Boycotts only work when everyone (or nearly everyone) complies with them. Once people start cheating, boycotts typically fall apart.
This principle applies to the news business as well. But the legacy media (also referred to as the mainstream media and old media) do not understand this. The major dailies and the networks ignored the Van Jones story for weeks until his midnight resignation forced them to report on it. Van Jones, of course, was forced to resign as the green jobs czar after cable news and talk radio aired some of the inane and occasionally-racist statements he made. The revelation that he was a truther was the final straw. The legacy media, however, was AWOL until the bitter end.
Now the legacy media is studiously ignoring Climategate. As Bret Stephens explains in his Wall Street Journal article:
"Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU."
Climategate is a huge story that is not simply going to fade away, especially with Copenhagen looming on the horizon. Yet the legacy media (with the obvious exception of the Wall Street Journal) has shown scant interest in it. I have not seen a single story about it in our local paper, the Houston Chronicle. That paper, however, does continue to blithely parrot the dire warnings of the very scientists whose objectivity is now being questioned.
When Abe Rosenthal was the editor of the New York Times, he liked to refer to himself as the "gatekeeper." The decision-makers at many of the major dailies and the television networks still seem to regard themselves as filling that role. What they don't realize is that talk radio, cable news, and the Internet have already filled the vacuum that they are trying to maintain.
No wonder the legacy media is withering on the vine.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The facts behind the energy debate
The experts tell us that we are running out of oil and natural gas. But then they've been telling us that at least since 1914, when the Bureau of Mines warned that US oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. This and many other useful facts can be found in George Will's latest Washington Post collumn.
In fact, we are discovering more domestic reserves of oil and natural gas every year.
Billions of barrels of oil have been discovered during the last decade in the Lower Tertiary trend in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bakken Formation (a.k.a. the Williston Basin), which lies beneath North and South Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan. The U.S. also has huge reserves of natural gas in various shale rock formations around the country. One formation, the Marcellus Shale in the eastern United States, may contain as much natural gas as the largest conventional field ever discovered. (In addition, the United States also has huge oil shale formations, and Canada, of course, has oil sands thay may contain more oil than Saudi Arabia.) So we are not going to run out of supplies of oil and natural gas any time soon.
Although the left touts solar and wind energy, they comprise only 1/6 of 1% of America's energy consumption. Compare that with coal, which currently provides 54% of our country's electricity (according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is not at all happy about this state of affairs). It is unrealistic to think that wind and solar will supply 20% of this country's energy in the foreseeable future.
The left regards wind and solar technology as new energy sources with vast potential. Unfortunately, that is not true. Wind power has been around for over four centuries (Don Quixote tilted at windmills, remember). The photovoltaic process utilized by solar panels was discovered in the 19th century. Albert Einstein wrote a paper in 1905 describing the nature of light and the photoelectric effect on which solar technology is based -- a paper for which he was later rewarded the Nobel Prize in physics. So neither technology is new, and it would be wildly optimistic to assume that either technology has huge, undiscovered potential.
The only compelling reason to wean ourselves from hydrocarbons and clean coal is the purported threat of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Contrary to the party line, many reputable scientists are skeptical about the fact and/or extent of AGW. And the documents recently obtained from many AGW proponents, including those at the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), strongly suggest that at least some of these proponents may have been cooking, or at least simmering, the scientific books.
Thank heaven the Copenhagen Summit is unlikely to result in anything substantive based on speculative and perhaps even fraudulent science.
In fact, we are discovering more domestic reserves of oil and natural gas every year.
Billions of barrels of oil have been discovered during the last decade in the Lower Tertiary trend in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bakken Formation (a.k.a. the Williston Basin), which lies beneath North and South Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan. The U.S. also has huge reserves of natural gas in various shale rock formations around the country. One formation, the Marcellus Shale in the eastern United States, may contain as much natural gas as the largest conventional field ever discovered. (In addition, the United States also has huge oil shale formations, and Canada, of course, has oil sands thay may contain more oil than Saudi Arabia.) So we are not going to run out of supplies of oil and natural gas any time soon.
Although the left touts solar and wind energy, they comprise only 1/6 of 1% of America's energy consumption. Compare that with coal, which currently provides 54% of our country's electricity (according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is not at all happy about this state of affairs). It is unrealistic to think that wind and solar will supply 20% of this country's energy in the foreseeable future.
The left regards wind and solar technology as new energy sources with vast potential. Unfortunately, that is not true. Wind power has been around for over four centuries (Don Quixote tilted at windmills, remember). The photovoltaic process utilized by solar panels was discovered in the 19th century. Albert Einstein wrote a paper in 1905 describing the nature of light and the photoelectric effect on which solar technology is based -- a paper for which he was later rewarded the Nobel Prize in physics. So neither technology is new, and it would be wildly optimistic to assume that either technology has huge, undiscovered potential.
