“Across the state, Texans are fighting subsidies for big renewable energy corporations. It’s an uphill battle as negotiations of these special deals under [Texas] Tax Code Chapter 312 and 313 are hidden from public view. But numerous communities are winning.”
– Texas Public Policy Foundation, “Texans Are Winning,” February 18, 2019.
The Texas wind industry has been constructed on the backs of US taxpayers, state and local taxpayers, and captive electricity ratepayers. The ruse can be traced to 1999 when an Enron-driven electricity restructuring law provided a 2,000-MW renewable-energy quota for Texas (think Enron Wind Corp.). Texas governors George W. Bush and Rick Perry were instrumental in the crony crusade, unfortunately, a story told elsewhere.
The takeoff of this politically correct, economically incorrect power source is explained by concentrated benefits, diffused costs.…
Continue Reading“In the daunting math of climate action, people’s choices and government policies aren’t adding up…. If it sounds downbeat, that’s because it is.”
“Climate scientists and policy experts realize that they walk a fine line between jolting consumers and policymakers into action and immobilizing them with paralyzing pessimism about the world’s ability to hit climate targets…. [MIT scientist John] Sterman said the world has missed the chance to contain warming without huge disruptions.
– Stephen Mufson, ‘A kind of dark realism’: Why the climate change problem is starting to look too big to solve.’ Washington Post, December 4, 2018.
Oh, how the free-market climate realists (science, economics, politics) feel vindicated. The mainstream press has (belatedly) announcing the Carbon Tax politically dead and a distraction for the whole climate debate.…
Continue Reading“Mr. Pickens’s original vision had something for everyone. First he would build a wind farm in Texas with 2,700 turbines costing upward of $10 billion. That would pump power into the national grid, allowing huge amounts of natural gas to be diverted from power plants to newly equipped cars and trucks. The result, he promised, would be a sharp reduction in the country’s dependence on Middle East crude.”
“‘This to me is like a war without guns,’ says Mr. Pickens….”
– Neil King, Pickens’s Windmills Tilt Against Market Realities, Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2009.
A decade ago, a rent-seeking, vainglorious Texas oil man named T. Boone Pickens spent tens of millions of dollars to promote what today might be called the Little Green Deal. It was nicely summarized in the Wall Street Journal at the time by Neil King, Pickens’s Windmills Tilt Against Market Realities.…
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