“Offshore wind is essentially a government-made market that would not exist in the U.S. but for a massive intervention from Washington and an ‘at-any-cost’ mentality at the state level. Of the alleged 15,650 MW of offshore wind in DOE’s pipeline, a very small fraction represents projects proffered by private entities.”
It’s official. At a White House summit last month, the Obama administration publicly backed its new government program – offshore wind. With America’s first offshore project now under construction, and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) latest analysis showing 21 projects totaling 15,650 megawatts in the works, the political boost could trigger a development boom.
But don’t count on it. The already uneconomic on land is only worse off in the waters.
Washington’s Wishful Thinking
Washington’s support for wind power is ideological, steeped in wishful thinking about what could be built, both on- and off- shore.…
Continue Reading“Ehrlich and other green activists also remained oblivious to the fact that the correlation between standards of living and pollution level is overwhelmingly in the direction of ‘richer is cleaner’.”
“Population catastrophists, however, constantly remind us of Hegel’s alleged observation that ‘If theory and facts disagree, so much the worse for the facts’.”
Pierre Desrochers, associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, is a leading classical liberal scholar in the fields of economic development, technological innovation, business/environment interaction, energy policy, and food policy. An expert on the works and worldview of Julian Simon (1932–98), Desrochers has contributed a number of features at MasterResource that are listed at the end of this post.
Most recently, Professor Desrochers celebrated the 25th anniversary of THE BET, the most famous wager in the history of economics between optimist/realist Simon and neo-Malthusian doomsayer Paul Ehrlich, with two opinion-page editorials.…
Continue ReadingThe Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).
A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.
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Some of the more informative articles in this issue are:
Fraud and Corruption in the Power Generation Industry
Appeals court blasts US Government’s view of key bird law
Study: Intermittency of UK Wind Power Generation 2013 and 2014
CO2 Emissions Reductions – What History Teaches Us
Wind Energy’s Claim that it’s “Clean” is not true
Saving the Environment from Environmentalism
Study: Energy Efficiency Investments Do NOT Deliver
Continue Reading