The only compelling reason to wean ourselves from hydrocarbons and clean coal is the purported threat of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Contrary to the party line, many reputable scientists are skeptical about the fact and/or extent of AGW. And the documents recently obtained from many AGW proponents, including those at the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), strongly suggest that at least some of these proponents may have been cooking, or at least simmering, the scientific books.
Thank heaven the Copenhagen Summit is unlikely to result in anything substantive based on speculative and perhaps even fraudulent science.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Another wind-power demonstration project
The Houston Chronicle reported today that the Energy Department plans to award $200 million in grants for utility-scale energy storage products as part of the stimulus package enacted in February. The inability to efficiently store energy has long been the Achilles heel of the solar and wind power industries. Decades ago, scientists were looking into the possibility of using flywheels to store energy (it didn't pan out). And despite recent breakthroughs in battery design and materials, batteries are not even close to being a cost-effective method of storing energy so that it will be available when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing
One of the applicants is seeking $25 million to build a plant in California that will use compressed air that has been pumped into underground reservoirs to generate electricity when the wind turbines are unable to meet demand. According to the article, when additional energy is needed, "the air is released, heated and used to power turbines."
Apparently, the wind turbines will be used to generate electricity to sell to customers and to power the pumps that compress the air in the underground caverns. The air is then later released, heated (with what, coal, natural gas, oil?) and used to power turbines to generate additional electricity for sale. Can such a complex system possibly be economical? Color me skeptical.
Somewhere, Rube Goldberg is laughing.
One of the applicants is seeking $25 million to build a plant in California that will use compressed air that has been pumped into underground reservoirs to generate electricity when the wind turbines are unable to meet demand. According to the article, when additional energy is needed, "the air is released, heated and used to power turbines."
Apparently, the wind turbines will be used to generate electricity to sell to customers and to power the pumps that compress the air in the underground caverns. The air is then later released, heated (with what, coal, natural gas, oil?) and used to power turbines to generate additional electricity for sale. Can such a complex system possibly be economical? Color me skeptical.
Somewhere, Rube Goldberg is laughing.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Ludwig von Mises or John Maynard Keynes?
We are experiencing a fundamental debate about the economic policies the federal government should pursue. The title of this post summarizes the essential positions of the two main camps: do we follow the theories of Ludwig von Mises or the theories of John Maynard Keynes. These two theories are poles apart.
Ludwig von Mises wrote his seminal work "Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel" ("The Theory of Money and Credit") in 1912. Unfortunately, it was not published in English until 1934.
Mises theorized that credit markets are essentially self-regulating. Left alone, supply and demand will determine both the amount of credit available and the interest rates charged for it. If, however, the government artificially expands the amount of credit (money) available or artificially lowers interest rates, borrowing increases to imprudent levels, spurring unsound investment. Eventually, the level of unsound spending and investment rises so high it causes the economic system to crash. Mises foresaw the economic collapse that led the Great Depression and took steps to avoid its effects. {See the excellent 'article by Mark Spitznagel at WSJ online).
Unfortunately for our country, our leaders in the 1930s (as well as today) have chosen to follow the teachings of John Maynard Keynes. He published "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1936. Keynes essentially argued that the government could and should spend its way out of economic slumps and depressions. His ideas are embodied in current programs such as the stimulus bills, cash for clunkers, and the bailout programs for everyone from financial behemoths to low-income home buyers. Vice president Biden has confidently asserted that the country can spend its way out of insolvency (there is a reason he is commonly called "slow Joe"). Our political leaders are even floating the idea of yet another "stimulus" bill.
A friend once sagely observed that most politicians know as much about economics as a horse knows about algebra. I'm still waiting for our solons to prove him wrong.
Ludwig von Mises wrote his seminal work "Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel" ("The Theory of Money and Credit") in 1912. Unfortunately, it was not published in English until 1934.
Mises theorized that credit markets are essentially self-regulating. Left alone, supply and demand will determine both the amount of credit available and the interest rates charged for it. If, however, the government artificially expands the amount of credit (money) available or artificially lowers interest rates, borrowing increases to imprudent levels, spurring unsound investment. Eventually, the level of unsound spending and investment rises so high it causes the economic system to crash. Mises foresaw the economic collapse that led the Great Depression and took steps to avoid its effects. {See the excellent 'article by Mark Spitznagel at WSJ online).
Unfortunately for our country, our leaders in the 1930s (as well as today) have chosen to follow the teachings of John Maynard Keynes. He published "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1936. Keynes essentially argued that the government could and should spend its way out of economic slumps and depressions. His ideas are embodied in current programs such as the stimulus bills, cash for clunkers, and the bailout programs for everyone from financial behemoths to low-income home buyers. Vice president Biden has confidently asserted that the country can spend its way out of insolvency (there is a reason he is commonly called "slow Joe"). Our political leaders are even floating the idea of yet another "stimulus" bill.
A friend once sagely observed that most politicians know as much about economics as a horse knows about algebra. I'm still waiting for our solons to prove him wrong.
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