A Free-Market Energy Blog

The Folly of E15 Anti-hydrocarbon Policies

By -- April 24, 2012

The Clinton Administration said back in 1999: “Biomass will be for the next century what petroleum was for this century.” [1] But with expensive experience with money and performance, we now know that U.S. EPA’s E-15 ethanol plan is bad for our pocketbooks, environment and energy policy.

The Obama Administration’s anti-hydrocarbon ideology and “renewable” energy mythology continues to subsidize crony capitalists and the politicians they help keep in office – on the backs of American taxpayers, ratepayers and motorists. The latest chapter in the sorry ethanol saga is a perfect example.

Bowing to pressure from ADM, Cargill, Growth Energy and other Big Ethanol lobbyists, Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Protection Agency has decided to allow ethanol manufacturers to register as suppliers of E15 gasoline. E15 contains 15% ethanol, rather than currently mandated 10% blends.

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Earth Day 2012: Top 10 Positive Climate Developments

By Chip Knappenberger -- April 23, 2012

The scientific findings of the human influence on the climate system have been, and perhaps will always be, a mixed bag. Assuming strong positive feedback effects, and thus a high climate sensitivity, it certainly can be argued that the bad outweighs the good. But if feedback effects are more neutral, the sign of the externality flips from negative to positive given that, on net, a moderately warmer, wetter, and CO2-fertilized world is quite arguably a better one.

Earth Day 2012 yesterday brought forth predictable cries of doom-and-gloom. But there are plenty of positives on closer inspection on the climate front, developments which have undoubtedly spilled over into making the earth a better place for humanity at large.

Here is my Top 10 list of positive climate developments based on the recent empirical data and the latest scientific literature:

10) The growing season across the Northern Hemisphere is expanding;…

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"Happy Earth Day" by Julian Simon

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 20, 2012

[Editor note: Julian Simon titled this silver-anniversary essay, “Earth Day: Spiritually Uplifting, Intellectually Debased.” Posts about the ideas of Simon (1932–1997), an inspiration to this blog, can be found here.]

April 22 [1995] marks the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. Now as then its message is spiritually uplifting. But all reasonable persons who look at the statistical evidence now available must agree that Earth Day’s scientific premises are entirely wrong.

During the first great Earth Week in 1970 there was panic. The public’s outlook for the planet was unrelievedly gloomy. The doomsaying environmentalists–of whom the dominant figure was Paul Ehrlich–raised the alarm: The oceans and the Great Lakes were dying; impending great famines would be seen on television starting in 1975; the death rate would quickly increase due to pollution; and rising prices of increasingly-scarce raw materials would lead to a reversal in the past centuries’ progress in the standard of living.

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Health Effects of Windpower on Residences: Canadian Debate Update

By Sherri Lange -- April 19, 2012
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Obama's Quiet Executive Order: Reaffirming and Expanding Federal Powers

By Dave Harbour -- April 18, 2012
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"Are the Merits of Wind Power Overblown?" (1997 op-ed: How does it read today?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 17, 2012
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Coal Ash Regulation: Another Front on the 'War Against Coal'

By Lance Brown -- April 16, 2012
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1Q–2012 Activity Report: MasterResource

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 13, 2012
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'PC' Power Is Not Sustainable (and President Obama's "all-inclusive" energy policy is anything but!)

By Mary Kay Barton -- April 12, 2012
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'Crony Capitalism and Energy Policy' Lecture at the U. of Rochester

By Michael Rizzo -- April 11, 2012
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