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July 7, 2021
It’s Deeply Unserious to Suggest Global Warming Caused the Miami Condo Collapse
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm late last month “suggested it is possible climate change led to the partial condominium collapse in Miami, FL,” adding that “we don’t know fully” if it did or not, “but we do know that the seas are rising.” Yes, the seas are rising, as they have been for many centuries; the issue is…
June 16, 2021
The Modern Case for Competition in Power Markets
Sometimes localized controversies highlight an issue of far broader significance, a truth illustrated well by the ongoing battle over electricity policy in Virginia. The central question in a nutshell: Will power consumers be allowed to purchase electricity by choosing among alternative suppliers in a competitive market? Or will they continue to be constrained by the choices of…
May 26, 2021
The Dumbest New York Times Op-ed of 2021
Summer still is weeks away, but already we have a winner in the fierce competition for the coveted title of “Dumbest New York Times opinion column of 2021.” The envelope please… and the winner is “Why Charles Koch Wins When Our Energy System Breaks Down,” by someone named Christopher Leonard. One really does have to read this column to…
May 21, 2021
Fiction Vs. Reality on Fossil-fuel Subsidies
Some political targets are temporary, little more than props deployed in pursuit of a tactical advantage in the Beltway skirmish of the day. Others are permanent fixtures in the landscape, the foundations of an ideological worldview impervious to facts, reasoning, and the perverse outcomes that the attendant policy imperatives would engender. Prominent among the latter is…
May 12, 2021
Would a Phaseout of Hydrofluorocarbons Avoid Half a Degree of Global Warming?
In a recent “Daily on Energy” report for the Washington Examiner, Josh Siegel and Abby Smith reported: “This morning, the EPA unveiled a proposal to begin limiting potent greenhouse gas coolants known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. It’s a significant step to curb climate change, as phasing down HFCs could help avoid roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming.” The claim that…
April 22, 2021
Earth Day 2021: The Anti-human Core of ‘restore Our Earth’
It is Earth Day, the central religious holiday of environmental fundamentalism, and the official theme this year is “Restore Our Earth™,” purporting to focus on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. In this way, the theme rejects the notion that mitigation or adaptation are the only ways…
April 21, 2021
The SEC Demands a One-Size-Fits-All Climate “Risk” Disclosure System
Modesty is not a defining characteristic for numerous policy-makers in Washington, among them regulators asserting that climate “risks” are significant for individual firms and economic sectors—precisely how do they know?—and that, therefore, they must be reported so that investors can have more rather than less information. Allison Herren Lee, the acting Chairman of the Securities and…
April 15, 2021
Where We Are Headed: Making the US Poorer and OPEC+ Richer
The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is brightening, in substantial part as a result of the global inoculation effort, however slowly and unevenly. With this improving public-health outlook comes a prospective renewal of worldwide economic growth generally, and in industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors in particular. That would engender an expansion in the…
March 29, 2021
The Electrical Engineers Collide with the Climate Politicians
Having suffered for decades from natural disasters, perverse federal policies, local mismanagement and much more, the people of Puerto Rico are in need of reforms in many dimensions, prominent among them a modernized, efficient and reliable electric power system. And that need is more-or-less immediate, as the rickety commonwealth electricity system finally is operating, however…
March 1, 2021
The Electric-vehicle Campaign Comes to Minnesota
Electric vehicles are all the rage, in particular among public officials who do not have to face voters. Not so much among consumers, who know their individual needs and strive to make purchase decisions that satisfy them. These realities explain why the proponents of policies forcing ever more EVs upon the market prefer to implement such…