth. Government intervention, on the other hand, such as oil and natural gas price controls in the 1970s, has produced shortages, civil strife, and bureaucratic waste.”
Energy is the master resource. Without energy, other resources could neither be produced nor consumed. Even energy requires energy: There would not be usable oil, gas, or coal without the energy to manufacture and power the requisite tools and machinery. Nor would there be wind turbines or solar panels, which are monuments to embedded fossil-fuel energy.
Just how important are fossil fuels relative to so-called renewable energies? Oil, gas, and coal generate the electricity needed to fill in for intermittent wind and solar power to ensure moment-to-moment reliability.…
[Editor Note: Tomorrow’s post,”A Free Market Energy Vision,” explains the philosophy behind the Institute for Energy Research/American Energy Alliance.]
The New York Times is upset with “Big Oil,” including the advocacy group American Energy Alliance (AEA). This is evident in their Saturday opinion-page editorial, Big Oil’s Bogus Campaign, subtitled “Industry spends heavily to preserve tax breaks and blame Mr. Obama for rising gas prices.”
What is the philosophy behind AEA, what are the Times’s complaints, and what is a free-market response?
American Energy Alliance
The American Energy Alliance is the C4 (advocacy) arm of the C3 (educational) Institute for Energy Research. I am founder and CEO of IER.
AEA’s “About” section on its website reads as follows:
…Founded in May, 2008, The American Energy Alliance (“AEA”) is a not-for-profit organization that engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies.