Alex Epstein — VOICES for REASON

On Earth Day, we’re told that we should take stock of our impact on our environment. The assumption, of course, is that it’s bad—that we are, to use the common phrase “destroying the planet.”

On this month’s Power Hour—my podcast/Internet-radio-show on energy issues—I bring in philosopher Dr. Onkar Ghate, a senior colleague of mine at the Ayn Rand Center, to question this assumption, and many other assumptions about the relationship between human beings in our environment. Dr. Ghate discusses everything from the political, philosophical, and religious origins of modern environmentalists (the leaders of Earth Day) to the Japanese nuclear situation to how industrialization has positively impacted our environment to the danger of “moderate” environmentalist policies.

I’ve read a lot about environmentalism over the years, and I sincerely believe that Dr. Ghate’s explanations in this podcast are some of the best, clearest explanations of environmental issues available anywhere. Make sure you listen to this interview at least once before Earth Day.

For more information on Power Hour, as well as other commentary on energy issues subscribe to my newsletter “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Energy” by sending an email.

Download “Power Hour with Alex Epstein,” Episode 3: Onkar Ghate

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A common argument for “green” controls on the economy is that they are needed to promote “energy efficiency.” They aren’t–not in any rational sense of the term. All other things being equal, if the producer of, say, a washing machine can provide the same quality wash using less energy, the company will save its customers money and gain more buyers.

A recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine,” reveals that “energy efficiency” controls on washing machines do not promote energy efficiency–they promote energy deficiency: using less energy and getting worse results.

It might not have been the most stylish, but for decades the top-loading laundry machine was the most affordable and dependable. Now it’s ruined—and Americans have politics to thank.

In 1996, top-loaders were pretty much the only type of washer around, and they were uniformly high quality. When Consumer Reports tested 18 models, 13 were “excellent” and five were “very good.” By 2007, though, not one was excellent and seven out of 21 were “fair” or “poor.” This month came the death knell: Consumer Reports simply dismissed all conventional top-loaders as “often mediocre or worse.”

How’s that for progress?

The culprit is the federal government’s obsession with energy efficiency. Efficiency standards for washing machines aren’t as well-known as those for light bulbs, which will effectively prohibit 100-watt incandescent bulbs next year. Nor are they the butt of jokes as low-flow toilets are. But in their quiet destruction of a highly affordable, perfectly satisfactory appliance, washer standards demonstrate the harmfulness of the ever-growing body of efficiency mandates.

Next time someone tells you the government is needed to promote “energy efficiency,” remember these “efficient” washers that, as Kazman says, are “expensive” and “often have mold problems.”

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A recent New York Times op-ed floats the following trial balloon: force companies to label products and services with the amount of energy–especially oil–that goes into making them, so that we will reduce energy consumption just as we allegedly reduce calorie consumption based on mandatory food labels. (For what’s wrong with mandatory food labels, read this post by Don Watkins.) The author, Amanda Little, seems positively giddy at the idea of a “Decal” that would guilt Americans into using less energy, and perhaps into being primed for mandatory energy reductions.

Once Decal took hold, the Department of Energy could recommend daily energy allowances, in the same way the Department of Agriculture recommends daily intakes of different nutrients. Experts could offer “diet” plans for energy-efficient lifestyles, and the Internal Revenue Service could offer tax rebates to families that achieve certain energy-calorie reductions.

The whole food-calories/energy analogy is horrible. As human beings, food calories are something we can only healthily consume so much of. But there is no such limit when it comes to energy and machines. Energy is the capacity to do work–a potentially unlimited value; the more energy we use, the more productive we can be, and the more options we have to enjoy life (e.g., more travel).

Image: Wikimedia Commons

One reason that I created Power Hour, my monthly Internet radio show where I interview today’s top energy experts on today’s top energy issues, is that too much discussion of energy issues consists of sound-bites or out-of-context statistics, without the full context. On the February Power Hour, guest Michael Lynch stressed this point in connection with Peak Oil theory, where many “experts” lack a solid foundation in the economics and history of the petroleum industry. And this week in the New York Times, Lynch made the same point about the recent hubbub over Saudi oil reserves. I strongly recommend reading the whole thing, but I want to highlight a couple of passages:

AS WikiLeaks’s trove of diplomatic dispatches continues to trickle out, one recent release has caused quite a stir: a cable from an American diplomat who said he was told by a Saudi oil executive that both official estimates of Saudi oil reserves and their ability to meet global demand in the long run have been vastly exaggerated. In turn, many proponents of “peak oil” theory, the idea that the global rate of oil production has entered a terminal decline, have insisted that the cable confirms their view on resource scarcity.

