Comments (24)

• John

  "A rather serious problem, which seems largely to have been ignored by those urging a race to build windmills and solar panels, is the fact that the wind does not always blow, nor does the sun always shine."

  Well, I'm not trying to stick up for them, but I hardly think anyone has largely ignored this issue.

  Published: April 22, 2009 7:55 AM

• Jonathan Finegold Catalán

  I don't know if this is true or not, but my uncle (both a farmer and a professor at the Politécnica de Madrid) mentioned that in Murcia (I believe it was Murcia) solar panels have actually caused it to rain less. He cited evidence of decreasing rain at an above average pace, as compared to the rest of Spain. Although he didn't show many any scientific study, and I can't seem to find any, he said that there were serious studies that proved the case.

  The point being, maybe these green technologies are not so green.

  Published: April 22, 2009 8:45 AM

• Borislav

  Greens are truly "watermelons" -- green on the outside and red on the inside.

  Think about it ;-).

  Published: April 22, 2009 9:11 AM

• KP

  Jonathan,

  I would really like to know of these so called studies. Photoelectric affect has been in use since the early part of the last century with no claim to a reduction of rain fall due to solar usage. In fact, I cannot comprehend how solar panels could cause a reduction in rain fall; the whole idea is using the photons from UV rays to excite the material in the panels to free the electrons and create electricity.

  I have to agree with John:

  Studies have been made already in regards to George Reisman's comment ""A rather serious problem, which seems largely to have been ignored by those urging a race to build windmills and solar panels, is the fact that the wind does not always blow, nor does the sun always shine."

  If you follow any of the recent proposal especially in the west; most of these solar and wind farms will be placed in conjunction with one another, when its not sunny its most likely windy and vice versa.

  The idea of wind farms have been in existence for a long period of time and many countries in Europe already utilize this technology. However, I do not believe it should replace Coal or Nuclear power; and I do not propose the government to sponsor these initiatives. Just merely stating the facts.

  Published: April 22, 2009 9:13 AM

• JP White

  @KP - Even when you design a system to try to take advantage of naturally occurring patterns of wind and solar distribution, you will still have a great many times when you have neither. The only practical solution found to this problem is to store the energy produced by intermittant power sources on a large scale. The only efficient way yet found to do this is to pump water up to a storage lake, then release it through turbines as power is needed. I've tried numerous times to explain to people who are big solar / wind advocates that part and parcel to solar and wind are large storage facilities (which they don't want built.) Bottom line, when we look at alternative energy we need to consider the total costs involved. For me, that means the total economic costs of the solar and wind installations plus the energy storage facilities. For many other people, that try to calculate everything based on so called environmental cost, they need to consider that a large number of huge dams would need to be built.

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:17 AM

• Per-Olof Samuelsson

  To all his other outstanding achievements, George Reisman can now add the honor of being the new Frédéric Bastiat!

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:26 AM

• greg

  You made a point about digging up coal and deposit it back into the ground in a environmentally safe container.

  You made Buffet's point about gold! People dig it up to place it in safe containers in the ground.

  Your arguements are old, tired and without merit.

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:27 AM

• Eric

  Excellent article, as much for its sarcasm as its substance, which is solid. Too many people seem unable to follow an argument to its logical conclusion. The scariest part at this point is that the global warming hype has gained such widespread media acceptance that even 31,000 scientists who publicly disagree with the concept are wholely ignored by both the media and federal government. It no longer matters what the weather is like, anthropogenic global warming is taken at face value as absolute fact. The tyranny that can grow out of such willful delusion is frightening to imagine.

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:49 AM

• Silas Barta

  Someone simplify this for me: Does George Reisman support the delineation of property rights in scarce environmental resources that allow for the pricing and accurate economic calculation of the cost of using such resources, or doesn't he?

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:53 AM

• ET

  "nor does the sun always shine."

  Ahhhh, but in space, no one can hear you scream - err, I mean the sun always shines.

  Better not say this too loud or you'll revive the NASA plan to put up orbiting giant solar cell energy collectors with microwave beaming back to earth.

