A Free-Market Energy Blog

Democrat Socialists Rejecting Biden’s Move to Middle (Green Party bump?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 5, 2020

“By refusing to embrace a fracking ban, Biden is following the well-trodden liberal path of rhetorically acknowledging the threat posed by climate change, while rejecting the measures necessary to actually deal with it. If he really believes, as per the language on his own official website, that ‘climate change is the greatest threat facing our country and our world’ he and other liberal politicians should start behaving like that threat is real.” [- Luke Savage (below)]

Joe Biden Is Wrong. Believing in Science Means Banning Fracking” by Luke Savage is a rare rebuke against the pro-fracking stance of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden for private lands. Climate alarmist Andrew Dessler gave Biden a pass (maybe there is not a climate emergency after all!), as has far Left climate group 350.org,…

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“The Soft Case for Soft Energy” (Jerry Taylor’s past wisdom speaks to us today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 1, 2020

“We find that the arguments marshaled to support the hypothesis that a transition to a soft energy economy is inevitable are riddled with economic errors and are thus less than compelling. Moreover, we can’t help but note that past predictions by soft energy advocates about the future of the energy economy have proven wildly incorrect.”

– Jerry Taylor and Peter VanDoren (1999)

Twenty-one years ago, Jerry Taylor and Peter VanDoren of the Cato Institute published a journal article, “The Soft Case for Soft Energy,” in a special issue of the Journal of International Affairs, Fueling the 21st Century: The New Political Economy of Energy (Fall 1999). This article remains sound and prescient, with political energies continuing to be government-dependent versus their superior rivals.

This 11,000-word, 101-footnote essay is the longest and most comprehensive of Jerry Taylor’s career–and the most notable journal article he has published.…

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (‘clean energy’ bonanza makes more stimulus unnecessary)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 30, 2020

“The energy stuff [in the 2009 bill] … was ginormous…. Ten years earlier, [President] Clinton pushed a five-year, $6 billion clean energy bill that went nowhere; at the time it was seen as preposterous and unrealistic, and it was. And here, 10 years later, $90 billion in the guy’s first month in office. Plus it leveraged another $100 billion in private money.”

– Michel Grunwald [Author, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (2012)], quoted here.

A matter of contention in this year’s Pandemic-related stimulus bills has been extraneous ‘Christmas Tree’ items such as targeted subsidies to wind, solar, batteries, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, “grid modernization,” and carbon capture and sequestration. (Note that such subsidies would be in addition to what is already received as other businesses.)…

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‘The Crisis of Interventionism’ (Mises’s wisdom 80 years ago speaks to government-forced energy transformation today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 29, 2020
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Hunter Biden: Where are the Environmentalists? (fossil-fuel cronyism anyone?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 28, 2020
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Climate Hustle 2 (‘Are They Trying to Control the Climate Or You?’)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 25, 2020
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Global Carbon Taxation for Redistribution (“last opportunity” for “game changing”)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 24, 2020
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Remembering Fair Reporting on Climate (Houston Chronicle circa 2010)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 23, 2020
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Oil & Gas In History: Some September Remembrances (from Civil War tax to OPEC founding)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 22, 2020
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Bravo EU/UK Climate Realism Groups (DesmogUK pays its respects)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 21, 2020
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