Energy

American Quality of Life Jeopardized Due to Reduction of Refineries

Ronald Stein — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Most people may not realize that the underground black tar commonly referred to as crude oil is essentially useless unless refined into something usable. Fortunately, in less than a few centuries, mankind’s ingenuity led to 250 groundbreaking hydrocarbon processing and refining techniques being discovered. The impact of that ingenuity continues today, benefiting the 8 billion people living on Earth with more than 6,000 products and transportation fuels that are derived from oil.

Across the world, people are living longer. In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021, this had more than doubled to 71 years. Today, it’s better than 75 years.

Today, we have more than 50,000 merchant ships, more than 20,000 commercial aircraft, and more than 50,000 military aircraft that are built with products made from oil. The transportation fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of jets moving people and products, and the merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military and space programs, are also dependent on what can be manufactured from crude oil.

In addition to the large oil reserves, the world has an abundance of coal that can somewhat replace crude oil through coal gasification and coal liquefaction plants, but they, too, have emission challenges.

We know that raw crude oil is useless unless it can be refined into derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products, and for various transportation fuels.

Technology is always evolving, like fracking, but at the current crude oil usage of about 82 million barrels a day, those “known” reserves of crude oil may run out in the next 100 years or more.

Refineries in America are getting old, and several are starting to shut down.

It’s almost impossible to get a new refinery sited, permitted, and built in America.

Coal gasification and coal liquefaction plants may face the same or even greater challenges for new refineries – getting them sited, permitted, and built.

However, the expansion plans for refineries, coal gasification, and coal liquefaction plants face challenges, particularly with growing environmental concerns and policy shifts towards reducing emissions and fossil fuel consumption, according to the Institute for Energy Research.

In recent decades, no new refineries have been built in America. Building these projects is not only expensive but also fraught with environmental and political opposition, particularly with rising concerns over climate change and the transition to greener energy. These projects can experience delays due to various factors, including financing, logistics, and regulatory hurdles.

Read the rest of this piece at America Out Loud.

Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book "Clean Energy Exploitations."

Photo: courtesy America Out Loud.

Wind Brake

Robert Bryce — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

During more than 15 years of reporting on the opposition to solar and wind projects, I’ve never seen anything like the opposition to the Lava Ridge wind project.

As I explained in these pages last September, the entire state of Idaho was against it.

In 2023, the Idaho House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution stating its opposition to the proposed project, which aimed to put a 1,200-megawatt wind project on 57,000 acres of federal land near the southern Idaho town of Dietrich. Residents objected to the project for multiple reasons, including concerns that it would infringe on the Minidoka National Historic Site, which commemorates the incarceration of thousands of Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

Despite the state’s fierce opposition, the Biden administration predictably did Big Wind’s bidding. On December 11, 2024, less than six weeks before Joe Biden left the White House, the Department of Interior published a short note in the Federal Register saying that it would issue a permit for New York-based LS Power to build the 231-turbine project on acreage owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

Last Wednesday, in a move that numerous Idaho politicians applauded, the Trump Administration rescinded that permit. The Interior Department said it “will no longer provide preferential treatment towards unreliable, intermittent power sources that harm rural communities, livelihoods and the land.” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the decision “defends the American taxpayer, safeguards our land, and averts what would have been one of the largest, most irresponsible wind projects in the nation.”

Now that the Trump administration has done the right thing on Lava Ridge, it should also put a stop to Philip Anschutz’s massive Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind project in Wyoming, which aims to use even more federal land than Lava Ridge. Anschutz, a Denver-based billionaire, is a major Republican donor. If he succeeds in getting his Wyoming wind project built, it will have a deadly, long-term impact on America’s Golden Eagle population. It will also slaughter thousands of other birds and some 6,300 bats every year.

Let’s take a look.

The wind industry’s deadly impact on birds is well known. I have been reporting on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act for more than 30 years. For decades, the wind industry has largely been exempted from the enforcement of those statutes.

Read the rest of this piece at: Robert Bryce Substack.

Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and podcaster. His articles have appeared in a myriad of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Time, Austin Chronicle, and Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: Jon Nelson, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

California Net-zero Leaders Want to Shutter its only Zero-emissions Electricity-generating Plant

Ronald Stein — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Over the years, the so-called forward-thinking policymakers in California have achieved questionable results:

California’s high cost of electricity is already more than 80 percent higher than the national average for residential and commercial, more than 140 percent for commercial, and is projected to go even higher.

California imports more electricity than any other US state, more than twice the amount of Virginia, the second-largest importer of electricity. California typically receives between one-fifth and one-third of its electricity supply from outside the state, mostly from out-of-state coal-fired power plants.