  This might one day actually be a viable method of energy production. The book, Colonies in space, did have some other good ideas, such as lasso an asteroid, bring it back to Earth orbit and mine it from space. And without gravity, you don't need really strong support beams. I liked the ideas in that book - mass drivers to propel things back from the moon, robotic beam builders using stuff found in space etc.

  Sadly, though, space has been dominated by governments who can't even figure out that a spinning space station would produce artificial gravity so people might actually be able to live there without their bones disintegrating. But wait, all that pollution getting to space - forgettaboutit!

  Published: April 22, 2009 11:05 AM

• KP

  JP White:

  "@KP - Even when you design a system to try to take advantage of naturally occurring patterns of wind and solar distribution, you will still have a great many times when you have neither. The only practical solution found to this problem is to store the energy produced by intermittant power sources on a large scale. The only efficient way yet found to do this is to pump water up to a storage lake, then release it through turbines as power is needed. I've tried numerous times to explain to people who are big solar / wind advocates that part and parcel to solar and wind are large storage facilities (which they don't want built.) Bottom line, when we look at alternative energy we need to consider the total costs involved. For me, that means the total economic costs of the solar and wind installations plus the energy storage facilities. For many other people, that try to calculate everything based on so called environmental cost, they need to consider that a large number of huge dams would need to be built."

  The point I was advocating is that engineers such as myself are not imbeciles to not think of all the possible problems to occur. Intermittent power is one of them, especially if you want consider the energy markets we have today(I worked for one of the RTOs in the past). However, ideas of renewable energy has been something sought out for since the first perpetual machine idea, a machine with endless energy.

  Solutions for intermittent power have been proposed to not only allow a combination of solar wind and other renewable energy options such as hydro to function together but also create a huge network of renewable sources across a larger grid to reduce this intermittent power and the overall affect on the supply.

  There are ways to solve this, its being proposed in Europe and America will slowly follow afterwords but the Power industry in general are very conservative and do not want to be the first in anything.

  But back to my point, to state that no one came up with a possible solution for the disadvantages of renewable sources such as solar and wind is idiotic.

  Published: April 22, 2009 11:22 AM

• David ch

  'Big-rig trucks and their "polluting" emissions might be done away with by replacing them with human porters who would carry freight on their backs. Ocean-going ships and their emissions might be done away with by replacing their "dirty engines" with the clean labor of banks of oarsmen''

  Same point made entertainingly here:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus

  Published: April 22, 2009 12:17 PM

• David Spellman

  There are some corners of the intellectual community where this article's thesis and proposals are taken seriously. Environmentalism is one discipline where nothing is too absurd or ridiculous. What other discipline considers dramatic reduction of the human population to be the zenith of virtue?

  Published: April 22, 2009 12:56 PM

• Barry Loberfeld

  
  Published in the April 2003 issue of
  The Freeman,
  
  
  
  a journal of the
  
  Foundation for Economic Education
  

  
  Saving Suburbia?
  
  
  The Idiocy of "Smart Growth"
  

  
  One of the more obnoxious (and, frankly, dangerous) trends here on Long
  Island is the growing number of "grass roots" activists who've taken it upon
  themselves to inform the "less socially aware" -- meaning everyone else -- that
  our fair isle is suffering (yes, suffering) from "too much development": too many
  warehouses and office buildings, too many cars and highways, too many golf
  courses, too many strip malls (a particularly favorite target, for some reason),
  too many new neighborhoods and -- the root of all this evil -- too many people. We
  are sacrificing "the environment" -- our trees, trails, ponds, blueberries,
  warblers and tanagers (I had to look that last one up) -- to this "too much
  development," to the "urbanization of the suburbs." Pledging themselves to "act
  locally," these self-styled "progressives" are petitioning their county
  legislature (Big Brother's little brother) to step in and -- as if normal
  community growth were a felony offense -- put a stop to any further development,
  an agenda that is ridiculously dubbed "Smart Growth."*

  
  Now it seems to me that this arrogant presumption suggests its own modest
  proposal: If we are already suffering from "too much development," which implies
  that these activists know (and have the right to determine) exactly how much
  development the rest of us should have, then shouldn't we demolish some of this
  development in order to descend to that specific (though as yet unspecified) level?
  

