“When clean alternatives become cheaper, cleaner, more reliable, and more secure, fossil fuel demand collapses – inevitably.” – Lisa Sachs, below

We are back to the 1970s where magical thinking about ‘negawatts’ and the impending competitiveness of solar and wind as grid electricity was the order of the day. Think Jimmy Carter. The U.S. Department of Energy. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Even Synthetic Fuels.

Lisa Sachs of Columbia University, daughter of Jeffrey Sachs, recently posted this as if failed COP30 did not matter. Is she classically ‘in denial’?

The Real Way We Phase Out Fossil Fuels … And It’s Not Through Pledges.

There’s frustration that COP30 didn’t deliver a stronger “phaseout” statement. I understand it, but we’re focused on the wrong lever. Fossil fuels don’t disappear because negotiators agree to it.…

The headline reads: “DeSmog has been tracking the efforts of fossil fuel trade associations, policymakers, and industry backed-groups out to demolish U.S. climate policy for years.” Yes, and add to that list the hundreds if not thousands of climate and energy realists who challenge climate alarmism and forced energy transformation every hour on different social media platforms, such as on Facebook and LinkedIn (I being one of them).

Author Geoff Dembicki lists the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Project 2025, Heartland Institute, the “Koch Network,” and “Trump’s Climate Working Group.” That’s a start, but what about the nearly 1,000 “climate deniers” listed in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database?

Perhaps it would be more efficient and better to instead list all of the climate alarmist organizations and magical thinking energy groups.…

Editor’s Note: Master Resource’s founder and editor, Rob Bradley, is currently struggling with the aftermath of torrential flooding in the Texas Hill Country. Until he can return to work, he has asked me to post “classic” MR entries. A blog post explaining Vaclav Smil’s concept of “power density” surely qualifies. This is the key concept for understanding a civilization’s energy needs.

Unfortunately, our MR files contain no concise explanation of the concept in layman’s language. (We have many explanations that no conceivable lay reader—myself most definitely included—could possibly understand or appreciate.) The closest thing I could find to a useful journalistic entry was a blog post by Kent Hawkins—a retired electrical engineer in Ontario—published on February 20, 2013. It is reprinted below.—Roger Donway, Managing Editor.

Power Density Separates the Wheat from the Chaff

By Kent Hawkins — February 20, 2013

“Power density (W/m²) is perhaps the most revealing variable in energetics…”[1]- Vaclav Smil

It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that understanding power density may be all the average person requires to put our energy sources and needs into perspective, but there is some merit in this argument.…

“My aim is to finish projects to offer a comprehensive, reliable foundation for future energy scholars to expand and improve upon. Many specific episodes can be studied in greater depth, and future events will require analysis.”

This week is a birthday of note for me. Looking back at a half-century of interest in energy history and public policy, I thank my lucky stars and celebrate a worldview–classical liberalism–that has held up very well over time. It is not how smart you are; it is the ability to discern between a false narrative and objective reality. And with a reliable framework to understand the world, blue-collar research was the wide-open opportunity for me. I have never looked back.

My odyssey began with an Ayn Rand novel in high school on individualism. That got me to free-market economics in college.…