California now has the second–highest rate of unemployment.

California has lagging job growth

California has roughly half of the nation’s homeless population

The same policymakers who have achieved the above “low” points for the residents of California are the same ones seeking zero-emission targets for the State, while concurrently attempting to shutter its only zero-emission electricity-generating plant!

California prides itself on being a good environmental steward. However, since 2014, Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp has sold almost a billion dollars of electricity at wholesale to California, mostly from pollution-laden coal-fired electricity generation sites outside of California. PacifiCorp’s lobbying has successfully introduced corruption into California energy policies.

The independent nonprofit intervenor Californians for Green Nuclear Power’s (CGNP’s) filings link this large volume of PacifiCorp power with post-2012 sales to Southern California Edison (SCE) of “unspecified power.” (Unspecified power is a California-specific legal euphemism created in 2010 that mostly applies to out-of-state coal-fired power.)

Read the rest of this piece at America Out Loud.

Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book "Clean Energy Exploitations."

Photo: courtesy America Out Loud.

Democrats Are Not Backing Away from the Green New Deal

Joel Kotkin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

As they contend with their lowest approval ratings in recent memory, Democrats may wish to reconsider some of their least popular positions. Some even suggest the party is preparing to jettison Joe Biden’s “Green New Deal” — once central to his floundering economic agenda. As Axios recently reported, Democratic lawmakers have largely stopped using the term, even as they continue their relentless attacks on all things Trump.

This is just one example of a subtle effort to distance themselves from positions such as climate alarmism, transgender ideology, reparations, and affirmative action — all increasingly out of step with their once-reliable working-class base. But this should be seen less as a genuine change in conviction and more as a tactical retreat from the loudest rhetoric that risks derailing their political recovery. After all, only a handful of Democratic members of Congress voted against the original Green New Deal and they can be expected, like good cadres, to embrace another round as soon as possible.

To date, green politics and opposition to Trump’s climate policies remain one of the most reliable bridges between the two dominant factions within the party: the oligarch-funded establishment and their progressive counterparts. Both support the idea of “net zero”, eliminating all fossil fuel production, and forced urban densification. They may differ on issues such as anti-trust, capital gains, and income redistribution, but not so much on green policies.

Of course, any shift back toward fossil fuels will meet ferocious opposition from progressives and their green allies. The progressives are aware, as the British historian James Heartfield once suggested, that “green capitalism” provides a perfect opportunity for the wealthy to maximise their returns on artificially scarcer resources. They can achieve this from land and agricultural products, notably through mandates and tax breaks for renewable energy.

Ultimately, this hurts middle- and working-class families by raising prices for housing, electricity and gasoline. California, the dominant ideological force in Democratic politics, suffers the highest energy prices in the continental US. The Golden State’s energy prices are double the national average, which has exacerbated “energy poverty”, particularly among the poor and those in the less temperate interior.

These prices reflect the real impact of climate policy. Indeed, in 2023 the California Air Resources Board disclosed that current state climate policies will disproportionately harm households earning less than $100,000 per year, while boosting incomes for those above this threshold.

Read the rest of this piece at: Unherd.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo: Victoria Pickering via Flickr under under CC 2.0 License.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, of Electric Vehicles

Ronald Stein — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Electric vehicles are being mandated in California, but Governor Newsom is oblivious to the fact that it’s just another product that cannot exist without oil, as all the thousands of parts and components of EVs, from tires, insulation, and computers, are made from the oil derivatives manufactured out of crude oil.

Newsom’s efforts to “transition away from fossil fuels” have yet to comprehend that humanity is not addicted to fossil fuels, but they are addicted to the products and transportation fuels made from those fossil fuels to meet the materialistic demands of humanity and the economy. Despite the demand for the products and transportation fuels that so-called renewables cannot make, only wealthy economies, like that in California, have “green” movements and are pursuing them with mandates and costly subsidies.

The recently released documentary “Electric Vehicles: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” isn’t just another documentary that lazily cheerleads the industry, though there is a fair amount of marveling at the technology and underscoring its benefits and potential. It’s an enlightening, educational, and entertaining 90-minute documentary that is a MUST viewing by everyone to enhance their Energy Literacy and help them decide for themselves if EVs are good, bad, or ugly. The documentary is available for purchase at $12.99, or you can rent it for a 72-hour lease for $9.99.

It’s appalling that the policymakers, just in wealthy countries, are setting “green” policies that continue to support humanity’s atrocities and environmental degradation in poorer developing countries that are mining for the exotic minerals and metals to go “green.”

