“In a 2014 ‘EV Everywhere Grand Challenge’ study, the US Department of Energy finds that the current battery cost is $325 per kWh. At a battery cost of $325 per kWh, the price of oil would need to exceed $350 per barrel before the electric vehicle was cheaper to operate.”

– Covert, Greenstone, and Knittel. “Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?” Journal of Economic Perspectives (30(1), 2016): p. 132.

In the marketplace for ideas, economists are always selling. We see a situation that everyone knows is imperfect, point out the exorbitant costs and likely mistakes on the road to Nirvana, assure our audience that in any case the market can likely manage things better than government. And we hope someone accepts our research and clients retain our consulting services.…

“A review of energy developments in 1976, published in RFF’s Resources magazine (Jan–March 1977, p. 3) reached a Hotelling-like conclusion: ‘Nonrenewable and exhaustible fuels supply most of our needs now,’ the staff article stated, ‘but they will be increasingly expensive to obtain and use, until, around some distant corner, they will be replaced’.”

In its first half century, RFF’s central message has gone from energy optimism to energy pessimism, complete with an embrace of major government intervention in energy markets. The transformation began in the 1970s with a fixity/depletion view of mineral resources, which spawned conservationism (less energy usage for its own sake, with a government role).

And when the energy-short 1970s turned into the energy surplus of the 1980s, RFF’s angst shifted to issues surrounding a human influence on global climate, primarily from carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Some of the most informative articles in this issue are:

True Cost of Energy—Wind

Wind Energy Property Value Studies Summarized

Infrasound and Wind Turbines

Infrasound & Low Frequency Noise Can be Deadly

Favorable Court Ruling on 30-Year Eagle-Take Permits

30 Million Birds Annually Killed by Wind Turbines

Renewables drain our resources

Renewables Offer No Bang for Your Megawatt

The Energy Liberation Plan

Global Warming Alarmists Run Into Brick Wall Of Facts

Keeping it simple: the value of an irreducibly simple climate model

There are two debates about ‘climate change’

State Legislator’s Exceptional Letter on Global Warming

IPCC Sea Level Rise Projections Exaggerated

Note also there is a special section of several articles about the US EPA energy plan (like this)

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Greed Energy Economics

True Cost of Energy — Wind

Wind Energy Property Value Studies Summarized

Green Mythology and the High Price of Electricity

How Climate Policies Affect Lower-Income Residents

California “green energy” measure fails to create green jobs

Stop the Money to Kill the Climate Treaty

The Heavy Price of Renewable Energy in NC

Electricity Supply – Driven by Politics at the Customers’ Expense?…

“[T]hough the oil-market crash has put the nation’s energy boom on hold, some oil-technology companies are pursuing what they say will be a second American shale revolution … That belief lies partially in re-fracking — giving oil shale deposits a second blast of water, chemicals and sand — to get more oil out of depleted or underperforming wells. The process could be up to two-thirds cheaper than drilling a new well….”

– Collin Eaton, “Oil Firms Promise New Life for Shale,” Houston Chronicle, August 16, 2015.

The fossil-fuel era is new–and in all likelihood still young. In fact, compared to renewables, natural gas, coal and oil are the real ‘infant industries.’ Remember, for most of the last thousand years, and all of the time earlier, renewable energy (primitive biomass, falling water, wind, solar) held a virtual 100 percent market share; carbon-based energies have dominated only since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.…