A Free-Market Energy Blog

‘Too Much Competition’ (fussy CEO want rivals to ease up)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 11, 2021

“Something seems wrong with Devon if the CEO really has to fuss at his competitors to be less competitive.” (below)

It is a perennial problem. Consumers have the upper hand in a free market. Sellers, even with minerals that are supposed to be depleting (typically not), complain about the other guy and gal producing too much and pricing ‘irrationally.’ And another I once heard: ‘Buyers are smarter than sellers.’

I was reminded of this reading a recent article, “Devon CEO Urges Lower 48 E&Ps to Focus on Generating Cash, Limiting Oil, Gas Production” (May 5, 2021). The Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) piece begins:

Devon Energy Corp. CEO Rick Muncrief said it’s time for his peers to get their act together and stop expanding oil and gas production until demand outpaces supply.

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“Green Fraud” Book Review (one-stop shopping for energy/climate realists)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 10, 2021

“Let’s expose this dangerous charade. The Green New Deal is not green. It’s not new. And it’s not a good deal for America.”

– Marc Morano, Green Fraud, p. 306.

“The sorry present of the climate/energy debate will need some vital books come the autopsy. When that time comes, Green Fraud will serve as a go-to book. In the meantime, America, read away as part of a public opinion shift toward climate realism and energy basics.” (below)

I remain a big believer in books in the age of short attention spans. But the book must cover a lot of material in an organized way–and have a thorough index for researchers.

Outside of a too-brief index, Marc Morano’s Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think (Regnery: 2021) is a worthy addition to any library concerning today’s raging debate over climate and energy.…

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Mises on Resources: Short, Sweet, Definitive

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 6, 2021

“The deposits of mineral substances and their exploitation are not characterized by features which would give a particular mark to human action dealing with them.”

I nominate the above 25 words for the shortest, sweetest statement of energy economics (really economics applied to mineral energies) in history. Properly understood, millions of words could have been spared trying to prove the opposite.

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the greatest economist of his generation and, indeed, the 20th century. John Maynard Keynes got the accolades, but his theory did not stand the test of time. Milton Friedman, the counterweight to Keynes from the free-market-oriented side, had many contributions that were more quantitative than the much-more-difficult qualitative. And Friedman, the great educator, did not pen a systematic treatise on the corpus of his discipline as did Mises, expositing “an economics that should have been but never was.”…

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California Grid Frailty: Imported Power/Solar at Issue

By -- May 5, 2021
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U.S. Renewables – Current and Potential Output

By Stanislav Jakuba -- May 4, 2021
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Adaptation: The Hidden Climate Strategy (apartment water detention facility in flood-prone Houston)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 3, 2021
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ROBERT BRADLEY: Climate alarmism: Statism’s new clothes (op-ed on the UN climate summit, 2015)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 2, 2021
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Electricity Planners on Defense (more exchange on the PUCT/ERCOT debacle)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 29, 2021
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Industrial Wind Turbine Health Issues: Evidence Grows, Politics Rise (Robert Bryce’s latest)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 28, 2021
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Tesla Safety Issues: Unintended Consequences of Technology Forcing

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 27, 2021
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