Matt Ridley On How Fossil Fuels Are Greening The Planet

An inconvenient truth the media ignores.   Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist and other books, dropped by Reason's studio in Los Angeles last month to talk about a curious global trend that is just starting to receive attention. Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener! Even stranger, the       ... MORE

NCPA Research: Green Cars Are Not So Clean After All

Green vehicles are polluting and wasteful. Electric and hybrid cars were lauded as a cure for climate change and carbon emissions. Though electric vehicles are zero emissions, only 50,000 were sold in 2012 -- well short of the number needed to achieve President Obama's goal of 1 million green cars on the road by 2015. While    ... MORE

Costly State Energy Policies To Raise California Power 33%

Golden State residents to lose more gold.    California has been a leader in Renewable Energy production, in part due to federal and state level policies that provide incentives for producers of renewable power. However, a new report found that California’s Energy policies will raise state power rates and associated costs by nearly 33 percent.       ... MORE

California, Unsaved, Speeds Toward A Wall Of Debt

by Steven Greenhut.     A cursory glance at Governor Jerry Brown’s new budget could make you believe that California’s days of fiscal gloom are over as he champions a balanced budget and newfound “fiscal restraint.” California had been floating in debt. Then Brown persuaded voters in November to increase sales and income taxes.         ... MORE

Mark J. Perry: The Truth About Those 'Big Oil Subsidies'

A lesson in political double-talk.    Do a Google search for the term “subsidies for oil companies” and you’ll get more than 600,000 results.  Try a search for “subsidies for Big Oil” and you’ll get almost 700,000 results.  The term “tax breaks for Big Oil” has almost half a million results. Then do a Google search for “tax breaks for green energy” and you’ll only   ... MORE

VIDEO: FOX NEWS: A Stimulus For China

Rob Wile: Why Everyone Is Losing Hope For Green Energy

Green energy sounds like such a great idea.    Unfortunately, it is extremely costly and requires heavy government subsidies. Last year, the epic downfall of Solyndra — the former solar cell manufacturer backed by the Obama administration — was one of the most notorious blows to the industry. As with most young industries, experts argue that   ... MORE

50 Obama-Backed Companies Are Financially Troubled

by Micheal Bastasch. The October bankruptcy of solar company Satcon Technology Corp. puts the number of bankrupt or troubled green energy companies as high as 50, according to one estimate. During the first presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said the Obama administration had doled out $90 billion to green energy        ... MORE

Quarter-Billion-Dollar Stimulus Creates Just 400 Jobs

by Jim McElhatton. Battery maker A123 Systems vowed thousands of new jobs when it received a nearly quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant in late 2009, but federal job-tracking figures show only a few hundred positions were created before the company joined a growing list of federally backed energy businesses that ended in bankruptcy.    ... MORE

REPORT: EPA Regs Could Cost 887,000 Jobs A Year

Economic green death dispensed by government agency. Environmental Protection Agency regulations will contribute to projected shutdowns of up to 69,000 megawatts of coal-fueled electric generation and job losses of up to 887,000 jobs per year, according to a report. Total compliance costs for the electric sector could be  ... MORE

California's Bankrupt Energy Economy Is Obama's Model

by Larry Bell.   Beware of the warning that “where California goes, so goes the nation”, particularly when it comes from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Speaking in October, 2009 at the Governor’s Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, she touted the fact that climate change regulations involving national fuel economy and greenhouse gas   ... MORE

Greg Pollowitz: Al Gore No Longer Investing In Green Tech

One loser identifies another.    Via The Street. Why does Al Gore hate America’s green-tech industry and love China and Bain Capital? When Al Gore talks, people listen. Just ask the folks who hand out Academy Awards and Nobel Peace Prizes. Al Gore also talks to investors. Since 2007, the former Vice President in Bill Clinton’s administration has been   ... MORE

John Ransom: Another Obama Billion Dollar Green Loser

Chevy Volt jolts taxpayers in a big way.       This is getting redundant. If you want investment losses for tax purposes, Barack Obama is your guy. Now, if the country could only figure out how to write off the five trillion dollars we’ve lost during his presidency. As the man said: A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon were talking about Barack ... MORE

James Valvo: Disinherit The Wind

It's time to end the wind-energy tax preference.   The federal wind production tax credit (PTC) is scheduled to expire at the end of this year, offering the country a real chance to end the failed 20-year experiment of propping up a favored industry. Not surprisingly, proponents of the special tax break are working mightily to have it renewed.  ... MORE

Robert Zubrin: The Green War On Poor

Democrats used to care about poor and working people. In a nearly full-page op-ed appearing in the business section of the August 25 New York Times, Cornell professor Robert H. Frank lays out the new green agenda for tax policy. According to Professor Frank, stopping global warming may require carbon taxes of about $300 per ton of carbon    ... MORE

Government-Subsided Automaker Recalls Hybrid Firetrap

by Becket Adams. Electric-car maker Fisker Automotive is recalling all of its $100,000 Karma sports sedans to fix cooling fans that can catch fire. The recall comes after Fisker and a private fire investigation firm finished probing an Aug. 10 fire in a Karma in Woodside, Calif. It was the second of its kind. The company said the probe found that the blaze started in   ... MORE

Michael Barone: An Economic Tale Of Two Cities

Central planning vs the wisdom of markets. This is a tale of two cities. No, not Dickens' phlegmatic London and passionate Paris. Nor the two neighborhoods Charles Murray contrasted in his recent bestseller "Coming Apart" -- prosperous but isolated Belmont (actually, Mitt Romney's home for decades) and needy and disorganized    ... MORE

Paul Driessen: America Pays Dearly To Go 'Green'

War on fossil fuels means higher prices for families. President Obama has spent 3 1/2 years waging war on fossil fuels - and American consumers and families are caught in the crossfire. They are getting hit with higher energy prices, watching billions go to unfriendly overseas countries for oil we could produce in the United States, and seeing billions   ... MORE

Martin/Snyder: Taxpayers Bitten By Crony Capitalism Again

Another Solyndra-type boondoggle goes up in smoke.   Abound Solar Inc., a U.S. solar manufacturer that was awarded a $400 million U.S. loan guarantee, will suspend operations and file for bankruptcy because its panels were too expensive to compete. Abound borrowed about $70 million against the guarantee, the Loveland, Colorado-based company said  ... MORE

Jonathan Hoenig: The Economic Police State

When the economy is not free, neither are you.   Taking a page from the United States, Argentina announced plans last week to stimulate its stagnant economy with no-cost housing loans. The idea is to boost growth by intervening in the supposedly "free" economy. It won't work. Japan's decades of infrastructure spending, government-  ... MORE