A Free-Market Energy Blog

Nuclear Power Not Welcome at COP26

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 24, 2021

“The nuclear industry’s disastrous history of cost and time overruns show very clearly that what they offer would be too little, too expensive and far too late. With renewables and energy efficiency cheaper and quicker to build and run than nuclear, they have already lost this argument and should have no place to spout their lies at COP26.”

– Richard Dixon, Friends of the Earth Scotland (below)

“The nuclear industry provides most of the world’s CO2-free power, but is barred from UN IPCC meetings and even barred from the adjacent exhibit hall. Clearly UN IPCC does not pursue the public interest. What is the ‘power structure’ of IPCC? Who says ‘no’ a priori? How are these people appointed? How paid? How reimbursed? What’s the org chart?”

– Robert Hargraves, nuclear advocate (below)

It’s an agenda, Mr.…

Continue Reading

Texas’s Renewables: How Did the Problem Start? (Enron, Republicans Running Wild)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 23, 2021

Ed. Note: This post from 12 years ago recounts the political origins of the Texas wind power boom. It is also the prehistory of the Great Texas Blackout of February 2021. Note that critics of Texas’s intervention warned of reliability problems.

“Texas is the nation’s leader in wind energy thanks to our long-term commitment to bolstering renewable energy sources and diversifying the state’s energy portfolio.”

– Rick Perry, Texas Governor

“Our representatives [in the Texas Legislature] now have less than six weeks to pass the best of nearly 100 bills that have been introduced on clean power and green jobs. These energy efficiency and renewable energy bills set the stage for rebuilding, repowering and renewing our state’s economy during tough times. They will build a sustainable future for Texas.”

– Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Public Citizen, April 2009

As reported by Russell Gold in the Wall Street Journal, (April 23, 2009), Texas, which has the strictest renewable energy mandate in the country, is about to increase its quota for the third time.…

Continue Reading

Climate Leadership Council on Defense (ExxonMobil caper hits the front group)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 19, 2021

“Hence the CLC decision to ‘suspend’ ExxonMobil. Why did they not expel them once and for all? Obviously, the CLC hopes that ExxonMobil will grovel, endorse ever-more strongly the ‘climate crisis’ narrative and the imperative for climate policies making energy more expensive, and then — above all else — write a big check to the CLC as an exercise in the only kind of penance applauded by the political Left.”

“So bad at ideological battle are ExxonMobil and many others in the fossil-fuel sector that they remain convinced that a stance of ‘Me Too, But Less’ is politically viable.”

– Benjamin, Zycher, “The Climate Leadership Council ‘Suspends’ ExxonMobil.” August 16, 2021.

Unlimited money has produced a number of questionable groups that claim to be “bipartisan,” “conservative,” or “Republican.”…

Continue Reading

Plant Boondoggle (Georgia Power’s Vogtle 3 & 4)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 18, 2021
Continue Reading

Too Much Oil: Revisiting the 1930s Texas/Oklahoma Bonanza (throwback Tuesday)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 17, 2021
Continue Reading

“Energy Facism” (Rothbard 1974 speaks to us today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 16, 2021
Continue Reading

Book Review: Angwin’s ‘Shorting the Grid’

By Michael Giberson -- August 12, 2021
Continue Reading

Kinder-Morgan Interview: Thumbs Up (energy realism, apologies not)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 11, 2021
Continue Reading

Silly Season at the UN: 1989 vs. 2021 Climate Doomsday (it’s all politics now)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 10, 2021
Continue Reading

1,876 Pages: Texas’s ISO Rules (central planning, mother-may-I system)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 9, 2021
Continue Reading