So, the bad guys are found in the green business, too. Police in Italy have charged eight people, allegedly with Mafia connections, for corrupting local politicians in order to get a project for a wind farm in Sicily assigned to companies close to the Mafia. Honest people in the renewable industry, such as Carlo Durante of the Milan-based Maestrale Green Energy, have pointed out that the main reason why the Mafia can play the renewable game is the confusion and uncertainty in the licensing process, which has too many people involved in giving the authorizations and a great degree of arbitrariness. There is more than a grain of truth in this: It doesn’t apply to the renewable business alone, indeed, but it is a general feature of “doing business” in the country, as a World Bank survey demonstrates eloquently.…
Continue ReadingGovernment policies that arrest economic recovery and diminish economic growth reduce our carbon footprint. Indeed, human misery and carbon reduction are positively correlated in a growing world where consumers demand red-meat energy–oil, gas, and coal. The Malthusian wing of the Obama Administration knows this, and they might just be hoping that the recession will last long enough so that folks question their long-standing belief of economic growth. Rising expectations among the masses is the bane of interventionists and Malthusians everywhere.
So get ready for the end-of-growth mantra from the Left as time marches on and Obama’s economic recovery plan keeps the economy from recovering.…
Continue ReadingYesterday, the National Clean Energy Product Summit was held in Washington, DC to discuss the Center for American Progress’ s February 2009 white paper titled “Wired for Progress: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid.” Participants included Steven Chu, Al Gore, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., T. Boone Pickens, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and pretty much everyone else who thinks they know a priori how to most efficiently organize and manage the electricity sector. As one might expect, no good came of it.…
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