Wind’s PTC Receives 12th Extension (competitive not)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 6, 2020 5 Comments

A common question is: how many times has the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind power production been extended since the original law was enacted in 1992.

The answer is a dirty dozen, which makes the federal lifeline to wind power 28 years old. That’s old age for a government subsidy, particularly one where the industry itself has long proclaimed its impending competitiveness.

“The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive,” stated a representative of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) back in 1986. [1] And Joe Romm a quarter-century later: “It is clear that solar and wind are competitive in many situations right now.” [2]

And so Milton Friedman’s warning that infant industries receiving government protection never seem to grow up has a stellar example.…

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Friedman on Friedman on the Carbon Tax (remembering Bob Inglis’s faux pas)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 30, 2020 4 Comments

“This encyclopedic and even-handed survey of the evidence of global warming is a welcome corrective to the raging hysteria about the alleged dangers of global warming. [Thomas Gale] Moore demonstrates conclusively that global warming is more likely to benefit than to harm the general public.”

– Milton Friedman, back-cover endorsement, Thomas Gale Moore, Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry About Global Warming (1998).

“Of all my father’s accomplishments, I believe the one he was proudest of was his role in ending military conscription. I do not think he would be happy to be conscripted, posthumously, for someone else’s cause [of a carbon tax].” (David Friedman, below)

The son of the late Milton Friedman (1912–2006), David Friedman, called it “A Case of Posthumous Conscription.”

The controversy harks back to 2014 when Bob Inglis of RepublicEn (a fake, Left-funded Republican front group) chaired an event at the University of Chicago titled, “What Would Milton Friedman Do About Climate Change?”…

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‘Planet of the Humans:’ A Progressive’s Lament

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 11, 2020 No Comments

The Grayzone is self-described as “an independent news and politics website dedicated to investigative journalism and analysis on war and empire.” While far Left, even socialistic, “The Grayzone is a totally independent journalistic initiative that does not take money from any government or government-backed group or individual.”

The article follows:

‘Green’ billionaires behind professional activist network that led suppression of ‘Planet of the Humans’ documentary

MAX BLUMENTHAL·BIG TECHNON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX·SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

The Michael Moore-produced ‘Planet of the Humans’ faced a coordinated suppression campaign led by professional climate activists backed by the same ‘green’ billionaires, Wall Street investors, industry insiders and family foundations skewered in the film.

By Max Blumenthal

“We must take control of our environmental movement and our future from billionaires and their permanent war on Planet Earth.

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Sustainability: Ideology versus Reality (Part III: The Big Picture)

By -- August 28, 2019 4 Comments

Editor Note: This post completes a three-part series with Part I on Biofuels and Solar and Part II on Wind Turbines.

“The world cannot afford to let delusion, dishonesty, ideology, or deliberate deception drive public policies that will determine our future jobs, prosperity, living standards, and civilization. What Salt Lake City’s UN conference discussed has nothing to do with real sustainability, resource conservation or recycling.”

“UN-supported policies are unjust, inhumane, eco-imperialist and lethal…. [T]he climate change-sustainability agenda that is being advanced by UN and other activists and bureaucrats is eco-fascist, totalitarian and racist.”

Yet another educational exercise for UN conference attendees would be to calculate the land, energy and raw materials required to manufacture and install the batteries necessary to make renewable energy dispatchable. In the process, they would need to add in the raw material requirements for batteries required to replace all the world’s cars, trucks and buses with electric vehicles – and recharge them every few hours.…

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Milton Friedman on Crony Capitalism in the US Oil Industry

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 31, 2019 2 Comments Continue Reading

Energy Efficiency Mandates: No Free Lunch

By Kenneth Costello -- March 26, 2019 No Comments Continue Reading

Carter’s “Malaise Speech” of 1979 (remembering the crisis of interventionism)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 6, 2019 4 Comments Continue Reading

Profits and Energy (Caveman Economics 101)

By Richard W. Fulmer -- January 31, 2019 No Comments Continue Reading

Milton Friedman’s Energy Wisdom (would be 106 today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 31, 2018 2 Comments Continue Reading

William A. Niskanen: Economist, Scholar, Foe of Political Capitalism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 11, 2018 3 Comments Continue Reading