Yesterday, I shared my disdain for the carnival that surrounds the State of the Union address. The gist of my argument is that the media takes it way too seriously and the President doesn’t need a platform to speak to Congress or the people to lay out an agenda. Perhaps 200 years ago, but not [...]

Markets fail. We were reminded of this with the financial crisis. That was a failure of catastrophic proportions. They are not always so bad, but they will always fail. Take the EPA’s market for renewable credits. The EPA has a target for the amount of biofuel that’s blended into our fossil fuels. Certain activities with [...]

A reader writes: I am a biologist, and got into an argument a few evenings ago with an economist about whether it was going to help the economy, or anyone’s utility, to reduce emissions and in other ways act to reduce climate change. … The arguments… Biologist: Massive shifts in our infrastructure (as in the [...]

Between gas prices and government regulation, fuel economy on vehicles has started to climb significantly. Manufacturers fought the regulation, but now they aren’t fighting consumer demand. When the recession hit people stopped buying new cars. There’s now pent up demand as consumers are tired of paying for repairs and dealing with crappy mileage. Millions either [...]

For years now we’ve been bragging to the world about now we won’t need their oil any more thanks to natural gas. Estimates vary, but we have somewhere along the lines of as much gas in our ground as the universe has suns, or something. We have a lot. Natural gas is considered a “bridge [...]

T. Boone Pickens is a well known billionaire that for the most part has made his money investing in energy businesses. Today he runs a hedge fund but previously made his billions during the buyout craze of the 1980s. For some he’s known as the loony old guy behind the “Pickens Plan” commercials that ran [...]

The rise in gas prices sparks all kinds of conversations about $4 a gallon, $5 a gallon, $200 oil and all sorts of other things. We’ve heard about such things for years and no one is surprised to see those kinds of headlines anymore. While it is true that the economy is recovering and that [...]

Americans love their meat. Along with countries like Australia and Spain we consume the most meat per person in the world. Before the recession hit we were eating almost 190 pounds of meat per person. That’s more than half a pound of meat per day. Today is Friday and the last time I had meat [...]