[This piece, which originally appeared in the (Canadian) National Post, can be read in conjunction with MasterResource posts on “peak oil” here and here. A brief bio of Mr. Foster appears at the end of this post.]
The great petroleum geologist Wallace Pratt famously said that “Oil is found in the minds of men.” Discoveries depend on visionary theory, technical innovation and commitment to risky drilling. Plus luck. Peak Oil theory, by contrast -which asserts that global oil production has, or soon will, peak, and that this has powerful policy implications — is found in the limitations of the minds of men. It is less geological theory than unevolved intellectual shortcoming, although it certainly has its political uses.
The fruits of the “greatest resource,” as economist Julian Simon dubbed the human mind, appeared yet again this week with the announcement by BP that it had found a “giant” field at unprecedented depth in the Gulf of Mexico, an area that twenty years ago was regarded as played out.…
Continue Reading“Waxman-Markey is largely top-down regulation dressed in cap-and-trade clothing.”
David Schoenbrod and Richard Stewart, “The Cap-and-Trade Bait and Switch“, Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2009.
The Environmental Left is pushing hard to provoke a civil war between natural gas industry (its “friend”) against the coal (and oil) industry. John Podesta (Center for American Progress) and Tim Wirth (UN Foundation) have cooked up a menu of bribes (taxes, a.k.a. “incentives,” “credits,” “allowances,” and “expand”) as follows:
… Continue ReadingElectricity
• Establish incentives to retire aging, inefficient, dirty coal-fired power plants, and replace them with renewable and low-carbon electricity.
• Create a renewables integration credit to offset specific costs associated with producing high levels of renewable energy and to reward those who go beyond the renewable electricity standard.
• Establish a dedicated incentive for development and deployment of “dispatchable” renewable energy to build markets for electricity storage technology.
“For a long time now, science reporters have been confidently told the science is settled…. But I am confused [by recent developments]. Four years ago this all seemed like a fait accompli. Humans were unquestionably warming the climate and changing the planet forever through their emissions of carbon dioxide.”
– Eric Berger, Science Writer, Houston Chronicle, September 6, 2009 [SciGuy Blog]
In his post at MasterResource last week, Ken Green spoke of a potential “death spiral” for climate alarmism, in that the failure of the political process would make it less politically incorrect to challenge climate alarmism. “As hopes for a Gore-style ‘wrenching transformation’ fade,” wrote Green, “more mainstream scientists and opinion-makers will become more ‘practical’ toward the issue, meaning that alarmism may give way to sensible assessments of mitigation, adaptation, and geo-engineering.”…
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