The documentary demonstrates the environmental degradation and humanity’s atrocities to people with yellow, brown, and black skin in those poorer developing countries as unethical and immoral, just for materials to make EV batteries. The documentary is narrated by Larry Elder, a talk radio host, author, politician, lawyer, and former candidate for governor of California.

Read the rest of this piece at America Out Loud.

Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book "Clean Energy Exploitations."

Photo: courtesy America Out Loud.

Spain’s Impossible Dream of ‘Green’ Electricity

Paul Driessen — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Updated Man of La Mancha lyrics could read: “To dream the impossible dream of clean, green, net-zero electricity, to fight the unbeatable foe of manmade climate cataclysms, we must run where the brave dare not go.”

Don Quixote saw windmills as malevolent and dangerous dragons. Spain’s governing classes view them from the Chinese perspective: benevolent and magical dragons.

They’ve erected over 22,000 gigantic windmills, to harness the wind and generate electricity. Portugal has nearly 3,000. Together, when conditions are perfect, they can generate almost 38 gigawatts.

Like Cervantes’ hero, the elites also want “to reach the unreachable star” – or at least capture the energy from one star: the sun. Spain and Portugal together also have 38 GW of photovoltaic solar panels.

However, the Iberian Peninsula neighbors have long ignored the dark sides of the forces they seek to commandeer.

Those wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines sprawl across some 2,000,000 acres of Spanish and Portuguese vistas, habitats and croplands. That’s equal to Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

They kill eagles, bustards, vultures, and other raptors and birds. Building them requires mining, pollution and child labor on historically unprecedented scales. Solar panels are easily destroyed by storms.

Worst, they provide intermittent, weather-dependent electricity – necessitating expensive backup power and making the electrical grid unstable. Just how unstable was demonstrated recently, and dramatically.

On April 16, for the first time, for a few minutes, Spain generated 100% of its electricity with wind, solar and hydro power.

A fortnight later, on April 28, a prolonged blackout sent Iberia into chaos. Lights, televisions, refrigerators, cell phones and traffic lights went dark. Trains, subways and elevators trapped passengers. Airports canceled flights. Hospital backup power provided only basic and emergency services.

The outage even struck parts of France and Belgium. It was Europe’s biggest blackout ever. If France hadn’t shut off its connection to Spain’s cascading problems, all of Europe could have shut down.

Just a week later, another blackout hit Spain’s Canary Islands.

Power outages are nothing new. But the Spain-Portugal blackouts underscore fundamental problems with the supposedly “inevitable transition” from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear electricity to wind, solar and battery power.

Read the rest of this piece at Heartland Institute.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Photo: Andasol Solar Power Station via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 License.

Africa's Deep Tech Centers

Nima Sanandaji — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Deep tech development is dominated by North America, Europe and Asia, however the competition from Africa is also becoming noticeable. Africa´s growing economies already host some of the world´s leading 500 deep tech companies.

This is the finding of the Deep Tech Index. Conducted annually by the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR) with the support of Nordic Capital, this study maps and evaluates the global deep tech landscape.

West Africa has a long history of technological and economic prosperity. Mansa Musa, the 14^th century ruler who is estimated to have been the richest individual in history, is famously from this part of the world.

Nigeria is currently the largest population center of Africa. While the sixth most populous country in the world currently, Nigeria is also experiencing a strong long-term population growth. The size allows economics of scale and in turn success in technologically advanced fields.

Government integrity, property rights and juridical effectiveness need improving in Nigeria, as does business freedom. The level of taxation and government expenditure is however low, which encourages more private business and leads to limited crowding out of private enterprises through government policy.

Lagos in southwestern Nigeria is the most populous city in Africa, and an important center for development of world leading deep tech. The same is true of the nation´s capital Abuja. Both regions have strengths in clean tech. Growing populations in Africa lead to much development of companies dealing with managing the environmental impact of large population concentrations.

Additionally, Lagos is a key global center for photonic & electronic deep tech development. This illustrates that African nations have ability to compete in even the most advanced areas of technology.

Nairobi, the largest city and capital of Kenya, is East Africa’s leading deep tech hub. Nigeria has a similar pattern of economic policy, with strengths when it comes to limited taxation and public expenditure, but limited government integrity and property rights. Besides clean tech, Nairobi also has strength in clean energy deep tech development. A strong link exists between energy supply and prosperity. It is therefore relevant to stay ahead of energy technology in order to boost long term prosperity growth.

Developing with technology is not only a matter of climbing the technological ladder, increasing national security capabilities and boosting prosperity – it is also related to jobs.

Youth unemployment tends to be lower in countries that have many world leading deep tech companies per million adults.

