Energy
In the aptly named “Green Jobs and Rose-Tinted Glasses” (subscription required), Iain Murray argues that evidence does not suggest that the “green” subindustry is a windfall just requiring a little initial shaking: Green jobs, it would seem, are a magic bullet for the administration, solving the problems of unemployment, poverty, community degradation (and therefore crime,…
This is the proposed subsidy that the General Assembly and Governor are foolishly forcing energy consumers to provide for wind power, unless the Public Utilities Commission objects: Under the deal being reviewed, National Grid would pay 24.4 cents per kilowatt hour for power from the project starting in 2013. The price would increase by 3.5…
This is intriguing: One of the interesting side effects of last year’s stimulus bill was $400 million in funding for ARPA-E, the civilian, energy-focused cousin of DARPA. And in this week’s first ever ARPA-E conference, MIT chemist Dan Nocera showed how well he put that stimulus money to use by highlighting his new photosynthetic process.…
At least I’m not alone in my concern that the “smart grid” craze opens up new horizons of privacy infringement: Smart grid technology — including new “smart meters” being attached to businesses and homes — is designed in part to provide consumers with real-time feedback on power consumption patterns and levels. But as these systems…
Environmentalists needn’t be on the same page on every initiative, of course, but there’s nothing in Tricia Jedele’s letter to the Providence Journal that negates the NIMBYism suggested in their expressed concerns about wind turbines on Black Point: Some of the signatories to the letter to the governor may ultimately support or oppose particular wind…
Frankly, I suspect the whole “clean energy” thing is a fad that will wind up costing much more money than it saves or than the benefits justify (catastrophically so as we dip into cap-and-trade-type policies). But whatever. There are so many ways that the government is wasting money and economic strength that it’s difficult to…
This is one of those stories that leaves the reader unsure of whether to laugh or cry: Save The Bay, the leading environmental organization in Rhode Island, is opposing a plan to erect a wind turbine at Black Point, a coastal property in Narragansett that was preserved two decades ago using state open-space bonds. The…
In politics, every policy is critical to every social need, provided that the politicians desire the policies and the people are currently concerned with the need. So, President Obama declares cap-and-trade energy legislation to be “a jobs bill,” even though it will cost the economy jobs overall, as a Heritage study shows. Ben Lieberman explains:…
Is this the future of energy? Planners envision installing a new kind of power meter in homes – a wall-based unit that can monitor how much electricity is being used by various appliances and turn them off when demand for energy is higher, and thus costlier to consume. The project also would upgrade the utility’s…
i have a piece in today’s ProJo about Waxman-Markey, which will be debated later this year in the Senate. The link is here. This legislation is on a par with Obamacare as an economic nightmare.
