Doug Casey on the green energy scam

Before the Industrial Revolution, the overwhelmingly major fuel source was wood.  After that, we went to coal, which was a big improvement in density of energy and economics.  Then, we went to oil, another huge improvement in energy density and economics.

These things happened not because of any government mandates but simply because they made both economic and technological sense.  If the market had been left alone, the world would undoubtedly be running on nuclear.  Nuclear is unquestionably the safest, cheapest, and cleanest type of mass power generation.  This isn’t the time to go into the numerous reasons that’s true.  But if nuclear had been left unregulated, we’d already be using small, self-contained, fifth-generation thorium reactors, generating power almost too cheap to meter.  The world would already be running on truly clean green electricity.

Instead, time, capital, and brainpower have been massively diverted to so-called “ecological” power sources—mainly wind and solar—strictly for ideological reasons.  The powers that be want to transition the whole world to phony green energy, like it or not.

I’m all for green energy in principle.  There’s no question that solar and wind are worthwhile and effective for select applications—generally small, isolated, special locations where conventional fuel is inconvenient or too costly.  The efficiency of solar has been tremendously improved over the last few decades, as has wind efficiency.  But neither make any sense for mass base-load power in industrial economies.

With further technological advances, they may become more economic someday.  Perhaps people will eventually put large collectors in high Earth orbit and microwave the power down to the surface.  There are all kinds of sci-fi possibilities.  But right now, “green” is just a nice word for “stupid,” “ideological,” or “government-sponsored.”

Doing things the green way takes power away from the markets, which is where people vote with their dollars. It instead places power in the hands of ideologues and bureaucrats.

In brief, wind and solar are being promoted at the very time, nuclear and fossil fuels are being damned.  It’s the opposite of what should be happening and a very bad trend from every point of view.

Put me down as liking the birds and the bunnies as much as anyone else, but I’m anti-green.  Anyway, ecofreaks don’t really care about the birds and the bunnies so much.  That’s just a veneer.  They actually just hate people and really want them to disappear.  At a minimum, they want to control them.  And the great global warming/anti-fossil-fuel hysteria is a great way to do it.

~ Doug Casey, "Why the Carbon Hysteria is a Huge Threat to Your Personal Freedom and Financial Wellbeing," International Man, February 15, 2024

The Wall Street Journal: Japan returning to nuclear power

Energy common sense is in short supply these days, so all the more reason to cheer Japan for rethinking its flight from nuclear power. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday unveiled plans to return nuclear energy to a central place in the country’s electric grid. 

Tokyo will aim to bring seven reactors back into service, for a total of 17, and will invest in developing and installing next-generation reactors. Nuclear plants generated about a third of the country’s electricity 20 years ago, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, but that has fallen to 7.2%. Most of the country’s 33 operational reactors have been offline for years undergoing safety checks. 

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As hard as the politics will be, however, Japan has little choice. Japan must import almost all of its coal, oil and natural gas, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent global prices skyrocketing while setting off competition for supply. Japan’s electric grid has barely avoided blackouts this year. The economic costs of chronic energy shortages are starting to loom larger politically than the drawbacks of a nuclear restart. 

Perhaps Japan’s decision will get through to Germany, which also started phasing out nuclear after Fukushima and is now mired in a debate about keeping its three remaining reactors online. This should be an easy call as natural gas shortages loom this winter. Advanced economies need reliable base load power, and at least Tokyo understands this.

~ WSJ editorial board, "Japan Revives Nuclear Power," The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2022

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida

Thomas Donlan on nuclear power

The U.S. has 103 nuclear power plants, generating about 20 percent of American electricity needs. But no plants have been ordered since the accident at the Three Mile Island plant in 1979. No accidents have occurred in the U.S. since 1979, and even that accident did not kill or sicken anyone. Dozens of people die every year in U.S. coal-mine accidents, hundreds are injured, and hundreds more suffer before death from black-lung disease, but American utilities have ordered many big coal-fired power plants since 1979.

The explanation is that many people are afraid of nuclear power. They associate nuclear fission with the bombs that so shockingly destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. They don't understand the science and engineering that makes nuclear power generation different from atomic bomb-making, and they have little faith in those who tell them it's safe. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, which was dangerous but caused no serious damage to anything but the reactor, took its toll on public trust in nuclear power. The deadly Soviet accident at Chernobyl in 1986 was even more shattering. Unfortunately, some wild estimates of deaths and long-term damage were current in the news at the time and never reduced in the public mind to reflect reality.

~ Thomas G. Donlan, A World of Wealth (2008), p. 14