A Free-Market Energy Blog

Washington State’s Power Peril (wind and solar–not gas, hydro, nuclear)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 2, 2021

“… anti-hydropower interests are attempting to capitalize on a shift in political power together with emotionally charged arguments and opinions to weaken support for hydropower, while falsely promoting wind and solar technologies as environmentally benign replacements.”

“Negative [wind] impacts associated with viewsheds, decommissioning and turbine disposal, tourism, birds, wildlife, and flashing lights were at the top of the list of concerns identified by a Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce opinion survey.”

I recently read an interesting opinion piece by the general manager of the Benton County Public Utility District in Washington State, Rick Dunn, “Clash of Titans: Clean Energy, Conservation and NW Power Grid.” Published in Clearing Up, a Pacific Northwest energy review, the controversies of renewable energy as “clean” and “green” (which I noted back in 1997) come to the fore.…

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CASE: Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (‘Free-Market Voice for U.S. Consumers’)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 1, 2021

It’s the new organization on the block, and energy is one of its top concerns and priorities. Meet Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE), “the nation’s foremost non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to the singular cause of promoting consumer interests through the advancement of free-market principles.”

Two recent policy briefs from Case are:

Here is more introduction to an exciting new group for which energy is one of 15 subject areas.

Mission

CASE is committed to serving as the voice of American consumers and wage-earners by advocating strongly for free-markets, fiscal responsibility and reasonable consumer protections. Through these time-tested principles, CASE aims to create more prosperity and opportunity for every American.

CASE is further working to fill the void of consumer advocacy organizations who largely ignore free-market solutions and lean heavily toward more government regulation and control over our national, state and local economies.

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Let’s Go Brendan! (fossil fuels to the rescue, explains SPIKED political editor)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 30, 2021

“There’s only one problem with this rash, hyperbolic onslaught on fossil fuels: everything about it is wrong. Far from destroying life on Earth, our discovery and exploitation of these fuels improved it enormously.”

“The hostility to fossil fuels seems increasingly to be driven by misanthropy rather than reason; by an elitist feeling of revulsion for the gains of modernity rather than by a rational assessment of the undoubted problems humankind still faces.” (Brendan O’Neill, SPIKED, November 12, 2021)

Alex Epstein, president and founder of Center for Industrial Progress, has not been alone in his quest to reframe the climate/energy debate in humanist terms. Brendan O’Neill, chief political writer of SPIKED, whose recent “Keep Burning Those Fossil Fuels” came to my attention, has been beating the fossil fuel/human betterment drum for some time.…

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Energy and Environmental Review: November 29, 2021

By -- November 29, 2021
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A Politically Incorrect Thanksgiving List

By Roy Cordato -- November 24, 2021
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Fred Pearce on Climategate Revisited

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 23, 2021
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Climategate: Never Forget (11th anniversary)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 22, 2021
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Thugocracy: Science in the Postmodern World (Roger Pielke Jr. as victim)

By Richard W. Fulmer -- November 18, 2021
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Climate Retreat: Thomas Friedman on COP26 (energy density, anyone?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 17, 2021
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Requiem for COP26: James Watt (‘the king said sail, but the wind said no…’)

By -- November 16, 2021
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