  
  Why not send in the wrecking crews to raze the strip malls and even the
  major ones -- and then attempt to reforest the area? Why not turn the Roosevelt
  Field Mall into blueberry fields forever? Let's bulldoze all of that new housing
  and allow Mother Nature to reclaim the land for the warblers and the tanagers.
  Instead of merely opposing expansion of Route 25A, why not go ahead and close it
  off to everyone? Those who wish to travel can bike the trails or, even better,
  just walk. But the really great thing about all this destruction is how it will
  solve the people problem ("population congestion") by necessarily forcing the
  flight of Long Islanders of every stripe, from Mexican day laborers to
  the "quality of life" protest groups that routinely demand their deportation.

  
  Those on the left look at development the way their right-wing
  counterparts look at immigration: It was fine before, but not anymore. Both
  scramble to close the gates behind them -- and to hell with those on the other
  side. Incredibly, they imagine that they can freeze time or even turn back the
  clock to a "more preferable" period (for them, that is). The fact is, property --
  and freedom -- will always attract new people, which means new development, which
  in turn attracts more people. It is the history of human civilization, and it will
  be the history of the human future. We cannot sacrifice that future to a
  conception of "the environment" that, too obviously, signifies only all that is
  not human.

  
  Barry Loberfeld
  

  Published: April 22, 2009 1:06 PM

• Brian Gladish

  Thanks to George Reisman who never shrinks from pushing the envelope to demonstrate the absurdity of a popular position. Please keep up the good work!

  Published: April 22, 2009 1:14 PM

• newson

  as gerry jackson from brookesnews (23/7/07) says:

  "...upper limit for a windmill is about 59.3 per cent. This is also called the Betz limit. What the Betz tells us is that it is impossible for any windmill or wind turbine to turn more than 59.3 the per cent of the wind’s energy into mechanical or electrical energy. In English so plain that even a union official can understand it — wind power is dilute and that’s where its diseconomies of scale come from. And diseconomies of scale mean rising costs, not falling costs. Another insurmountable technical problem is the scientific fact that the maximum power one can extract from a windmill is also proportional to the third power of the wind’s velocity. This means that even small changes in wind velocity will generate huge disproportionate changes in output, even with the best designed windmills."

  not even greens can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

  Published: April 22, 2009 7:55 PM

• Brian Kolb

  Good article.

  Published: April 22, 2009 9:11 PM

• TokyoTom

  I too have enjoyed another delightful article from Dr. Reisman; bravo!

  But Dr. Reisman`s style does seem to present problems of interpretation for some readers, whom do not seem to understand that while Dr. Reisman appears to simply be bashing environmentalists or environmentalism generally (by focussing on the most absurd arguments that some of them offer), he is in fact challenging his readers to do precisely what he has studiously avoided.

  That is, far from simply pulling the wings off of flies as he might seem to some, Dr. Reisman is actually suggesting that serious students of economics and libertarian approaches to society should diligently:

  - seek to engage others productively and with sympathy, in a manner carefully designed to improve the functioning of markets and ancillary institutions that enhance plan formation across society;

  - note that there are many important, valuable open-access/unowed resources and government-owned resources - in which property rights and pricing mechanisms are working poorly at best;

  - acknowledge that while proposed "solutions" offered by environmentalists may be misguided, enviros have legitimate preferences as to how such resources should be protected, managed and distributed; and

  - recognize that the concerns of enviros frequently arise in response to government interventions have clearly benefitted powerful insiders, including wealthy investors and large enterprises, while shifting costs and risks more broadly.

  As a result, Dr. Reisman`s tongue-in-cheek posts are in fact searing indictments of the status quo and tbe fat cats who are using government to stifle open competition, consumer choice and innovation, while frequently generating large external costs. Unlike some who spoil the fun by engaging in the pedestrian task of spelling out the problems with the status quo that enviros are right to be dissatisfied with, Dr. Reisman treats his readers as adults by bracingly challenging them to use their thinking caps and to clear their own heads.

  For those for whom this task is too difficult, perhaps this piece by Lew Rockwell might be a good start:

  "Just who is in charge of getting electricity to residents? A public utility, which, in the absurd American lexicon, means "state-run" and "state-managed," perhaps with a veneer of private trappings. If you look at the electrical grid on a map, it is organized by region. If you look at the jurisdiction of management, it is organized by political boundaries.