This is because these companies create jobs directly, indirectly via other businesses as undersupplies in the value chain, and also locally through the income effect. The income effect arises because high value chains that bring in international exports pay their employees well, and create indirect revenues in other businesses in the value chain also boosting salary of these businesses – which in turn increases local purchase power and local taxes funding public services. New deep tech jobs stimulate other jobs to grow, boosting prosperity and reducing unemployment risk of the new generation.

Egypt is the deep tech leader of North Africa. The capital city of Cairo is a leading center for economic development and technological progress. The large population creates a need for clean technology solutions.

The economic policy performance of Egypt is similar to Kenya and Nigeria, with strengths in limited government and weaknesses in fair government. Property rights are relatively strong, while having need to further improve. With further reform Egypt can become a strong candidate for economic and technological progress. The key change needed is to improve judicial effectiveness and fiscal health.

It is both possible and likely that reforms to boost market economic functions will continue in the leading technological nations of Africa. One broader change that needs to happen is for African countries to invest more abroad. The global pattern is that countries with many world-leading deep tech companies tend to have high share of total economic output invested abroad.

South Africa is an African nation with a long tradition of investing abroad. Cape Town is widely considered the tech capital of South Africa. South Africa has stronger property rights and government integrity, more effective judicial system. The burden of taxation and government spending crowding out private sector spending is however somewhat higher.

Besides economic policy, the development of deep tech is strongly linked to education progress. African nations need to join the global PISA-project to systematically track, benchmark and improve their educational results.

While African students are currently important human resources in mathematical and technological institutes abroad, African nation’s themselves need to develop their own top universities. The aim needs to be for African universities to climb the ranks of the 100 best mathematical and technological institutes of the world.

An inspiration can be taken from India, Asia's leading deep tech center, and the world´s leading talent exporter. Five out of the top 100 best mathematical and technological institutes in the world are currently according to the QS World University Ranking Indian Institute of Technology centers - namely in Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kharagpur and Kanpur. If India from which many top students and researchers migrate abroad can achieve this, it is also in the coming years possible for Africa’s best centers of higher learning to replicate a similar success.

Africa already has world leading deep tech centers – from Cape Town in the South, to Nairobi in the East, Lagos in the West, and Cairo in the North. Growing population, competitive wages and a willingness to grow with improved business climate allows for African nations to continue this progress. In terms of policy lessons from the world, African nations need to continue strengthening property rights and judicial efficiency. It is important to retain limited taxation and government spending and upgrading the education system including with focus on the best technological universities.

African nations both can and need to grow with deep tech, it is ultimately about creating the jobs, security and prosperity of the future with sound policies.

Nima Sanandaji, Director, European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR)

Photo: Tech worker, via Unsplash in Public Domain.

Global Tally Of Alt-Energy Rejections Passes 1,000

Robert Bryce — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

The rejections keep coming. Since the beginning of May, a provincial government in Queensland has rejected an enormous wind project, a county board in Illinois spiked a solar project, and a district council in East Devon vetoed a battery project.

Let’s take those in order.

Last week, a $1 billion wind project in central Queensland was rejected by provincial authorities. The 450-megawatt project, which included battery storage, faced fierce opposition from local residents. According to one news report, 142 residents responded to the government’s request for comments, and 88% opposed the project.

One of the project opponents was a grazier (the Aussie’s word for rancher) named John Ellrott. He told a reporter from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that “the Moonlight Range has got some very significant flora and fauna on it that needs conserving and doesn't need to be flattened...We don't need all our ranges covered in wind towers.” The rejection of the wind project adds more friction to the Australian government’s barmy plan to achieve net zero by 2050. (More on that below.)

Solar projects continue to see fierce opposition. In mid-May, county officials in Will County, Illinois, voted 16-5 to reject plans for a solar facility in New Lenox Township that was opposed by the township and nearby homeowners. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, “More than 80 residents of the nearby Fieldstone Subdivision signed a petition stating the commercial solar energy facility would negatively impact their property values.”

Battery projects are also being rejected. In mid-May, the BBC reported that planners with the East Devon District Council rejected a lithium-ion battery storage project “after a three-and-a-half hour debate which saw residents raise concerns about fire risks and pollution. Despite the developer stating its equipment was 100% safe, examples of BESS [battery energy storage system] fires around the country were highlighted as evidence about why the scheme should be refused.”

As I have explained many times, these rejections don’t fit the narrative that’s relentlessly promoted by climate activists and their myriad allies in the legacy media about “green” energy. But the numbers are real, the numbers are growing, and they provide irrefutable evidence that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the growth of alt-energy. In all, when combining the 814 rejections of wind and solar projects in the US that I have documented in the Renewable Rejection Database with the global rejections of solar, wind, and batteries, the total number of alt-energy rejections or restrictions now exceeds 1,000 — it’s 1,011 to be exact.

Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.

Photo: Queensland cattle rancher John Ellrott has refused to lease his property to Big Wind. Credit: ABC News & Ellie Willcox.

Nuclear Conversion

Robert Bryce — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

There’s a vast difference between politics and policy. Doing politics — making speeches, giving TV interviews, and drafting talking points — is child’s play. Policy, on the other hand, is where dreams go to die, particularly when it comes to energy.

Over the past few days, the politics and policies around nuclear energy have shifted faster than at any other period in the post-Chernobyl era. Here are a few examples:

Germany, the world’s long-time anti-nuclear poster child, just did a screeching U-turn. Under its new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Germany will cooperate with France and treat nuclear as a “green” power source under EU regulations. The move comes just 25 months after Germany took its last three nuclear plants offline. As one German official said, the move is a “sea-change policy shift.”

The announcement from Berlin came just days after Belgium’s federal parliament voted by a large majority to repeal a 2003 law mandating the phase out of nuclear energy and banning the construction of new reactors.

Last week, the Danish government announced it was reconsidering its ban on nuclear power, which has been in place since 1985. The country’s former prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told the Financial Times, “Wind and solar are good as long as you have wind and sunshine. But you have to have a non-fossil base-load and it’s ridiculous to exclude nuclear power.”

On May 13, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (a Democrat) announced a plan to repeal a state law passed by voters in 1982. Healey’s administration is pointing to a recent report by ISO New England, which found that nuclear power can reduce emissions more cheaply than wind and solar (Gee, who would’ve thought that?) Further, the move comes as offshore wind, which a few months ago was the darling of East Coast Democrats, is slowly sinking under the weight of market realities and political headwinds.

In March, Colorado Governor Jared Polis (a Democrat) signed a bill into law that allows nuclear to count as a “clean” resource to meet the state’s decarbonization mandates. As the Energy Bad Boys, Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling, noted last month, Polis signed the bill despite his 2019 campaign promise to run the state solely on wind, solar, batteries, and a soupçon of fairy dust.

Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.

Photo: President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Atoms for Peace speech at the UN on December 8, 1953. Credit: IAEA/YouTube.

A British Media Outlet Wants to Censor Anyone Who Publishes “Climate Change Counter-Narratives,” Including Me.

Robert Bryce — Tue, 27 May 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Last month, a new media outlet called Tortoise Media launched a database called “Hot Air,” which it claims is “making sense of climate misinformation.” The database includes “274 online actors,” a group that includes David Turver, Roger Pielke Jr., Bjorn Lomborg, Jordan Peterson, Alex Epstein, Tom Nelson, me, and many others who are committing the sin of “frequently disseminating climate change counter-narratives.”

How dare me — or anyone else — provide a counter narrative to the orthodoxy around energy and climate! But here’s the real reason for the database: Tortoise says that “pressure on platforms to filter out misinformation has given way to an online ecosystem that favors free speech — sometimes at the expense of leaving falsehoods unchecked and allowing conspiracy theories to become widespread.”

What a load of flaccid piffle.

Above, this is one of the entries from the database about yours truly. It features a short YouTube video I made last December pointing out that the Osage Tribe’s win in federal court over Enel has not received any coverage by legacy media outlets. For reporting on it, the clip has been dubbed “delay.” The database includes 1,475 results for yours truly. Tom Nelson has more than 19,000 results, Alex Epstein has more than 7,000, and Bjorn Lomborg has nearly 1,500.

Let’s be clear: Tortoise, an online outlet based in the UK, is saying there’s too much free speech, and thus, it’s tacitly endorsing censorship for people who don’t toe the line on the official climate narrative. Of course, numerous climate NGOs, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund, claim that they, too, are fighting “climate misinformation.” EDF has even created what it calls the “anti-misinformation brigade.”

But Tortoise’s effort is different because it claims its database is “making sense of climate misinformation” due to its use of AI and the “CARDS2 LLM-based AI system,” which created a “taxonomy” to identify anyone who questions the climate orthodoxy. The database was created by the Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science (C3DS) at Exeter University with funding from a UK company that’s backed by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management.

Before going further, let me be clear: I ignore critics. There are lots of people in the cheap seats. My critics (and I have a few) don’t deserve a single keystroke. I don’t reply to nasty emails, I block (or mute) trolls, and I immediately delete disrespectful comments on Substack. But the people at Tortoise Media deserve a medal for their mendacity and selective reporting.

Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.

Photo: Jed, via Wikimedia under CC 3.0 License.