MasterResource is a blog dedicated to analysis and commentary about energy markets and public policy.
Precisely because energy is the lifeblood of the modern economy – the “master resource” that affects the production and use of all other resources – energy markets are often thought of as “different” and thus deserving of special political direction. We believe that the economic rules governing energy are no different from those governing other markets and are thus skeptical about government intervention. Drawing on this perspective, while employing both economic theory and market history, we hope to better inform the energy debate in a civil but forceful manner, without recourse to political partisanship or ideological cant.
America’s energy industries (oil, gas, electricity) have been a bastion of crony capitalism for much of their history. Leading gas and electricity firms sponsored state…
After oil and gasoline prices continued their relentless march up earlier this year, it was nice to have some relief at the pump in May…
“For many American families, struggling to make ends meet in the jobless recovery, energy development is an answer to a prayer. The fact that the…
This election year, America faces many crucial legislative choices in the oil/gas industry–and the PR strategy of oil companies will certainly affect the outcome.What should…
“Renewable energy” has two fundamental conceptual flaws. It’s not really renewable, and it’s not really energy.What is “Renewable”?“Renewable” in most definitions approximates to something like…
“With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” President Barack Obama said in his weekly…
Last month, a group of 15 climate scientists (included the now disgraced Peter Gleick) sent a letter to Congress expressing their displeasure over the proposed…
If you haven’t heard from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), you probably will. Ominous, scary ads are running nationwide warning of the crushing blow…
“I cannot abide the suggestion that we must sacrifice our environment in order to save it. This is an absurd argument enabling this energy imposter’s…
“Without these subsidies … ‘On-grid PV,’ would be virtually non-existent. It only exists because the solar industry lobbied government officials to compel citizens to purchase…
“Solar subsidies are a placebo which is giving the general public a sense of security about our energy future and is robbing the motivation of…
The U.S. Department of Energy publishes periodic reports on federal government subsidies to energy production in the U.S. These reports total up the costs of…
Opponents of fossil fuels have long championed solar power and wind power as replacements. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that solar and wind can provide…
The cost of building transmission for expensive wind power in Texas is coming in nearly 40 percent higher than initially promised. Instead of $4.9 billion,…
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism, California Berkeley physicist Richard A. Muller describes the results from a recent re-examination…
“When will the environmentalist community writ large wake up to the unintended micro consequences of their increasingly futile macro policy of forced energy transformation?” Herkimer…
In Solar Energy Tough Love, I described the perverse impacts of government industrial policy on the solar energy sector in its vainglorious attempt to choose…
The numbers are in for this year’s summer sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean. By most measures the ice loss in 2011 came in…
Solyndra’s impending liquidation, replete with 1,100 layoffs and U.S. taxpayer liabilities in excess of a half billion dollars, has put so-called green jobs initiative of…
Even if there were a usable model to analyze job creation, we are left with the problem of identifying which jobs are actually “green.” A…