  "In other ways, the provision of power is organized precisely as a central planner of the old school might plan something: not according to economics but according to some textbook idea of how to be "organized." It is "organized" the same way the Soviets organized grain production or the New Deal organized bridge building.

  "All of centralization and cartelization began nearly a century ago, as Robert Bradley points out in Energy: The Master Resource, when industry leaders obtained what was known as a regulatory covenant. They received franchise protection from market competition in exchange for which they agreed to price controls based on a cost-plus formula — a formula that survives to this day.

  "Then the economists got involved ex post and declared that electrical power is a "public good," under the belief that private enterprise is not up to the job of providing the essentials of life.

  "What industry leaders received from this pact with the devil was a certain level of cartel-like protection, the same type that the English crown granted tea or the US government grants first-class postal mail. It is a government privilege that subjects them to regulation and immunizes companies from business failure. It's great for a handful of producers, but not so great for everyone else.

  "There are many costs. Customers are not in charge. They are courted only for political reasons but they are not the first concern of the production process. Entrepreneurial development is hindered. Our current system of electrical provision is stuck in time. Meanwhile, sectors that provide DSL and other forms of internet and telecommunication services are expanded and advancing day by day — not with perfect results but at least with the desire to serve consumers. ...

  "How New York and California consumers would adore a setting in which power companies were begging for their business and encouraging them to turn down their thermostats to the coldest point. Competition would lead to price reductions, innovation, and an ever greater variety of services — the same as we find in the computer industry.

  "What we are learning in our times is that no essential sector of life can be entrusted to the state. Energy is far too important to the very core of life to be administered by a bureaucracy that lacks the economic means to provide for the public. How it should be organized we can't say in advance: it should be left to the markets. Whatever the result, you can bet the grid would not look like it does today, nor would its management be dependent on the whims of political jurisdiction.

  "What we need today is full, radical, complete, uncompromised deregulation and privatization. We need competition. That doesn't mean that we need two or more companies serving every market (though that was common up through the 1960s). What we need is the absence of legal barriers to enter the market."
  http://mises.org/daily/2264

  Thanks, again, Dr. Reisman, for challenging us, and not pandering to the dullest and laziest among us, the way LewRockwell does!

  Your admiring pupil (and fellow enviro-hater),

  TT

  Published: April 23, 2009 5:32 AM

• newson

  love the sinner, hate the sin.

  Published: April 23, 2009 5:38 AM

• TokyoTom

  Silas:

  Does George Reisman support the delineation of property rights in scarce environmental resources that allow for the pricing and accurate economic calculation of the cost of using such resources, or doesn't he?

  Good question. Using may patented, exegetical ignore-the-text-and-read-behind-the-lines approach, one would have to conclude that Dr. Reisman fully appreciates that people have different preferences over unowned (or government-owned) resources and believes in pushing vigorously for privatization and deregulation when government is in the way and is sympathetic toward the efforts that have always proven essential in creating property rights and ancillary institution.

  His constructive (in the legal sense) encouragement for greater efforts on these points can be seen most clearly in his March 2007 post, Global Warming: Environmentalism’s Threat of Hell on Earth, in which Dr. Reisman appeared to seriously argue that

  "there is a case for considering the possible detonation, on uninhabited land north of 70° latitude, say, of a limited number of hydrogen bombs. ... This is certainly something that should be seriously considered by everyone who is concerned with global warming and who also desires to preserve modern industrial civilization and retain and increase its amenities. If there really is any possibility of global warming so great as to cause major disturbances, this kind of solution should be studied and perfected. Atomic testing should be resumed for the purpose of empirically testing its feasibility."
  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/04/23/in-which-i-applaud-another-balanced-productive-post-by-dr-reisman.aspx

  While apparently serious, how could this possibly be a libertarian, nonstatist proposal? The answer must clearly be - since Dr. Reisman is a lover of freedom and markets, and not of big government or goverment-run mega projects - that he was simply, in a playful manner, inviting his readers to conclude that efforts to encourage private and multilateral, cooperative approaches to commons problems should be strongly encouraged.

