“This letter to Biden is a very mixed bag of legalize and subsidize. It is hardly free market; it is a testament about how some Republicans and conservative Democrats are playing the government welfare game in a time of political defensiveness.”
Classical liberalism explains and justifies voluntary transactions between consenting adults. The framework is private property rights, the rule of law, and government abstinence, or neutrality.
Applied to civilian energy, the government should not research, commercialize, subsidize, or penalize. Government should buy energy for its usage, not requisition it. Market transactions should not be subject to price controls, allocation controls, or differential taxation. Jawboning by government officials toward non-market ends should be avoided too.
This background is necessary to parse a March 10, 2022, letter to Joe Biden from two Republicans, one (Trumpian) Democrat, and one Independent.…
Continue ReadingEd. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.
Greed Energy Economics:
*** Why “cheap” solar increases the price of power
Battery System Capital Costs, Losses and Aging
Wind Energy:
*** The shell game methodology behind America’s reported wind energy production
*** Changes to the regulation of wind turbine noise (Australia)
Do wind turbines change the weather? (See also here.)
Satellite outage knocks out thousands of wind turbines
Dominion’s deception hits new high with offshore wind
Solar Energy:
Brussels, we have a land problem
One of this year’s biggest Virginia solar bills is all about forests and farms
Duke’s proposed Net Metering 2.0 rule change in North Carolina meets opposition
Nuclear Energy:
*** Nuclear, coal, gas: ‘no taboos’ in Germany’s energy about-face
America’s Energy Future: Oil, Natural Gas and Nuclear
Belgian Greens make U-turn to consider nuclear plants extension
Fossil Fuel Energy:
*** Climate Act War on Fossil Fuels Based on Enviro Fairy Tales
*** Recent USGS oil and gas estimate for the Bakken and Three Forks Formations in the Williston Basin of Montana and North Dakota
*** Peer-Reviewed Study: ‘Climate Impacts’ of Fossil Fuels in Today’s Energy Systems
Fossil Fuels Should Evoke Pride, Not Pandering, From Supporters
Biden Continues To Flip-Flop On Crude Oil Policies – OpEd
US Oil and Petroleum Imports from Russia Explained
Why Is New England Paying The Equivalent Of $180 Oil For Natural Gas?…
“Corporate policy makers entering the fray should be guided by two principles…. First, mandatory GHG programs should be rejected in favor of voluntary approaches…. Second, voluntary actions by corporations should not go beyond win-win ‘no regrets’ initiatives. Control practices that are uneconomic penalize either consumers or stockholders and politicize the issue of corporate responsibility.”
– Robert Bradley, “Climate Alarmism and Corporate Responsibility.” Electricity Journal, August/September 2000.
It was called corporate social responsibility (CSR). Today, it has morphed into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG).
Upon the election of Donald Trump, the environmental Left redoubled its effort to politicize business on the climate issue. The subtitle to an early 2017 article in Yale Climate Connections, for example, “Business Leadership on Climate Seen as Key,” read: “With expectations of a much lower federal leadership role on controlling carbon emissions, key sectors of business community seen by some as maintaining momentum.”…
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