“Maybe instead of investigating the relatively high price [in early 2002] of gasoline, the government should check into its own regulatory and tax policies that artificially reduce supply and raise prices.”
This piece was written in first-quarter 2002 when environmental requirements were pushing reformulated gasoline prices higher, and the wellhead oil boom associated with hydraulic fractionation and horizontal drilling was a decade away.
Today, the war against oil from the Net Zero movement–now joined by the Russia/Ukraine conflict–has sent prices to historically high levels. Still, a mostly free market has wondrously overcome impediments to make a “depletable” mineral plentiful and affordable for hundreds of millions of Americans each day.
Let’s go back to the debate 20 years ago, when gasoline was sold for $1.50 per gallon (about $2.50 today)….
Crude oil prices are at a 6-month high. …
“A band of desperate terrorists has taken over the PSC building and is holding the entire staff and all the commissioners as hostages. The dastardly fiends are threatening to release one regulator every hour until their demands are met.”
Jim Clarkson (above) has a sense of humor (also see his “The Ratepayer’s Prayer). Remaining light-hearted is necessary when regulation-protected utilities take advantage of ratepayers every kilowatt hour of every day. For Clarkson is a a friend of free markets and thus ratepayers. [1]
Clarkson, founder and president of Resource Supply Management, publishes a monthly Georgia Regulatory Update. Clarkson’s fare mixes the inevitable bad news of current events with short explanations why markets protect ratepayers better than bureaucrats and politicians.
A major ongoing saga involves Georgia Power Company (Southern Company) and Vogtle Nuclear Plants #3 and #4, which is still in construction.…
“When people driving Teslas tell Africa to turn away from hydrocarbons — it’s immoral, it’s wrong,” [Erik] Prince said. “We have real energy poverty across the continent.” (quoted in Bloomberg Green, 11/11/2021)
Oil, gas, and coal are energies for the masses; wind, (on-grid) solar, and batteries/EVs are for the elite. This theme, while old, is more pertinent than ever with the failures of “green” energy policy in a fossil fuel world. Paul Driessen emphasized it in his neglected book, Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (Merril Press, 2010). Vijay Jayaraj emphasizes it today in “Climate Colonialists Disrupt African Pipeline, Perpetuate Poverty.”
Such is completely lost at Hot Take, where Mary Heglar titled a recent piece, “It’s Not Climate Denial, It’s White Supremacy.” But maybe Africa does not count to her.…