A Free-Market Energy Blog

The New ‘Mental Health’ Standard: Can We Apply It to Neo-Malthusians? (Romm, Hansen, Ehrlich, etc.)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 21, 2017

“‘An inability to tolerate views different’? ‘Rage reactions’? Can we apply this mental health standard to Joe Romm and James Hansen, not to mention Paul Ehrlich in his diatribes against Julian Simon?”

“This is ironic to those of us who have encountered angry neo-Malthusians trying to wake us up to the coming food famine (1960s warnings), resource famine (1970s warnings), and, most recently, climate alarmism. Does this standard apply to them as it does to all things Trump?”

I have resubscribed to the New York Times. I received a 50 percent discount, and with Trump’s upset win in November I wanted to better understand what the intellectual/media elite were thinking. (And the answer is … they still don’t get it.)

In the Letters section of February 14th edition, I encountered “Mental Health Professionals Warn About Trump.”…

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Nuclear’s Latest: Project, Company, Consumer Troubles

By Kennedy Maize -- February 20, 2017

“Toshiba’s nuclear business has been hemorrhaging money at its U.S. construction projects in Georgia and South Carolina…. The four units are in states with regulated markets and provisions for nuclear projects to receive a return on their capital investments during construction, through consumer electric rate increases.”

The social value of nuclear power may provoke wide debate. But as a business proposition, in countries with market-based economies, nuclear is failing. New construction is particularly disappointing: a new generation of technology widely expected to get costs and construction times down simply has not done so.

Problems at Toshiba

The latest evidence comes Toshiba, a giant Japanese conglomerate and parent of the U.S. nuclear reactor designer and vendor, Westinghouse Electric. Westinghouse’s ruinous investment in nuclear construction behemoth CB&I Stone & Webster has crippled Toshiba’s finances.…

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Big Wind: Threat to Air Navigation, Military Assets (Part III)

By -- February 16, 2017

“By 2008, nearly 40 percent of U.S. long-range radar systems were already compromised by wind turbines. Today, with more than three-times the wind capacity installed, the problem of radar interference persists.”

“Proper siting of turbines, while politically cumbersome, is the only tried and true form of mitigation. But this means denying wind developers access to land areas covered by radar.”

[Editor Note: This essay, the third in a series aimed at correcting the most harmful wind energy-related policies of the Obama era, examines how pro-wind federal law enacted in 2011 compromised U.S. aviation safety.]

U.S. air space has been made less safe and our national security compromised because of a reckless policy of siting wind towers within 30–40 miles of radar installations. By 2008, nearly 40 percent of U.S.…

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Why Trump Should Not Fund an Oroville Dam Fix

By -- February 15, 2017
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For Still-Poor China, Coal Pollution from Home Heating

By Greg Rehmke -- February 14, 2017
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Retire the Phony ‘Social Cost of Carbon’

By Roger Bezdek and Paul Driessen -- February 13, 2017
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Wind PTC: End the 4-Year Development Window (IRS guidance reversible) [Part II]

By -- February 10, 2017
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The Secret, Silent Wind-Power Peril (Part III: Fighting Back)

By Helen Schwiesow Parker -- February 9, 2017
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The Secret, Silent Wind-Power Peril (Part II: Nina Pierpont and ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’)

By Helen Schwiesow Parker -- February 8, 2017
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The Secret, Silent Wind Power Peril (Part I: The General Problem)

By Helen Schwiesow Parker -- February 7, 2017
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