Free Republic

The Biden Administration’s regulations are coming so fast and furious that it’s hard even to keep track, but we’re trying. On Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed its latest doozy—rules that will effectively force coal plants to shut down while banning new natural-gas plants. “With the announcement today, the power sector can make planning decisions with a full array of information,” EPA’s press release declares. Translation: Get moving with the green-energy transition because we’re determined to eliminate fossil-fuel power. Barack Obama’s regulation spurred a wave of coal plant closures. Now President Biden is trying to finish the job by tightening...

Bloomberg.com published a story today headlined “Age of Scarcity Begins With $1.6 Trillion Hit to World Economy” which led Steve Bannon to go on a rant about how this should be an Age of Abundance, and it was — under President Trump! He’s joined in the first segment by economist Dave Brat, the dean of the Liberty School of Business, for an explanation of how we got here. In Part 2, watch energy consultant Dave Walsh talk about how the crisis is just getting started. Just wait until fall when our farmers take in the harvest, which will be...

The Swedish government is taking an extremely bizarre commitment to fighting climate change by spending large sums of taxpayer money to develop 'meat' made from mealworms and crickets. Vinnova, the Swedish government agency that distributes money for research and development, is spending some 2.7 billion kronor ($261 million) to replace conventional meat with 'climate-friendly' insect 'meat' and other strange alternatives. Yum… Breitbart News reports: Green activists and the United Nations are behind such political initiatives as 'Meat Free Mondays' — a gateway to full vegetarianism — which are based on the premise that meat consumption is driving man-made climate change....

Isn't it nice how you just flip a switch and the lights come on, and you can sit down to work at your computer whenever you need to? Enjoy these conveniences while you can, because reliable electricity is among the privileges the moonbat ruling class plans to revoke: Electricity consumers in the UK will need to get used to flicking the switch and finding the power unavailable, according to Steve Holliday, CEO of National Grid, the country's grid operator. Because of a six-fold increase in wind generation, which won't be available when the wind doesn't blow, "The grid is going...

I have been teaching introductory economics courses for more than 30 years. The topic of my first lecture is always on the concept of relative scarcity. Scarcity simply means that human wants and desires are unlimited; while resources, the means of production, are limited. The fact is that each individual, family, business and government entity must grapple with the scarcity problem and calculate the best way to allocate their resources to attain some end. The economic entity must choose how to best allocate its income to attain some level of happiness balancing current consumption and saving for future consumption. The...

Wall Street Journal Finds Kyoto-Inspired Carbon Trading Hikes Electric Bills for German Consumers Report contrasts with CBS's earlier cheerleading for a similar plan in California. The Kyoto Protocol’s costs are coming as a shock to many German businesses and consumers. They’re finding higher utility costs resulting from their government’s implementation of the climate change treaty, The Wall Street Journal reported on September 11. Reporter Jeffrey Ball noted that in Germany, Kyoto-inspired rules “have upset the business status quo” as they have ended up “creating winners and losers. The winners include utilities that can charge higher rates and profit from trading...

In the 1960s, 85% of the oil in the world was available for ownership, development, partnerships, and such. At the time, 14% of the oil reserves belonged to the Soviet Union. Today it is the reverse of that: 16% of the world's oil is available. 65% is owned by the nations that possess the fields and 19% has limited access -- that is, nations, including Russia, will allow others to invest in and partially own their oil fields. It's different now. And, shall we not forget there are some nations that will allow investment and development and then, when all...

Sakhalin Island is a remote and sparsely populated area in the farthest east section of Russia. It sits to the north of Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Its ports freeze over part of each year because, well, it is so dang cold. But Sakhalin is where the future may lie -- at least for Russia's big oil. The island is about 600 miles long -- about the length of California but about one/fourth the size -- and there are an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil equivalent that lie beneath its seas. California probably has that much, too, but the...

BRINY BREEZES, Fla. -- The news traveled fast, as it usually does in this tiny trailer-park town. A secret suitor was offering to buy the entire municipality for $500 million -- more than $1 million per mobile home. Over shuffleboard courts, pinochle tables and whittling benches, word of the fabulous price soon spread.

But it does say in effect: Deliver better care or permit the development of a private system. "The prohibition on obtaining private health insurance might be constitutional in circumstances where health-care services are reasonable as to both quality and timeliness," the ruling reads, but it "is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services." The Justices who sit on Canada's Supreme Court, by the way, aren't a bunch of Scalias of the North. This is the same court that last year unanimously declared gay marriage constitutional. ... The larger lesson here is that health care isn't immune...

HONG KONG - A notable feature of 2004 was the volatility in oil prices - New York light sweet crude prices reached a peak of US$55.67 on October 25, ending the year up 33.6% at $43.45 per barrel. While a number of supply-side and supply-chain factors have contributed to this situation, the most significant long-term factor contributing to rising oil prices is an increase in Asian demand, most notably from China. China's unprecedented growth not only makes it a driver of a long-term increase in energy prices, but also the most vulnerable to rising oil prices. China, which has been...

IS ANOTHER oil shock in the making? All indications point to that considering the rise in world crude prices, not just in the spot market, but also in the futures segment. In the past, the rise in the spot price of crude as, for instance, ahead of both the Gulf wars, was not accompanied by a sympathetic jump in the forward price simply because the market expected the spike to be short-lived. But, this time, the forward price has been going up sharply. Crude oil has jumped 13 per cent in three weeks. Oil for July delivery reached a record...

<p>APOLLO BEACH, Florida (AP) -- The Tampa Bay area's burgeoning population of nearly 2 million people is tapping a new source for its drinking water -- salty Tampa Bay itself.</p> <p>The nation's first sea water desalination plant built to serve as a primary source of drinking water is providing water to Tampa, St. Petersburg, New Port Richey and surrounding cities.</p>