“Comparing straight costs for disparate products or where there are intangibles involved (convenience of a gasoline engine versus low maintenance on an electric vehicle) can be tricky and allow for wild differences in estimated consumer demand for a product, even without disagreements over future cost trends.”

“Although costs have been dropping for the Cleantech products such as solar, wind power, and lithium-ion batteries, costs for a number of other long-advocated energies such as cellulosic ethanol have not…. The ultimate lesson is an old one:  skepticism should always be applied, especially to the more optimistic predictions.”

Any number of analytical and advocacy groups have pointed to plummeting costs for wind, solar and lithium-ion batteries to predict massive changes in the future energy industry, some more aggressive than others.  The UK-based think tank RethinkX, for example, expects a huge shift from private vehicle ownership to the use of Transportation As A Service, provided mostly by battery-powered autonomous (self-driving) vehicles.…

[Note this post is the most popular article ever published on Master Resource. It has been now been significantly updated. Go here to see the current version.]

Trying to pin down the arguments of wind promoters is a bit like trying to grab a greased balloon. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it morphs into a different story and escapes your grasp. Let’s take a quick highlight review of how things have evolved with merchandising industrial wind energy.

1 – Wind energy was abandoned for most commercial and industrial applications, well over a hundred years ago. Even in the late 1800s it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning, more modern needs for power. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on – 100% of the time.…

“Why do developing countries like India fear calling out the climate myth? Because doing so would risk international trade relations by challenging the European economic powerhouses that are vehemently opposed to any country that leaves the Paris accord. In fact, the European Union’s new Brussels policy stipulates that the EU will not sign trade pacts with any country that does not ratify the Paris agreement.”

While many climate alarmists call for India to cut down its dependence on coal, fearing that carbon dioxide emissions will cause a climate apocalypse, real-world temperatures—local, regional, and global—suggest otherwise.

Chennai—a southern Indian city that is home to more than 10 million people—has recorded its coldest winter in 5 years.

Background

Chennai is the administrative capital of Tamil Nadu state and serves as a trade and financial hub of south India.…

[Editor note: Earlier this week, Alex Epstein and Tyler White gave three minute talks to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in San Francisco on the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. Epstein’s comments are videotaped here. The two’s comments are transcribed below (h/t to Don Watkins).]

“But most of what I’m hearing today, most what I’m seeing outside, certainly most of what I’m seeing from our public officials–particularly our most famous representative, Nancy Pelosi–is complete carelessness and complete obliviousness to the consequences of radically restricting fossil fuels, as well as completely bizarre and self-contradictory exaggerations about the negatives.” – Alex Epstein to EPA (below)

“Many people today have said that it’s not government policies that are killing coal, but that coal is getting outcompeted. Fine. Let us compete–let us compete on an even playing field with every other energy producer.