June 15, 2016
Four Decades of Subsidy Rationales for Uncompetitive Energy
The modern rationales for energy subsidies have varied in prominence over the decades, but none has been broadly discredited in the public discussion despite the reality that each suffers from fundamental analytic weaknesses. The rationales can be summarized as follows: Given the weak history of analytic rigor and policy success in the context of energy…
June 9, 2016
Comment for the Federal Trade Commission: Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Power
This note responds to the FTC request for public comment attendant upon the workshop scheduled for June 21, 2016 on the topic “Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Power,” as described on the FTC website, and detailed in a pdf document with that title. That document here is referenced as “the FTC discussion paper.” Read the PDF.
June 6, 2016
The Magic of the EPA’s Benefit/cost Analysis
Benefit/cost analysis: It sounds so scientific, so rational, so impartial. So sound as a tool with which to resolve conflicting assertions about the wisdom of regulatory proposals. So divorced from partisanship or ideological influence. A truck engine is tested for pollution exiting its exhaust pipe in California. REUTERS/Mike Blake Oh, please. Democracy is the art…
May 20, 2016
The Incoherence of Sustainability
“Sustainability” is a popular buzzword in the public discussion of energy and environment policies generally and in the defense of subsidies for “renewable” energy in particular. But the definition of that term is highly elusive, as illustrated by the Environmental Protection Agency’s discussion: Human ingenuity is the “ultimate resource.” Credit: Twenty20 Apart from being incorrect substantively…
April 22, 2016
Earth Day and the Triumph of Dogbert
It is Earth Day, when pieties flow like wine, when the self-applause of the right-thinking is deafening, when the antihuman core of modern environmentalism shines bright, and when the destructiveness of groupthink becomes ever more pronounced. And when an understanding of its true meaning is served by the profound wisdom of that noted political philosopher and sage…
February 4, 2016
Shut Up, She Explained: My Request for Climate Evidence
Policy research in the Beltway offers numerous attractions, among them the opportunity to exchange views and engage in back-and-forth challenges with other experts, in settings both formal and informal. Such activities are more than merely fun: Intellectual atrophy is the inexorable result of living in an echo chamber, an effect that can be avoided through…
January 19, 2016
Subsidizing the Rich Through California’s Solar Scheme
Residential consumers of electricity in California pay almost 17 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), a price higher than those of every other state in the lower 48, except New York and five of the New England states. The average for the nation as a whole is about 12.7 cents per kWh. Neighboring states in the Pacific…
December 18, 2015
An Agreement to Prop up the Climate Industry
The question before us is straightforward: Is the Paris climate agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions a good strategy? A strategy, of course, is a set of tools used to achieve some goal. It is not the goal itself. Accordingly, we must ask: What is the goal? Twenty20 License If it is some unspecified reduction…
December 15, 2015
Saving the Planet: How Climate Breakthroughs Are Made
Breaking news Saturday in Paris from the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: National leaders described the agreement finally reached as “an historic breakthrough”. Twenty20 License Oops. My mistake. That was from the 13th COP in Bali in 2007. Then there was the 15th COP in Copenhagen in…
November 30, 2015
Paris In the Fall: COP-21 Vs Climate Evidence
I. Introduction The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21), the latest installment of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, begins today in Paris amid a feverish effort to achieve “binding” commitments by no fewer than 142 nations to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases. The attendees — the crème de la crème of the international climate industry — will tell themselves and the…