All Posts Tagged With: "energy"

Gouging, Free Markets, and the Psychology of Fuel

By promoting the individual development and harnessing of fuel, we can avoid the pitfalls posed by centralized control.

25Jul2011 | Paul Schwennesen | 6 comments | Continued

The Wrong Lesson from Egypt

One wrong conclusion being drawn from last winter’s popular uprising against the dictatorship in Egypt is that the American government could ignore such things if we were “energy independent.” (It’s unclear if this means independent of Middle Eastern oil or completely independent.) A moment’s reflection should be enough to jettison that thought, but even if [...]

25May2011 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | Continued

The Gasoline Demagogues Will Be Back

Here we go again. In late February gasoline prices across America were surpassing $3 a gallon. Forecasters are advising us to expect $4 by summer, maybe higher. So be prepared for something else with it all: the broken-record rhetoric of anti-market types about “gouging.” It’ll be coming from a lot of the same people who [...]

23Mar2011 | Lawrence W. Reed | 13 comments | Continued

What’s So Bad about Eco-Propaganda for Kids?

Although my own children have long outgrown picture books, I still have nephews and nieces young enough to enjoy them. So I buy them from time to time. I also buy books on energy. Perhaps it was that combination that prompted Amazon to recommend What’s So Bad About Gasoline? by Anne Rockwell, engagingly illustrated by [...]

22Sep2010 | Andrew P. Morriss | 23 comments | Continued

The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty Not Affluence, Is the Environment’s Number One Enemy

The extraordinary thing about this excellent book is not its content as much as its source. Jack M. Hollander is a retired professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley. Although he has had an impressive career in the field of energy (he has more than 100 publications to his credit), in [...]

6Jul2010 | Jane S. Shaw | 0 comments | Continued

A Free-Market Energy Vision

Energy is the master resource. Without it other resources could not be produced or consumed. Even energy requires energy: There would not be usable oil, gas, or coal without the energy to manufacture and power the requisite tools and machinery. Nor would there be wind turbines or solar panels, which are monuments to embedded fossil-fuel [...]

29Jun2010 | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | 5 comments | Continued

Nuclear Energy Should Be Subsidized?

In a March 5 Los Angeles Times op-ed, “Jump-starting Nuclear Energy,” Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, who now co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, lauds the Obama administration for its decision to “guarantee loans for two advance-design nuclear plants in Georgia.” Nuclear energy diversifies our energy portfolio and doesn’t pollute the air the way fossil [...]

20May2010 | Art Carden and Mike Hammock | 9 comments | Continued

Are Americans Addicted to Oil?

The American political elite tells us we are addicted to oil. Whether it’s from former President George W. Bush or the present administration, Americans for years have been admonished to break the oil habit and use alternative fuels that meet Washington’s approval.

19May2010 | William L. Anderson | 12 comments | Continued

Government Moonshine

From its minor role as an oxygenate additive for gasoline, ethanol has become the darling of Washington. Politicians embrace ethanol as a miracle elixir. All the fashionable energy buzzwords can be applied to it. It is “green power”; it’s “renewable” and will provide “energy independence” for America. Legislation has been promoting ethanol nonstop. The Energy [...]

24Mar2010 | Michael Heberling | 4 comments | Continued

Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy

Capitalism at Work by Robert L. Bradley, Jr., looks at the destructive force of cronyism (or what Bradley calls “political capitalism”) in America. Though people keep saying—especially in the wake of the bursting housing bubble and subsequent financial meltdown—that “capitalism failed,” the book makes the exceedingly important point that what prevails in the United States [...]

24Mar2010 | Michael Beitler | 0 comments | Continued

Dim Bulbs

“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.” —Thomas A. Edison Edison’s words may have been true in the 1800s. Today, however, we have plenty of rules, thanks to the U.S. Congress. Some are so bizarre that you have to question the judgment of those who come up with them. One rule in [...]

10Jun2009 | Michael Heberling | 30 comments | Continued

Re-Thinking Green: Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy

Edited by Robert Higgs and Carl P. Close Reviewed by Michael Sanera

1Mar2007 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | Continued

Energy: The Master Resource

The economic and historical ignorance of the American public is frequently exploited by politicians and special-interest groups. The hotter the issue, the greater the exploitation, and no issue is hotter today than energy. Myths and misconceptions abound, leading people to embrace harmful interventionist policies. Ask a hundred typical Americans what role government should play in [...]

14Dec2005 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | Continued

Terrorism: The Price of Bad Energy Economics?

Fear of losing access to Saudi oil prompted the U.S. government to intervene in the Persian Gulf a decade ago, to maintain troops in Saudi Arabia ever since, to ignore Riyadh’s role in underwriting terrorism even after September 11, and to confront Iraq again. In short, America has been paying a high price for its [...]

1Mar2003 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | Continued

Energy Economics with Eyes Open

Energy is a scarce resource. No one was ever able to have all the energy he wanted. It is neither free nor a gift of nature. Someone must spend labor, wealth, and time to find, produce, and use it. In short, energy is an economic problem. Of course, energy is a vital economic resource. It [...]

1Feb2002 | and and Ashton J. Pecquet | 0 comments | Continued

The Growing Abundance of Fossil Fuels

Only two decades ago nearly all academics, businessmen, oilmen, and policymakers agreed that the age of energy scarcity was upon us and that the depletion of fossil fuels was imminent. While some observers still cling to that view today, the intellectual tide has turned against doom and gloom on the energy front. Nearly all resource [...]

1Nov1999 | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

The Poverty of the United Nations

Twenty years ago, a United Nations report listed the United States as consuming 115,540 kilowatt-hours of energy per person per year. At the same time, each person in the tiny central African nation of Burundi was using up just 120 kilowatt-hours. My guess is that today, the average American is still consuming about a thousand [...]

1Jan1999 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | Continued
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