Ed. Note: Just 15 months after receiving a $3.0 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (Jigar Shaw), Sunnova stock price has cratered with the prospect of bankruptcy. Sunnova founder (and Enron-ex) John Berger’s battle cry–“solar is going to rip apart the energy business as we know it”– is an example of the philosophical fraud committed by political capitalists who are tipsy on taxpayer dollars.

UPDATE: Sunnova is bankrupt several times over. “The company has approximately $1.9 billion in debt that needs to be fully repaid by the end of 2028,” reported Houston Chronicle (02-20-2025). “That includes $975 million in debt due for payment in 2026. In comparison, Sunnova’s market capitalization, or the value of its total shares, is $251 million….” It is also in legal peril (see here).…

“It is now time for DOI and BLM to prove their worth, and whether they are truly working in the public interest, or merely pandering to the Lower-48 radical environmental elite … trying to shut down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) … [and] Alaska.” ( – U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, below)

Termite aspirations. That term from Ayn Rand toward the enemies of modern living and human betterment is applicable to many energy issues today. One of the most recent examples regards the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which since 1977 has been transporting crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez (800 miles) for tanker shipment to markets. Today, TAPS averages about 450,000 barrels of crude oil per day, accounting for 3.5 percent of U.S. production.

Petition to Close

This June, these environmental groups filed a legal petition to the U.S.…

Ed. Note: This is Part 4 of a six-part series. “America’s Enlightenment Heritage” (Part 1) is here; “Conservation vs. Preservation” (Part 2) is here; “Inhuman Rights” (Part 3) is here; “The Value of Nature” (Part 5) is here; and “The ‘Ideal’ of Primitivism” (Part 6) is here.

“The fundamental concern of environmentalists is about the logical incompatibility of the values underlying a modern, technological, capitalist society, and the values embodied in the environmentalists’ image of Eden.”

Why, despite such transparent manipulations of fact and science, and their overt indifference to economics, have environmentalists been winning the battle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people?

Because they’ve never based their appeals primarily on facts, statistics, science, or economics. They rest their case ultimately on ethical and philosophical grounds.…

“Absolutely I think they should build another [nuclear plant], because I think they’ll get better at it, It’s the cleanest energy you can possibly have out there, and we’re gonna need a tremendous increase in energy production.” [Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), quoted in Politico. June 27, 2024]

Nuclear power is a government-created and government-enabled industry. It was born of government largesse and regulatory favor, led by these five policies:

• Federal research & development by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, founded 1946)
• The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 limit on accident liability
• Five years of ‘free’ enriched uranium from AEC
• Federal jawboning to parties to construct plants
• State utility commissioners granting rate-base status for new plants

Nuclear’s history of cost overruns, construction delays, and in-progress cancellations speaks for itself. Suffice it to say that the free market would have never allowed this industry to jump from military applications to civilian ones.…