Energy

The “Jobs Bill” That Decreases Employment

By Justin Katz | October 15, 2009 |

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:…

Unfree Energy

By Justin Katz | October 14, 2009 |

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…

Waxman-Marke: Bad for the Economy

By Mac Owens | August 12, 2009 |

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.

Knowing What They Want to Do on Energy

By Justin Katz | July 12, 2009 |

The letter that Walter Schmidt, of North Scituate, sent in to the Providence Journal deserves a hear hear: A July 2 letter (“Bill’s passage a fine day for the environment”) thanked U.S. Reps. Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin for voting for the “cap and trade” bill. The author, however failed to mention the cost of…

Evening Music Video: We’re Going Green!

By Justin Katz | June 29, 2009 |

Any song with the line “and estimated environmental impact is not really calculable” would be worth a listen, but I’ve been humming this one all day: (via the Corner)

Rhode Island, Always Striving to Make Life That Much More Difficult

By Justin Katz | June 27, 2009 |

So, with legislation to make energy more expensive for all Americans making its way through Congress, what can one say about this? Governor Carcieri on Friday signed into law legislation that could pave the way for offshore wind farms in Rhode Island. The bill, passed by both chambers of the General Assembly earlier this month,…

BREAKING: Dark Days Getting Darker

By Justin Katz | June 26, 2009 |

Well, it isn’t law yet, I suppose, but when legislative supporters of a government change as well as the Associated Press admit substantial cost to an initiative, it certainly gives pause: In a triumph for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed sweeping legislation Friday that calls for the nation’s first limits on pollution…

The Energy and Healthcare Issues Come Together

By Justin Katz | April 22, 2009 |

Throw in environmentalism, too, because William Tucker’s thoughts on windmilled energy bring some possibilities to mind: The major limitation, of course, is wind’s intermittency — its lack of “dispatchability.” Quite simply, you can never count on it. You can’t even predict it from hour to hour with 100 percent accuracy and the windiest sites can…

The Energy Life of Trash

By Justin Katz | December 5, 2008 |

This seems to be a great idea — especially since it appears to be free-market, rather than government, driven — An $80-million project to generate electricity from the methane gases that are given off by Rhode Island’s trash drew support from local and state officials yesterday morning. Executives from a New Jersey company, Ridgewood Renewable…

Who Should Pump the Oil?

By Monique Chartier | November 15, 2008 |

In view of the consideration that President-Elect Obama is giving to the reinstatement via Presidential Executive Order of the recently lifted ban on certain domestic oil drilling, let us go back a month or so to an editorial by Tom Ward of the Valley Breeze [no longer available on line] which raised an interesting point.…