Tucker's Terrestrialism and the Technology of Modernity

By Jon Boone -- January 24, 2012 4 Comments

“The release of energy from splitting a uranium atom turns out to be 2 million times greater than breaking the carbon-hydrogen bond in coal, oil or wood. Compared to all the forms of energy ever employed by humanity, nuclear power is off the scale. Wind has less than 1/10th the energy density of wood, wood half the density of coal, and coal half the density of octane. Altogether they differ by a factor of about 50. Nuclear has 2 million times the energy density of gasoline. It is hard to fathom this in light of our previous experience. Yet our energy future largely depends on grasping the significance of this differential. “

– William Tucker, excerpted from his lecture, Understanding E=MC₂

William Tucker has powerfully explained how the future of technologically advanced civilizations depends upon a sophisticated ability to convert the highest energy densities into increasingly denser power performance, and in the process compacting the time and space necessary to do productive work.…

Is Neo-Malthusianism Halloween Crazy?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 31, 2011 9 Comments

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children. It has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate.’”

– Joe Romm, quoted in Thomas Friedman, Is the Inflection Point Near?, New York Times, March 7, 2009.

“Is there any more single-minded, simple pleasure than viewing with alarm? At times it is even better than sex.”

—Kenneth Boulding (1970), p. 160. [1]

I know…. We free-market optimists–and we ObamaCare, ObamaEnergy, etc. pessimists–are like the chap who jumps off the skyscraper and reports that everything is breezy on the way down.

But we have been jumping off buildings ever since Robert Thomas Malthus’s An Essay on Population was published in 1798.…

Debating Greenpeace on "Green Energy"

By Alex Epstein -- October 25, 2011 7 Comments

On Thursday, October 13, 2011, I participated in a debate (on behalf of my Center for Industrial Progress) against a Greenpeace representative on the topic, “Green Energy: Economic Savior or Economic Suicide?” Sponsored by CFACT, the event took place at the University of Texas at Austin, and was streamed on the Web. (The full debate will be produced professionally for general release, but for now a 90% complete version of the Livestream is available here. Also, my talk at Texas A&M on the same subject is available here.)

The debate covered a wide range of topics, including:

The economics of solar and wind.
The “green” opposition to nuclear power.
A free-market, individual rights approach to pollution.
Free-markets vs. central planning in energy.
The true meaning of “green energy.”

Go Industrial, Not 'Green' (Part II)

By Alex Epstein -- September 24, 2011 12 Comments

[Editor note: Mr. Epstein, a new Principal at MasterResource, is Founder of the Center for Industrial Progress. Part I appeared yesterday.]

But what about the “environmental impact” of industrial development? Isn’t the “green” movement providing a salutary influence us by helping us combat that problem? Again, no.

The idea of “environmental impact” is what philosopher Ayn Rand called an “intellectual package-deal.” Such a concept dishonestly packages together two very different things—the impact of development on the human environment and the impact of development on the non-human environment.

Industrial development will certainly often harm various non-human environments—but it is a godsend to the human environment. By lumping together concern with the non-human environment (e.g., displacing some caribou to get billions of barrels of the lifeblood of civilization) and the human environment (e.g.,…