“Oil industry lobbyists are not worthwhile humans. It’s not a real job, it is corruption and beneath contempt. Taking bribe money to spread propaganda that results in genocide is sub human.” Tom Trounce (below)

I recently had an ‘interesting’ discussion on social media with a strong advocate for (dilute, intermittent) ‘renewable’ energies. My critic, an angry foe of fossil fuels, didn’t present solid arguments but only ad hominems, followed by trash talk. Such is the unfortunate part of debating climate/energy issues on LinkedIn, where certain (brainwashed?) alarmists work to discredit and marginalize their opponents.

Tom Trounce was the bad guy. His profile at LinkedIn advertises:

Improving lives through community, compassion and expeditions | Non-profits | Company culture | Leadership integrity | Technology | Customer Experience | Purpose

What? Improving lives, compassion, integrity.…

“You really not have addressed my criticisms about your accepting, at face value, climate alarmism, forced energy transformation, and a technocratic solution to the current grid problems brought on by the wind/solar takeover.” (Bradley to Kiesling, below)

“You clearly disagree with my synthetic theory of regulation and technological change. I synthesize institutional and transaction cost economics, Schumpeterian innovation economics, economic history, public choice, and yes, Austrian economics….. I think this theory … does a better job of helping us understand the institutional and organizational, and technological, reality of what’s feasible in liberalizing the electricity industry and its regulation.” (Kiesling to Bradley, below)

More than a century of increasing government intervention has created today’s crisis in electricity. It is not only a crisis of performance (affordability, reliability). It is a crisis where the cumulative interventionist process is now coming to your home or business.…

“… the economist is looking for the why-behind-the-why. And that is where negative pricing for wind and low margins in general from the regulatory setup ruined the economics of the [natural gas] industry, resulting in premature retirements, a lack of new capacity, and cost avoidance. Are you saying that there was a ‘market failure’ with natural gas in [the Texas blackout of February 2021]?” (Bradley to Kiesling, below)

She engages and then disappears. She is the “classical liberal” who refuses to question the climate alarm and favors the government-forced energy transformation to wind, solar, and batteries–and demand control from the political center. And she is all-in with the centrally planned wholesale power markets, better known as Independent System Operators and Regional Transmission Organizations (ISOs and RTOs).

She trumpeted the Texas ISO as the national model until it imploded in February 2021–and now blames natural gas, not wind and solar or central government planning.…

“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.