The Wall Street Journal‘s Marketplace headline of March 5th said much: “Natural Gas to Power Pickups.” The piece did not mention the Nat Gas Act or other special government favors, just an effort by U.S. automakers to get natural-gas-fueled trucks into the mix given the large BTU disparity between gas and gasoline/diesel prices.

Reporter Jeff Bennett described a “growing wave” of interest in natural gas trucks:

On Tuesday, Chrysler Group LLC plans to disclose it will build the first production-line pickup truck powered by natural gas. The auto maker is promising to build at least 2,000 heavy-duty Ram bi-fuel trucks that run on a combination of compressed natural gas and gasoline starting in June.

General Motors Co. on Monday plans to disclose it will offer bi-fuel Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 2500 pickups in the fourth quarter.

[Ed. note: Robert Peltier, editor of POWER magazine, has insightful commentary in his ‘Speaking of Power’ op-ed series. MasterResource reprints his op-ed below with permission.]

“What happens to the millions of used CFLs that are tossed out in the trash each year? Chances are a large percentage are broken by users at home or are broken when compressed in the trash truck or compacted in a landfill. Regardless, the mercury contained in the bulbs is released to the environment.”

“My research found, much to my surprise, that both emissions—from [power plant] stack gas or broken compact fluorescent lighbulbs (CFL)—produce about the same magnitude of mercury release.”

– Robert Peltier, “Battle of the Bulb,” POWER, February 2012, p. 6.

President George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 with the words: “New technologies will help usher in a better quality of life for our citizens.”…

Last month, a group of 15 climate scientists (included the now disgraced Peter Gleick) sent a letter to Congress expressing their displeasure over the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. President Obama has weighed in against approval, but Congress wants a green light to allow construction of the 1,700-mile, $7 billion project. Most recently, Bill Clinton weighed in for the pipeline, indicating just how deep the positives of the project are for the U.S. and world oil market.

So why are physical scientists getting political about a market-friendly pipeline to deliver oil from the Athabascan oil sands in Alberta, Canada, to various refinery locations in the Midwestern U.S. and ultimately the Gulf Coast?

The letter (reprinted at the end of this post) states that in addition to the local environmental impacts of oil sand mining (see here and here for a first-person account from Reason magazine’s Ron Bailey of the operation), burning such oil “on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control.”…

[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 shape and escapes your grasp. Let’s take a quick highlight review of how things have evolved with wind merchandising.

1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as 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. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to EVER do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate energy sources as horse and oxen power).…