Actually, it does nothing of the sort. The Saudi executive, Sadad al-Husseini, a former head of exploration for the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, has been making such claims for years. Finding them repeated in a confidential cable is news only to those unfamiliar with the field.

In other words, the cable is “news” in the same way that a cable from Al Gore warning of catastrophic global warming would be news.

More important, his claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, according to the cable, Dr. Husseini said that estimates of Saudi “reserves” were exaggerated by some 300 billion barrels. But this is impossible, as the Saudi government’s estimate of proven reserves is actually less than that amount–roughly 267 billion barrels.

More likely, Dr. Husseini was referring to claims by some Saudi oil executives that, over the long term, they expect to find 900 billion barrels in the ground, and that 51 percent of it will be recoverable. So the dispute has nothing to do with current reserves, but with projections that are speculative by definition. Aramco’s numbers may be an educated guess, but experts in the field know they are just a guess.

In other words, many discussing the story don’t know the meaning of the term “reserves,” nor the amount of Saudi Arabia’s declared reserves. And yet, they are willing to proclaim that oil production is terminally declining, and that this will inevitably lead to some sort of apocalypse.

For a serious, in-depth examination of Peak Oil and the fallacies behind it, listen to my hour-long interview with Lynch on February’s show. And to keep up with future shows, subscribe to my monthly newsletter, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Energy.”

On the latest episode of Power Hour—the monthly Internet radio show where I interview today’s top energy experts to discuss today’s top energy issues—I talk to Michael Lynch, President of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, about the widespread theory of Peak Oil: the idea that the world faces an inevitable, imminent, and disastrous decline in oil production.

Here are a few of the many topics we covered:

• The most popular arguments for Peak Oil—do they add up?
• What is the future of oil production around the world?
• Why people keep confidently predicting “peak oil,” even though such predictions have been failing for decades.
• The overlooked role of politics and economics in determining rises and falls in oil production.

Download “Power Hour with Alex Epstein,” Episode 2: Michael Lynch

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“Most of us do not take much note when February 2 passes–and if we do, it’s just in reference to Groundhog Day. But February 2nd marks something much more important than a mythical, weather-forecasting rodent. It is the birthday of the late, great author and philosopher Ayn Rand, the woman who gave us Atlas Shrugged (1957), one of the most influential works of the 20th century.”

“Although Atlas Shrugged is a must read for everyone, it is particularly the case for anyone in the business world. If you ask any hundred successful businessmen chosen at random to name the book that has most inspired them, you will undoubtedly hear Atlas Shrugged repeated over and over. Why?”

To find out, read “Why Businessmen Should Say Happy Birthday to Ayn Rand,” my latest article on FoxNews.com.

In a State of the Union Address that purported to take energy issues seriously, President Obama took an ominous tone toward an indispensable form of energy: oil. Oil is the lifeblood of our economy, the fuel of our engines, the material of our petroleum products—and it is extremely difficult to substitute for.

And yet President Obama bashed oil as ‘yesterday’s energy,’ claiming that much of it can be replaced by biofuels, solar, and wind, if only Americans would consent to subsidizing them even more (they already get upwards of 100 times the subsidy that oil does).

This claim is completely baseless—and, at a time when oil prices are rising and Obama has already clamped down on drilling, incredibly dangerous. Oil cannot be dismissed as “yesterday’s energy,” for it is the energy of the present and will be crucial for the foreseeable future. In attacking oil, the President is not helping our energy future—he is making it far more bleak.

I am thrilled to announce the debut of my new monthly Internet-radio-show/podcast, “Power Hour”—an interview show that brings in today’s top energy experts to break down today’s top energy issues. With in-depth interviews of experts on controversies such as “green energy,” offshore drilling, “energy independence,” fossil fuels, etc, “Power Hour” seeks to help listeners get clear on these complex but vital issues.

One of the themes of the show will be the crucial, life-and-death importance of understanding energy and energy policy. The amount of energy human beings can harness from nature is directly correlated to standard of living; where energy production abounds, life abounds–where energy production is stifled or absent, life is shorter and suffering is rampant. It is therefore imperative that our government pursue the proper policies with regard to energy, and that we know what those are; as one of the refrains in the show goes: “Power Hour: Because what you don’t know about energy can kill you.”

