A Free-Market Energy Blog

One Person’s Oil Addict is Another’s Intelligent Consumer

By -- July 21, 2010

In the last few weeks, rhetoric about America’s oil addiction has resurfaced, years after being pushed by former President George W. Bush.  It is meant to explain the inability of Americans to become energy independent or at least to significantly reduce consumption.  The implication is that consumers are either foolish or brainwashed, and that the government is a slave to the oil industry’s lobby. 

I submit that this claim reveals an ideological bias, as well as a degree of energy illiteracy.  

Such illiteracy is not new and is often battled by economists.  For example, when I was at MIT, one class was taught by an engineer who believed that oil was underpriced because it cost less than mineral water.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this is a common misconception:  the prices of the two are completely unrelated.  …

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BP Fools the “Socially Responsible” Investors (‘Green’ Enron did too)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 20, 2010

“The BP incident highlights big differences in how socially responsible funds prioritize various causes. Some of these managers considered BP’s stance on climate change a strong positive. ‘BP was the first to break the logjam on climate change policy’ and had been a leader on alternative energy, says Mark Regier, director of stewardship investing for MMA Praxis.”

– Quoted in Eleanor Laise, “Oops: ‘Socially Responsible’ Funds Hold Big Stakes of BP,” Wall Street Journal, July 17–18, 2010.

The greenwashing strategy of BP and Enron has been the subject of three recent posts at MasterResource:

They Loved BP and Enron: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part I: Worldwatch Institute quotations)

BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part II: Why the ‘greenwashing’?)

Harvard Business Review Article: BP as Environmental Role Model (Part III on global warming as the great environmental distraction)

Don’t believe that “Beyond Petroleum” BP fooled the politically correct after Enron and even all the way up to the Deepwater  Horizon explosion/Gulf spill of April 2010?…

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Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI): A Cap-Tax-Spend Model to NOT Follow

By -- July 19, 2010

“Bottom line, the program has raised electricity prices, created a slush fund for each of the member states, and has had virtually no impact on emissions or on global climate change.”

Against a backdrop of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration stepped up its campaign to pass national climate change legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV announced last week that he plans to bring a comprehensive energy and climate bill to the Senate floor by the end of the July. The bill, still to be written, is expected to include a cap on carbon emissions produced by the nation’s electricity providers.

But before the U.S. embraces such a program, Congress — and the public — would be wise to examine the early performance of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the nation’s first mandatory greenhouse gas cap and trade system.…

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A Free Market Energy Vision

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 16, 2010
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The Smartest Grid In The Room: California Scheming Goes Awry

By Tom Tanton -- July 15, 2010
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Dear Virginia: Beware of a Windpower Racket in Your State

By Glenn Schleede -- July 14, 2010
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U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel Policy: Road to Nowhere [Part V: Lessons]

By Robert Peltier -- July 13, 2010
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U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel Policy: Road to Nowhere [Part IV: Picking Up the Pieces]

By Robert Peltier -- July 12, 2010
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The U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel Policy: Road to Nowhere [Part III: Yucca Mountain]

By Robert Peltier -- July 10, 2010
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U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel Policy: Road to Nowhere [Part II: Project Salt Vault]

By Robert Peltier -- July 9, 2010
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