A Free-Market Energy Blog

Big Solar: Big Gas (Ivanpah’s ‘dirty power’)

By -- April 2, 2014

“It has been lauded as the world’s largest solar power plant, but the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) could also be called the world’s largest gas-fired power plant (largest in physical size, not gas consumption).”

Chris Clarke continues in his piece, “Ivanpah Solar Plant Owners Want to burn a Lot More Natural Gas” (KCET, March 27, 2014):

Each of the 4,000-acre facility’s three units has gas-fired boilers used to warm up the fluid in the turbines in the early morning, to keep that fluid at an optimum temperature during the night, and to boost production during the day when the sun goes behind a cloud…. Solar Partners says that in order for ISEGS (Ivanpah) to operate at full efficiency, the plant’s gas-fired auxiliary boilers will need to run an average of 4.5 hours a day, rather than the one hour a day originally expected.

Continue Reading

“The Onion” Headlines We Would Love to See (some fun with fading Malthusianism, cronic cronyism)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 1, 2014

If a New York Times editorial can debunk the population scare (“Overpopulation Is Not the Problem“), surely it is time for The ONION to go to school on alarmism in all of its flavors.

Political satire and parodies are forces for challenging and correcting the Shared Narrative and political correctness. As a step in this direction, and given it is April 1st, here are a few homemade headlines. (And MasterResource should not be serious all of the time.)

Here are mine–feel free to add your own in the comments section–or email them to me for a Part II if this is worthy of being continued.

———————————

Climate Change Responsible for Climate Change (and vice versa), New Study Finds

“I know it sounds redundant,” said one coauthor. “But it really is the chicken-and-egg problem.”

Continue Reading

Going on Offense: The American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014 (Cruz, Bridenstine set tone for post-Obama world)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 31, 2014

“[The AERA] will prevent federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, facilitate the expansion of domestic refining capacity, improve processes to develop energy infrastructure, stop EPA overreach and its war on coal, force Congress and the President to approve any new EPA regulations that kill jobs, broaden energy development on federal land, open offshore exploration, expand U.S. energy exports, and dedicate additional revenues to debt reduction.”

“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change,” wrote Milton Friedman in the 4oth anniversary of his classic Capitalism & Freedom (1962, 2002). The revered free-market economist continued:

When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”

Continue Reading

Human Achievement Hour: Lights On!

By William Yeatman -- March 28, 2014
Continue Reading

U.S. National Academy of Sciences: Doubling Down on Climate Alarmism (and taking science down a notch with it)

By James Rust -- March 27, 2014
Continue Reading

Attacks on Fracking Attack U.S. Consumers

By Steve Everley -- March 26, 2014
Continue Reading

Energy Mischief at the Rural Utilities Services (USDA): Climate Hubs, Efficiency Mandates, Fuel Switching Rules

By -- March 25, 2014
Continue Reading

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: March 24, 2014

By -- March 24, 2014
Continue Reading

TexasWorld: Freedom, Room for All (a mental experiment)

By Greg Rehmke -- March 21, 2014
Continue Reading

“Killing Wildlife In the Name of Climate Change” (Part II: Gas, Nuclear, Little Else)

By Robert Bryce -- March 20, 2014
Continue Reading