  Published: April 23, 2009 11:08 AM

• redshirt

  Jonathan, evaporation rates depend more on incident light than temperature. Maybe around solar panel installations the rate of evaporation is lower due to conversion of light energy and shading of the ground?

  Using government money in a process to create "environmental" jobs is insane. On the other hand, including environmentally sound decision making in the allocation of resources seems essential. As such, I don't much understand, "Such is the nature of environmentalism." Just the opposite is the case-- environmentalism as exercised by a business would be to ensure it had a safe environment to work in, sustainable resource management, and sensitivity to resources of your customers.

  Published: April 23, 2009 12:27 PM

• Matt

  Dr. Reisman does have a sense of Humor after all.
  He clearly points out the contradictions of the proposals made by the Environmentalists.
  Solar and Wind Power are good ideas however one should never forget the costs involved should they come to fruition at this time. Yes we can have these non polluting sources of energy but at what cost? Even if Trillions were miss-spent it would take decades before all were in place and these funds would be taken from more urgent needs.

  Has it ever occurred to the environmentalists that they would have to pay much more for these new sources than they do now, for if the costs of the environmentally friendly sources were less than coal or petroleum then we would be using more of them right now.

  I would suggest that those who wish for a super clean environment that they immediately forgo the use of their cars and turn-off the electricity to their homes and live in a cave and scratch a living from the self-tended garden next to it. No need to go into the reduction of the average life span of those living in that pristine environment.

  All is not lost though...one day in the distant future beyond all of our lifetimes there will come into being an atomic automobile that is non polluting and very long lasting, however I suspect the environmentalist will still find something to moan and groan about...It seems they will not be happy as long as Humans change the earth for their own betterment.

  Published: April 23, 2009 10:41 PM

• SailDog

  George Reisman is largely irrelevant and his arguments ludicrous.

  There are no silver bullets that will fix our energy crisis. Perhaps the most effective of many solutions will simply be to use less. Wind is part of the solution as is solar and nuclear.

  The key determinant of viable energy is EROI - Energy Return on Investment - or how much energy is required to procure the next joule of useable energy. It is measured as a ratio, for instance 8:1 (gasoline average).

  The primary reason for the current recession is that our useable energy resources have been declining. While the headline number for barrels of oil, or tonnes of coal may have been static over the last few years, in fact the net energy output has been in decline as oil reserves become more difficult to find and overall average coal quality degrades.

  Money is merely a proxy for EROI; and the price of a particular energy type reflects not only the absolute number of joules embodied in it, but also its availability, transportability and usability. That is why oil tends to be valued highest.

  Economically, as total usable energy available to society has declined, more resources have been devoted to procuring energy. That is why food prices have increased sharply; and it is at least one reason why lots of people couldn't pay their mortgages, thereby deceiving almost everybody into thinking we are in a financial crisis.

  We face a massive reorganization of our economies. Oil production cannot increase; and coal production (in the US) has been declining in total joules even though tonnages have increased. The EROI of nuclear is debatable while wind is in the 20-30 range (perfectly acceptable).

  George Reisman should limit his own exposure of his ignorance. The wind does blows 100% of the time, somewhere. There is sufficient wind over the US every single second of every single day to power the whole country. You just need a smart grid and enough wind-turbines.

  Published: April 24, 2009 8:48 PM

• gene

  Obama and his helpers simply want to "allow" massive production of energy to be done by socalled "green" corporations. Until now we have "allowed" massive production of energy to be done [and profited] by non-green energy monopolies.
  The profits will be directed by the government to so called "green" corps rather than "exploitive" corps. This is a substantial difference but small in comparison to the free "demand" for energy by a free people being satisfied by a "free" economy. We never got that chance and by all outlooks we never will.
  Obama's answer is not any more "socialistic" than the corporate-government alliance answer has been for 150 years, just some differing methods of extractions and some different players.
  Fighting "green" energy does not do anything to support the free market, it just shifts our support back to the monopoly resource corporations.
  Articles like this are cheap entertainment but offer no solutions and most likely was written with the help of some subsidized monopoly utility power. A true anarchist would get off the grid.
  
  

  Published: April 26, 2009 12:53 PM