“Granted, the acoustic pollution caused by sonar – particularly powerful navy systems – is greater than that from wind turbines. But wind turbine noise is nearly constant, lasts as long as the turbines and comes from multiple directions, as in the area where the whales were recently stranded.”
“We would be far better off simply ending wayward, wasteful offshore wind energy programs. The free market can neuter wind short of the assessing the environmental damage.”
Between January 9 and February 4, 2016, twenty-nine sperm whales got stranded and died on English, German and Dutch beaches. Environmentalists and the news media have offered all manner of explanations – except the most obvious and likely one: Offshore wind farms. Indeed, the area has Europe’s and the world’s biggest concentration of offshore wind turbines, and there is ample evidence that they can interfere with whale communication and navigation.…
Continue Reading“In a 2014 ‘EV Everywhere Grand Challenge’ study, the US Department of Energy finds that the current battery cost is $325 per kWh. At a battery cost of $325 per kWh, the price of oil would need to exceed $350 per barrel before the electric vehicle was cheaper to operate.”
– Covert, Greenstone, and Knittel. “Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?” Journal of Economic Perspectives (30(1), 2016): p. 132.
In the marketplace for ideas, economists are always selling. We see a situation that everyone knows is imperfect, point out the exorbitant costs and likely mistakes on the road to Nirvana, assure our audience that in any case the market can likely manage things better than government. And we hope someone accepts our research and clients retain our consulting services.…
Continue Reading[Editor note: Julian Simon (February 12, 1932 – February 8, 1998) is remembered each year at MasterResource.]
“The world’s problem is not too many people, but a lack of political and economic freedom.”
– Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton, N.Y.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 11.
“The ultimate resource is people—especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty—who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefits, and so inevitably they will benefit the rest of us as well.”
– Julian Simon, “Introduction,” in Simon, ed., The State of Humanity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995), p. 27.
Julian Simon would have turned 84 last week. MasterResource, which is named in his honor, applies Simon’s ultimate resource insight to the master resource of energy and to related environmental issues.…
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