Power Hour: The Senate’s GND vote, Bernie’s fracking ban, how to think about byproducts
On this week’s episode of Power Hour, Don, Steffen, and I cover seven topics:
- The Senate’s Green New Deal vote
- The Republicans’ “Green Real Deal” train wreck
- Federal judge blocks oil and gas development in Wyoming
- Colorado’s continuing war on fossil fuels
- Bernie Sanders vows to outlaw fracking
- California (finally) decides to do something to prevent wildfires
- How to think about byproducts
Just for newsletter subscribers: Here’s a summary of the key points from my segment on how to think about byproducts:
To make good decisions about energy, we have to look at their full impact on human flourishing. To do that, we need to follow a simple formula:
The benefit of the product – negative byproducts + positive byproducts = full impact
It’s important to think of all of these with precision. Most people, unfortunately, dramatically undervalue the product of abundant, reliable energy and they tend to dramatically exaggerate the byproducts, including by treating them all as negative.
So I’ve developed four principles to help people think precisely about byproducts:
- Byproducts always have safe levels above zero.
- Byproducts can be positive.
- Byproducts can often be neutralized.
- Byproducts can be offset or overwhelmed by the benefits of the product.
Listen to the episode:
Alex