“Climate change is not an economics problem. It’s an ethics problem.”
– Stephen Schneider, Science, June 4, 2004.
Well, yes it is. And the climate-change debate brings up the energy-policy debate.
Poor people around the world need abundant, affordable, modern energy. And this points to private property and free markets–and adaptation in the face of uncertainties–and not government ownership and control of energy resources. The failure of Kyoto I should not be followed by a Kyoto II. The United States should not enact either a carbon tax or a carbon cap-and-trade program. Resource access on government lands (and waters) should be permitted. The goal is a robust supply-side strategy that respects free consumer choice to benefit one and all, and particularly the most vulnerable.
Here are some quotations on the need to eradicate energy poverty (a list that needs to be added to if folks have other quotations that can be added in the comment list).…
Continue Reading[MasterResource editor] Clean Power Now VP Charles Kleekamp argued in favor of the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind project on economic grounds in guest editorials in the March 6 Cape Cod Times and March 15 Cape Cod Today. In letters-to-the-editor to the same papers (not published), Glenn Schleede challenges Kleekamp’s analysis and describes what information the developer of Cape Wind would need to provide to help determine what the ensuing cost of per kilowatt-hour is likely to be. Still, Massachusetts electric users can be expected to be paying more because such power is bring driven by state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and the fact that electricity from wind is intermittent.
Mr. Schleede’s analysis follows.
Dear Editors:
Unfortunately, Mr. Kleekamp’s Opinion column in the March 6 issue of Cape Cod Times and March 15 issue of Cape Cod Today presents highly misleading information about the true cost of electricity that would be produced by the proposed Cape Wind project.…
To those who have a memory that transcends more than a few weeks, recent events in the auto sector must induce a great feeling of irony.
Back in August of 2008, then-candidate Obama called for 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles to be on the road by 2015.
To that end, then-candidate Obama called for:
*$4 billion in tax credits to American automakers to retool plants for the production of plug-in hybrid cars capable of 150 miles to the gallon;
*A $7,000 tax credit for consumers who bought early model plug-in vehicles; and
*Candidate Obama vowed that half of all cars purchased by the federal government would be plug-in hybrids or all-electric by 2012.
As both candidate and president, Obama has repeatedly raised plug-in hybrids as a vital technology for greening Detroit.…
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