Category: Energy Independence
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The Villain of Building Energy Efficiency: Triple-Net Leases. Not Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit
An old friend dropped by recently and we had a few beers on the back deck. He runs his family’s commercial real-estate business; they own and operate half a dozen or so pretty large properties (and just bought another) — a mall, office buildings, mixed use. I was really curious to talk to him about…
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Government Gets the Lead Out, Crime Plummets
No, this is not about lead-footed Starsky and Hutch-style car chases by law enforcement. Rather, it’s about damned convincing evidence that unleaded gasoline (introduced in the U.S. in the 70s) is largely responsible for the huge decline in crime rates since the early 90s. (Update: it continues.) Even more convincing than (but not precluding) Levitt’s Roe…
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The Best Argument Against Climate Legislation — And the Best Answers
I’ve long lauded Jim Manzi for his cogent and convincing arguments against carbon taxes. He’s the antithesis of the “1998 was really hot! Look: it’s cooler now!” school of head-in-in-the-sand self-delusionists. Rather, he takes the 2007 IPCC report as the best available consensus scientific knowledge we have, and uses it to think through a clear-eyed,…
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Largest Oil Spills
I got curious about this. Here’s what WikiPedia says: ——————- Oil spills of over 100,000 tonnes or 30 million US gallons, ordered by tonnes[a] Spill / Tanker Location Date Tons of crude oil Reference Gulf War oil spill Persian Gulf January 21, 1991 1,360,000–1,500,000 [19][20] Ixtoc I oil well Gulf of Mexico June 3, 1979–March…
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Global Warming Caused by Sex!
More sex, more people. More people, more global warming. Pretty simple. If people would just stop having sex, we could solve the global warming problem! (Envision: Just-Say-No types happily twirling their fingers in their cheeks.) Right. But my tongue-in-cheek wise-guyism is spurred by something quite real: reducing unprotected sex worldwide could be the most cost-effective…
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Drill Here Drill Now! Oh….Wait…
It’s now clear that the McCain/Palin shout-outs for more domestic drilling were not, in fact, tawdry and childish pitches to get votes from jingoistic know-nothings. They were, in fact, calls for an energy policy that would lead this country into a future of responsibility, prosperity, and well-being. The free market is speaking… Related posts: Economist…
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The Republican Energy “Plan”?
Here's the best description I've seen of McCain's plan for American "energy independence": The image was produced by these guys, with data from the Energy Information Administration. HT to Gristmill and Mark Thoma. Related posts: The Villain of Building Energy Efficiency: Triple-Net Leases. Not Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit The Efficiency of De Ebil Gubmint Man…
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Gas-Guzzler Tax: Just Turn it On
Some years ago, in one of the few instances where the NYT actually published one of my letters, I ranted about how we should institute a heavy tax on low-efficiency vehicles. To the Editor: Gregg Easterbrook’s proposal for a 50-cent-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax (”The 50-Cent-a-Gallon Solution,” Op-Ed, May 25) is absolutely on…