Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hburnett@heartland.org) is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I’ve been thinking about electric vehicles a lot lately. My wife and I take pleasure trips every year—sometimes three- or four-day getaways, sometimes week-long vacations, sometimes longer journeys. Many of these trips are…
Category: ENVIRONMENT
Are U.S. Subsidies Bringing Innovation to Renewable Energy?
No, says Ross Marchand in two segments of a three-part series from RealClearEnergy. Problem One: Failures plus Unnecessary ‘Successes’ These green companies (among others) failed: Abound Solar, Range Fuels, Solyndra. Others are considered successes but they didn’t need government guarantees: NextEraEnergy: “When the DOE greenlit the guarantee 10 years ago, NextEra had revenues totaling more…
Green Jobs a Far Cry from ‘Good, High-Wage Jobs’
‘Green jobs’ are not what the Biden administration is claiming they are, says Noam Scheiber in the New York Times. “The Green New Deal, first introduced in 2019, sought to ‘create millions of good, high-wage jobs.’” President Biden repeated the promise in March, says Sheiber.. “’My American Jobs Plan will put hundreds of thousands of…
The New Trade in Non-Production (of Carbon)
The pressure to “do something” about global warming has created exotic new programs that emphasize reducing output. You might think of them as markets in non-production. I will explain them. Carbon offsets. Companies that produce or use fossil fuels are trying to reduce their “carbon footprint” but still continue their business. They are purchasing “offsets”—that…
‘Wild Horse Annie’ Rides Again
Once again, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is faced with opposition to its way of dealing with wild horses on public rangeland. For many decades, wild horses and burros have proliferated on public lands—descendants of escaped horses going back as far as the years of Spanish exploration, plus horses lost or abandoned by settlers…
The Grumpy Economist Considers Climate Change
“The economic effects of climate change are dwarfed by growth,” writes John H. Cochrane on his blog, “The Grumpy Economist.” He proceeds to point out: “Take even worst-case estimates that climate change will lower GDP by 5-10% in the year 2100. Compared to growth, that’s couch change. At our current tragically low 2% per year, without…