A Free-Market Energy Blog

“Advanced Energy for Life”: Peabody Energy Puts Coal on High Moral Ground (energy poverty must end, CEO Boyce argues)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 29, 2014

We need to recognize the enormous health and environmental benefits in ending energy poverty, eliminating household air pollution, and increasing access to low-cost electricity. Everyone in the world deserves to live as well as those in developed nations. Let’s use more energy, more cleanly, every day.”

– Gregory Boyce, chairman and chief executive officer, Peabody Energy (February 26, 2014)

Bravo!This is by far the best coal-industry campaign since the Greening Earth Society made a powerful case for the positive externalities of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions back in the 1990s. The new effort, two months old, was announced with this headline:

Advanced Energy for Life Campaign Launched to Build Awareness and Support to End “World’s Number One Human and Environmental Crisis” of Global Energy Poverty

“Calling global energy poverty the world’s number one human and environmental crisis,” the press release read: “Peabody Energy today launched a comprehensive global campaign aimed at building awareness and support to eliminate energy poverty, increase access to low-cost electricity and improve emissions through advanced clean coal technologies.”

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Al Gore Soldiers On (false alarmism, hypocrisy make for a rejected public message)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 28, 2014

“The Koch brothers and the others who operate the way they do have worked overtime to put fear in the hearts of Republicans that if they as much as breathe a favorable breath about solving the climate crisis they’re going to get a well-financed primary opponent. And so they’re all running scared.” 

– Al Gore, quoted in Darren Samuelsohn, “Al Gore Is Not Giving UpPolitico Magazine, April 24, 2014.

“I think Al Gore’s done more to hurt this cause than he has to help it…. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t want to get within 10 miles of Al Gore on climate policy, because … he doesn’t mind turning the economy upside-down because of sort of a religious zeal he has.”

– Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted in Jean Chemnick, “Graham says Gore to Blame, not Obama, for Congress’ Antipathy toward Climate Bill,” E&E News, June 23, 2011.

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Carter-Obama Energy Policy: From Gasoline Lines to Pipeline Obstructionism

By -- April 25, 2014

“The Nobels assert that, ‘The myth that tar sands development is inevitable and will find its way to market by rail if not pipeline is a red herring.’ But alternate delivery via rail is not a myth; it’s a massive and growing reality. Maybe before writing to Secy. Kerry, the Nobels should read the State Department’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) on the KXL, especially Chapter 4: Market Analysis.”

It is the common tale of two presidents who both declared war on fossil fuels. In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter’s petroleum price and allocation regulations, premised on the belief that we were running out of supply, put America in the gasoline lines. Thirty-five years later, depletion fears refuted, Carter champions a letter to President Obama urging rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline segment (the last of four legs) on easily refutable arguments, discussed below.…

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Stressing the Grid: From Interventionism to Blackouts

By Steve Goreham -- April 24, 2014
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California Wineries Don’t Need Pricey ‘Green’ Power (1.6 or 7.1 cent/kWh?)

By -- April 23, 2014
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“Happy Earth Day” (Julian Simon 25th anniversary essay speaks to us today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 22, 2014
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Common Core’s Climate Indoctrination

By James Rust -- April 21, 2014
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California Energy Update: Part V

By -- April 17, 2014
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Republicans for Obama Energy (Senate Finance Committee okays PTC/ITC subsidies)

By Glenn Schleede -- April 16, 2014
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AWEA Spins Price Distortions to Save PTC (hit on nuclear clouds CO2 rationale)

By -- April 15, 2014
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