Woke SVB: Remembering Woke Enron

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 22, 2023 No Comments

The demise of the “Climate Bank” SVB makes a look back at ‘Woke Enron’ timely. This post is an excerpt from Robert Bradley, Jr. Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (2009), pp. 309–310.

In the fall of 2001, Ken Lay set the tone for what would be Enron’s last Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Conference:

We believe that incorporating environmental and social considerations into the way we manage risk, govern our projects, and develop products and services will help us maintain our competitive advantage. As we move forward, we will leverage our intellectual capital and innovative capabilities to promote sustainable business practices around the world.

At this meeting, Enron’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) task force listed its “Accomplishments to Date,” which were:

  • Secured board oversight of social/environmental performance
  • Expressed support for Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • Completed corporate responsibility task force
  • Developed and pilot-tested human rights audit
  • Developed security and human rights guidelines
  • Established formal partnerships with WBCSD [World Business Council on Sustainable Development], IBLF [International Business Leaders Forum], and CI [Conservation International]
  • Identified language to strengthen code of ethics
  • Providing project support—Calypso, Transredes, Dabhol and Cuiabá
  • Responding to stakeholder concerns on an ongoing basis

The goals for 2002 included:

  • Formally adopt CERES Principles
  • Complete indigenous peoples’ policy
  • Specify social/environmental expectations in formal relationships with vendors and contractors
  • Review results of stakeholder survey and develop strategy to address outcome
  • Create awareness of social/environmental trends among [Enron’s] origination and investment groups
  • Add corporate responsibility performance attribute to PRC [Performance Review Committee] process
  • Present task force recommendations to Dr.
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Milton Howard’s Grid Cancer Projects

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 21, 2023 1 Comment

“It took a decade in Texas, but the cancer grew and spread–thanks, in part, to the very projects that Mr. Howard lists on his resume. Between 3,000 and 4,000 MW of mostly wind but also solar projects are claimed, led by Los Vientos I, II, III, IV, V, and VI….

Milton R. Howard, one of the nation’s leading wind/solar developers (along with the spouse of the Houston Chronicle business editorialist, another story) sees himself as a great man, creating value for society in addition to his employer and himself.

He describes himself as a “people person” who is “making this world a better place than I found it.”

I am driven to make things better from an overall economic, social and environmental standpoint. I am passionate and a high achiever but also very much a people person.

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Texas’s Central Planning: Duplicating the Grid

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 16, 2023 2 Comments

“The answer to ensuring a reliable and affordable supply of electricity in Texas is not more subsidies, it is less subsidies. It is getting politicians out of the electricity business.” (Bill Peacock, below)

“The conundrum is that the greater the overall share of renewables in the energy mix, the more customers will have to spend on these largely redundant backups.” (Financial Times, below)

Economists have warned against central planning where a government monopoly is invoked and decisions are made from the center. Free-market analysts also long warned Texas that the government-enabled takeover of the grid with wind and solar (dilute, intermittent all) would cripple the ability of the reliables (gas-fired, coal-fired, and nuclear) to make the grid stable and secure, short of ‘Acts of God.’

But Acts of Political Man won out, and the Great Texas Blackout of February 2021 happened.…

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Duke Energy’s Rolling Blackouts: Remember Jim Rogers’ CO2 Politics

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 17, 2023 No Comments

Ed. Note: In mid-2019, MasterResource published a post on a notable political capitalist in the history of the energy industry, the late James E. Rogers, longtime CEO of Duke Energy. With that company’s rolling blackouts (“load shedding”) over Christmas weekend for a half-million customers “for the first time in the utility’s history“, it is worth remembering the damage done to free markets and electric reliability by the political track chosen by one executive. (The post is reproduced below with minor edits.)

At 41 [in 1988], [James Rogers] was named CEO of PSI Energy Inc., a small, financially troubled Indiana utility. Breaking ranks with others in the electric-power industry, he supported legislation putting caps on sulfur-dioxide emissions. “Some of my guys thought I was drinking the environmental Kool-Aid,” he said later.

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“THIS AGREEMENT WILL BE GOOD FOR ENRON STOCK!!” (Enron’s Kyoto memo turns 25)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 12, 2022 2 Comments Continue Reading

In and Out of LinkedIn Jail (but the climate, energy debate must go on)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 17, 2022 4 Comments Continue Reading

“Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’” Turns 25

By Jon Boone -- August 25, 2022 2 Comments Continue Reading

ExxonMobil Joins Left’s Climate/Energy Agenda (H.R. 5376)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 10, 2022 1 Comment Continue Reading

Texas Republicans: Backlash to Big Wind Brewing

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 15, 2022 1 Comment Continue Reading

Natural Gas as a ‘Bridge Fuel’: Back to the 1980s/90s

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 2, 2022 1 Comment Continue Reading