A Free-Market Energy Blog

Wind Fails Texas Again

By -- June 26, 2023

“Texas problem with wind and solar generation has been growing for years. In 2022, wind farms generated 25% of the electricity used in ERCOT. Solar farms generated 5.65%. Ten years earlier, wind’s market share was 12.25% and solar’s 0.03%. This has placed a great strain on the grid because neither of these generation sources can be counted on when needed.

Source: Reuters

Reuters recently ran a story highlighting wind generation’s failure through the early months of 2023:

The Texas power grid operator urged homes and businesses to conserve electricity on Tuesday as the first major heat wave of the season spurs residents to crank power-hungry air conditioners. Power prices for Tuesday topped $2,500 per megawatt hour (MWh) in the state’s day-ahead market on expectations that demand would reach record levels later in the day, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

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‘Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate’ (1988 exaggerations vs. today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 23, 2023

Ed. Note: This article on the front page of the New York Times by noted environmental reporter Philip Shabecoff, (June 24, 1988) marked the beginning of the media-driven climate scare. Particularly important is the estimated anthropogenic warming and sea level rise: 3-9 degrees F and 1-4 feet between 2025 and 2050. Today, 35 years later, the recorded increase is 1F and 4 inches.

The earth has been warmer in the first five months of this year than in any comparable period since measurements began 130 years ago, and the higher temperatures can now be attributed to a long-expected global warming trend linked to pollution, a space agency scientist reported today.

Until now, scientists have been cautious about attributing rising global temperatures of recent years to the predicted global warming caused by pollutants in the atmosphere, known as the ”greenhouse effect.”…

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So What Has Changed? (Revkin/NYT Alarmism in 2006)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 22, 2023

“Are humans like frogs in a simmering pot, unaware that temperatures have reached the boiling point? Or has global warming been spun into an ‘alarmist gale,’ as Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at M.I.T. wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed article?” (Revkin 2006, below)

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Seventeen years ago, and eighteen years after James Hansen yelled Fire in his testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee (tomorrow’s post), New York Times climate columnist Andrew C. Revkin published “Yelling ‘Fire’ on a Hot Planet.” The media propaganda machine was out in force, and the alarmist side was debating what to do to ‘wake up’ the public. One idea was to emphasize adaptation instead of mitigation, a controversial strategy as Revkin reports below.

The article questions whether polar bear drownings were due to climate change.…

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In Search of the “Greenhouse Signal” in the 1990s (and when did they know?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 21, 2023
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“In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall” (NYT article revisited)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 20, 2023
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Energy and Environmental Review: June 19, 2023

By -- June 19, 2023
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Private Property Rights vs. Industrial Wind/Solar: Reply to Giberson

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 15, 2023
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Limits to Wind and Solar on the Grid: A Discussion

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 14, 2023
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The Fossil Fuel Era: Still Young

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 13, 2023
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The Liberating Theory of Resourceship

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 12, 2023
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