Another week, another disconcerting e-mail dump to push the Solyndra scandal deeper into the history books as an example of why industrial policy in the United States tends to go badly. According to newly released emails, the former Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison told officials at the Department of Energy that he wanted to announce a round …
Energy
The President and the Pipeline
President Barack Obama told an Omaha news program on Tuesday that he will make the final decision whether to permit construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline, and whether to require that it be routed away from the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies 2 million people in the plains states with drinking water.
Solyndra and the Green Jobs Fantasy
The talented Mike Grunwald laid out the case yesterday for quarantining Solyndra from the rest of the solar effort. Just because Solyndra’s model failed, he says, doesn’t mean the rest of the push to fund innovation in …
Don’t Be Fooled By the Solyndra Bankruptcy Circus — Solar Is Booming
I doubt the facts are going to matter much now that Republicans have latched onto the Solyndra solar “scandal,” and even if they did matter, I’d be the wrong guy to defend the Obama administration (and some of the world’s top venture capitalists) for making the same honest mistake I made. After a few dozen Solyndra hearings like …
Obama Leads From Behind Again, This Time On Strategic Oil Reserve
The news that President Obama has authorized the release of 30 million barrels of oil from the gulf coast caverns that hold America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve came in an unusual way. In the past, when a president has taken the extraordinary step of tapping the SPR, as it’s known, he has done so to maximum political advantage, hinting …
Would Cutting Oil Company Tax Subsidies Raise Gas Prices?
Gandel checks Boehner’s claim:
Indeed, the recent rise of gas prices seems to be slowing the economy. So raising taxes on oil companies does seem to be a bad move if it will result in higher gas prices. But is that what would really happen? Probably not.
The Nuclear Renaissance: Still Dead
The Japan nuclear disaster has inspired a lot of speculation about the implications for the American nuclear renaissance. The short answer is that the implications are not very good, especially since, as some of us have been pointing out for quite some time, the American nuclear renaissance is a myth. The math just doesn’t add up, …