U.N.’s Carbon Credits Create Perverse Incentives

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  August 9th at 04:00 PM  | 

It seems harmless enough when an airline offers their customers “green indulgences” in the form of carbon credits when buying a ticket. The credits are intended to resolve the guilt the customer is supposed to feel for his wanton use of fossil fuels. In practice, the credits have become a perverse incentive for practices that are exactly opposite what the U.N. intended when it created | Read More »

Energy Policy Outrage, Part II: ‘Windmills Are Pretty!’

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  October 29th at 11:00 AM  | 

Despite the inefficiency, unreliability and poor economics of wind energy, even the biggest skeptic would acknowledge the appeal of the Bird Cuisinart* to anyone interested in the elusive goal of Energy Independence. After all, the wind is free, right? The wind may be free but the magnets required to make electricity from the whirling blades of a windmill are any thing but free. As we | Read More »

One Step Toward Energy Independence (And Three Steps Back)

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  March 13th at 12:31 PM  | 

The emotional appeal of the New Green Economy rests on its promise to free us from our addiction to oil. Our carbon-free future envisions a land of Rainbows, Unicorns and Magic Windmills, with a Prius in every garage. Our energy will be as free as the wind; no more will our thirst for petroleum make us slaves to foreign regimes. There’s just one hitch. Green | Read More »

How Cap and Trade Plans to Cripple Our Economy

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  December 17th at 02:15 PM  | 

If you can’t understand conceptually why a Cap and Trade system is such a bad deal, how about a concrete example? The European Union is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocols and have been dealing with a Carbon Cap and Trade system for several years. This article in today’s Wall Street Journal shows how the potential profit from the sale of carbon credits directly led | Read More »