The oil, gas and coal industries like to portray themselves as rugged, pioneering frontiersmen. So it’s a shock to learn this week that behind this façade is the reality that these industries are deeply dependent on huge amount of government support. The truth is the fossil fuel industry, and the politicians that supply them, are […]
Dr. Ian Duncan took to CapX recently to tell us that rare metals must be recycled because they are, well, rare. It should happen despite currently not being economic because their rarity means that they’re going to run out. I have nothing against the recycling of metals: I’ve done it for a living myself. However, […]
Ambrose Evans Pritchard tells us in the Telegraph that Brexit, the prospect of Britain leaving the European Union, would be a disaster for British farming. Quite the contrary, it would be the necessary first step to British farming returning to being a useful and profitable part of our society. Pritchard takes as his starting point a report […]
The chances are strong that you are reading this article on a phone. If indeed that is the case, then studies show that you are likely to be walking, waiting or pooing, apparently in that order. That’s the digital revolution for you. Never knowingly off-line, we have never been more interconnected. Elemently speaking If you […]
Around 600 million people in Africa – two out of three – are locked into poverty because they do not have electricity. On my first visit to Tanzania after becoming a Minister at the UK”s Department for International Development, I was struck by the difference energy at home can make to a person’s life. Demand […]
For anyone facing redundancy in the meltdown of the British steel industry these must be extraordinarily difficult days. Families will face an uncertain future in the run-up to Christmas. The stress and strain will be enormous. Inevitably, with that being the case, a campaign has been launched to demand that the government “do something” to […]
The corporate scandal engulfing the German car company Volkswagen just got worse. The latest news is that the company has now admitted that 11 million cars worldwide are fitted with pollution cheating software. US regulators are pursuing the company and the firm’s senior executives have apologised. “We screwed up,” is the message from Volkswagen, which […]
The EPA recently passed sweeping new carbon regulations designed to stave off the threat of global climate change. But if we’re serious about preventing climate change, we need laissez-faire capitalism, not more regulation. The new EPA rules set state-specific goals for cutting carbon pollution and increasing America’s use of renewable energy. The goal is to […]
A fascinating story in Mother Jones explains how one tech startup is working to end animal suffering, one gene at a time — and how government regulations and anti-GMO crusaders might stop him. When Scott Fahrenkrug, founder of the startup Recombinetics, saw what happens when dairy cows are dehorned — a horrifically painful process that […]
For the last decade the energy sector in the Dominican Republic has been failing its residents. A partially state-controlled system is characterised by frequent blackouts, electrical losses and high levels of electricity theft due to an inefficient structure in need of reform. The Dominican Republic is the largest economy in the Caribbean and has enjoyed […]
The Scottish Government has decided to ban all genetically modified crops from Scotland. Invoking recently adopted EU powers which allow devolved administrations to opt out of the more relaxed EU regime, Scottish Agriculture Minister, Richard Lochhead, declared that he was “concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and […]
Well this is awkward, as they say in modern internet parlance. In among all the weeping and wailing about the regrettable death of Cecil the Lion, and the demands for the idiot dentist hunter to be hung (to show how caring we are in the West), and the demonstrations outside the demon dentist’s surgery, with […]
Why does US federal spending matter? There are many reasons, but perhaps the most fundamental is that free markets allocate resources better than governments because markets rely on price instead of politics. Many industries show this observation to be true, but the emerging field of “green banks” offers perhaps one of the clearest recent examples. […]
The name Will Rogers is not well known this side of the Atlantic. On the other side of the pond, however, the folksy wisdom of this Cherokee cowboy, vaudevillian, movie actor, humorist, newspaper columnist and social commentator is still a regular feature of political debate, his words frequently quoted by journalists who want to take […]
Well, this is awkward. If you are British you might remember that energy plan that Ed Miliband had before the election. The plan for a price freeze and a market reset? The one that attracted considerable derision from the Tories and some criticism from pro-market commentators such as, er, me? That’s it, yes. David Cameron […]
Last week Bill Gates announced he was doubling his renewable energy investments to $2 billion. He compared the field to the early days of the tech industry out of which Microsoft, Apple and Google burst into global companies turning their investors into millionaires. Calling for a Manhattan Project style research and development push he said […]
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