The False Promise of Green Energy
- ISBN13: 9781935308416
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
What green energy promises to provide is just so alluring-more jobs, a cleaner environment, a more stable economy, clean and bountiful electricity, fewer toxins and pollutants and, of course, the gratitude of generations to come. There’s just one pro
List Price: $ 24.95
Price: $ 9.95
Related Green Energy Gifts Products
Funny, Factual, Correct, but Unsatisfying,
It’s too bad that I couldn’t give this book 4.5/5 stars, because I am really close to loving this book. The authors legitimately point out the litany of errors, and their consequences, in the “scientific” green energy/green job reports. So many examples from the book could be cited, like the comedy/tragedy surrounding the multitude of definitions or the inadequacy of input-output models. Their points are made in a really sarcastically funny way too, like the “we have the technology to put a man on the moon, but you don’t see lunar tourism” passage.
There was hardly much in here that I think can be debated on a factual basis. Of course, agreement on facts never prevented disagreement on policy. Since its from the CATO Institute, obviously I know to expect the “free market is better than anything else we have” viewpoint. But the authors never really attack the argument that negative externalities requires government involvement to internalize costs. This, of course, is the intellectual defense to all the sham research they have criticized. They come close to it, by asking (quite pejoratively) “if green activists think people are too dumb to realize energy savings”. I would say that behavioral economics has shown that many people act as if they are “satisficing” not optimizing. Maybe that’s just a semantic argument, but I think its a legitimate argument nonetheless. Secondly, that pejorative dismissal misses the point having external costs. That is, its not that people are “too dumb”, its that they are causing damage to other elements of the economy. We are both a network and a bunch of atoms.
The book attacks any practical policy implementations that try to address externalities (or just collect rents) and justly so in my opinion. But it still left me wanting more, like what should be done. They mention the X-Prize tournaments. However, I think it is debatable whether such competitive incentives are always best. Sometimes R&D works best by collaborating without expectation of profit sharing. After all, science was invented by people driven for the sake of knowledge alone. Increasing competition might stop some unions from being developed. Of course, it might not. Regardless of where you fall in that debate, it seems unlikely that government tournaments are going to solve the energy/environmental tradeoffs. So much is riding on technological breakthroughs, that profits from the free markets seems like a pretty good prize.
Anyway… definitely buy the book and you will enjoy it. Facts will be useful for the upcoming election. However, it does not ultimately provide any solutions to the environmental/economic situation we face.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Good analysis, but who is the audience?,
One line of attack on the “green energy” agenda is to question its primary rationale, namely the theory that catastrophic global warming will result unless human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are drastically reduced.
This book tackles a different question: Assuming that global warming due to carbon emissions might be a problem, is the green energy agenda well designed to achieve the environmental and economic benefits that have been attributed to it?
The authors are four academics (three being economists and/or attorneys) who describe themselves as “professional skeptics.” And they do a workmanlike job of questioning the logic and integrity of green energy from various angles.
Having followed the debate about this subject, I was familiar with many of the points. The technical feasibility of a rapid transition to solar and wind power has been vastly exaggerated, while the cost estimates are correspondingly understated. Some environmentalists view nuclear power as “green” because it has the potential of reducing carbon emissions, while others will oppose it to their dying breath. There are numerous environmental objections to the government-supported ethanol program. There is no common definition of the green jobs that are promised, and forecasts are typically expressed on a gross basis (without subtracting jobs that would be eliminated, e.g., in the fossil fuel industries and in industrial operations that would leave the country as the result of higher US energy costs.) Some analysts would count jobs in regulatory compliance areas as a benefit, when they actually represent an economic cost. Claims that green jobs will necessarily provide highly paid, agreeable employment are not credible. Barring the creation of trade barriers, most wind power or solar power equipment would be produced in Asia or Europe versus the US. Etc.
It is nice to have an authoritative source to cite, with a logically organized series of chapters and a handy dandy index. And some of the conceptual points are novel, e.g., demonstration of selective optimism about technological progress in the future (assumed for green energy operations, ignored for traditional energy operations), and repeated demonstration of the Baptist and bootleggers syndrome (people with very different objectives closing ranks to support Sunday closing laws). It is amazing how ready green energy advocates are to trade the taken-for-granted benefits of a free market economy for their vision of what life on earth should be like (e.g., small pastoral communities, locally grown food, no more Wal-Mart).
However, who is the audience? For right wing think tanks and academics, the book is preaching to the converted. Left wing think tanks and academics will not read it. Corporate employees will tend to do whatever suits their own interests.
The authors suggest that the general public could use the book as a source of green energy questions (30 questions are listed in the concluding chapter) for candidates for elective office, but I doubt this will work. The material is too involved, diverse and sophisticated for the average reader to absorb and remember. Also, direct contact between the voters and politicians on policy issues is increasingly infrequent, and written communications from voters are recapped without much reflection on the content unless the sender is seen as potential source of campaign cash.
So if green energy is indeed an expensive, ill-conceived experiment in social engineering, as the authors argue, I think a simpler, more straightforward formulation of the issue would be needed to combat it.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Excellent Read,
“Green energy” is not so. Solar uses vast swaths of land which is bulldozed flat to make way for the sources of energy that are incredibly low in power and energy density. Wind? It kills hundreds of birds each year and is very resource inefficient, namely on a per/mw basis, it consumes 9.6 tons of concrete and 11. tons of steel. These are just a few facts but read the book and you will be informed.
Was this review helpful to you?
|