The first episode of Power Hour features an extended discussion with Robert Bryce, author of the popular energy books Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence and Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future. The interview focuses on the crucial importance of power in human life, and the inability of “green” energy and “energy independence” to supply that power. Check it out! Comments welcome.

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Download “Power Hour with Alex Epstein,” Episode 1: Robert Bryce

Subscribe to “Power Hour with Alex Epstein” on iTunes

My recent article, “The 6 Myths About Oil,” attracted a lot of attention on FOXNews.com (over 200 comments and 2000 recommendations). It may surprise you that, given my article’s pro-oil stance and FOX’s right-wing reputation, most of the comments were negative. In any case, I’m glad that a wide spectrum of readers read the piece.

There was one common thread among the comments that I would like to discuss, since it comes up a lot in energy discussions. It was the claim that there are superior alternatives to oil that, given my strong support of oil, I am opposing and helping to suppress.

It should go without saying that I and any other decent person would welcome any superior substitute for oil. But when discussing potential substitutes, the question is: Is there one and how do you prove it? My answer to the latter is: you prove it by actually outcompeting oil–that is, by actually convincing users of gasoline, diesel fuel, plastics, oil-based fertilizer, etc., that, given their needs and budgets, your product is better. Too much energy discussion treats the question of oil substitutes as one to be debated by pundits and then imposed by government. But government-mandated energy schemes are a violation of the rights of producers and consumers and a prescription for a central-planning debacle.

Case in point: one particularly frequent poster was a staunch advocate of methanol (note: not the same thing as ethanol), which is a form of alcohol-based fuel that can be created from coal, natural gas, or plant matter. The commenter claimed it was cheaper than oil (the equivalent of $1.60 a gallon) and that it requires a mere $130 added expense for auto manufacturers–which he declared should be mandatory. But if the case for methanol is so economically open and shut, he wouldn’t need to call for government mandates. Investors would be racing to put billions of dollars into this oil-beater.

The fact that this methanol-booster is demanding a mandate is a dead giveaway that there are real, serious obstacles to methanol becoming a viable substitute. In his comprehensive book Oil 101, industry expert Morgan Downey makes several relevant points on this matter: “Methanol contains only 50% of the energy of an equivalent volume of conventional gasoline. In addition, methanol is poisonous to humans in relatively small volumes.” The book also discusses methanol’s challenges with engine corrosion and myriad safety hazards associated with it.

Note that in dozens of posts, the methanol booster, who was quite intelligent and educated, did not see fit to mention these challenges of methanol–nor did he raise countless other questions that would arise in creating large-scale methanol operations on anywhere near the scale of oil (of which we use one billion gallons a day). I have nothing against methanol per se. What I am against is people ignoring the fact that there are reasons why we use oil instead of other sources of energy, and who demand we submit to their arbitrary schemes to “get off oil.”

Those who believe strongly in the viability of methanol or anything else should go prove their ideas by outcompeting oil for our dollars on the market (without subsidies). If they’re right, they will get rich and we all win. But if they’re wrong, and their brilliant ideas aren’t as brilliant as they thought, we don’t have to go down with their ship.

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Wind power is the most common form of “green” energy in the world (largely because it is cheaper than solar). Great Britain in particular has hitched its future to wind power. Recently, they’ve experienced one of the fundamental and obvious problems with wind in particularly severe form–the “intermittency problem,” i.e., that wind does not blow consistently and thus cannot be counted on.

As Briton Tom Mcghie writes in The Daily Mail,

In the last quarter ending December 23, wind turbines produced on average 8.6 per cent of our electricity, but the moment the latest bad weather arrived with snow and freezing temperatures, this figure fell to as low as 1.8 per cent.The slack was immediately taken up by efficient, but dirty, coal-fired power stations and oil-fired plants.

‘What is so worrying is that these sort of figures are not a one off,’ said Mr Nicholson. ‘It was exactly the same last January and February when high pressure brought freezing cold temperatures, snow and no wind.’

In fact last year, the failure of wind power to produce electricity was even more profound.

Then, over a few days, the lack of wind meant that only 0.2 per cent of a possible five per cent of the UK’s energy was generated by wind turbines.

Remember this next time Barack Obama or Thomas L. Friedman bemoans that we are “behind” Europe in “green energy.”

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