Utopia, you are standing in it!

Crony capitalists are begging for massive taxpayer-backed subsidies to produce ‘green’ hydrogen gas using wind and solar as a way of converting useless, unpredictable and unreliable electricity into something that might be used as and when consumers need it; rather than something that depends on the whims of mother nature.

The majority of hydrogen available on the market (around 95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming or partial oxidation of methane and coal gasification with only a tiny fraction produced by way of biomass gasification or the electrolysis of water or solar thermochemistry.

Steam-methane reforming, the current leading technology for producing hydrogen in large quantities, extracts hydrogen from methane, usually in the form of natural gas; the process releases carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Which, of course, doesn’t wash with the climate cult.

Another method of creating hydrogen is electrolysis, which involves chewing up enormous…

As part of an ongoing inquiry, the Lords Constitution Committee has sought evidence as to whether ‘the amendment of the role of the Lord Chancellor by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (CRA), and the resulting separation of powers between the judiciary and the Government, [have] been successful’. Robert Hazell argues that the 2005 reforms led to greater judicial independence, a political achievement that requires continuing support from politicians and parliament.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into the role of the Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers, in which it seeks to answer a number of questions, including whether ‘the amendment of the role of the Lord Chancellor by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (CRA), and the resulting separation of powers between the judiciary and the Government, [have] been successful’. Through written evidence, submitted with Professor Kate Malleson, I have attempted to…

What best symbolizes France’s statist political culture?

• Is it bloated public sector that consumes more than half of the economy’s output?
• Is it a tax system that is so onerous that households sometimes pay more than 100 percent of their income to government?
• Is it cossetted bureaucrats with cars and drivers who nonetheless still rack up giant taxi expenses?

Those are good examples, to be sure, but I’ve actually already shared an everything-you-need-to-know story dealing with lavish perks for France’s protected bureaucrat class.

But there’s no rule that says I can’t have multiple everything-you-need-to-know anecdotes.

Here’s a story that reveals why France is in trouble. The Wall Street Journalreports that a French presidential candidate is arguing people shouldn’t get upset that he used taxpayer money to give his wife a no-show job because a big chunk of the money then went back to the government because of…

I’m in the United Kingdom for the Free Market Road Show and had planned on writing today about the awful economic policies of Boris Johnson, the supposedly Conservative Prime Minister.

Yes, he produced an acceptable Brexit, but otherwise has been a big spender. Sort of the a British version of Trump or Bush.

But I’m going to give Boris a (temporary) pass because I can’t help but vent my spleen about this sign I saw yesterday while touring the Imperial War Museum in London.

As you can imagine, I was irked by this bit of pro-socialist propaganda.

Since when does a government takeover of private industry lead to “a fairer, more caring society”?!?

Maybe that was the intention of the voters who elected Clement Attlee, the Labour Party who became Prime Minister after the 1945 election.

The real-world results, though, were disappointing. Indeed, the sign…

Here are the slides from a virtual talk I gave today to a group of students from years 10 to 13…

Having got things admirably correct with his opinion as Attorney-General on the wretched Rotorua local body bill being promoted by Tweaker Coffey,  it looked  like David Parker had stumbled as Revenue Minister

The impression of a stumble was given by a Stuff headline which read   Revenue Minister David Parker lashes very wealthy for being undertaxed, calls for new tax principles

But if someone is being undertaxed, very wealthy or not, shouldn’t someone at the Inland Revenue Department be hauled into the Minister’s office to explain what’s going on?

And if it turns out that the undertaxed individual is breaking the law, then the next step is clear. Prosecution is the path to be taken.

If the fault lies with the law, then the next step is clear, too, albeit on a different path.  In this case, the law must be changed.

Rent-seekers would have it that giant lithium-ion batteries are the simple answer to wind and solar’s hopeless intermittency, but that notion doesn’t stand first contact with the wind and solar industry’s nemesis: arithmetic.

The wishful claim that we’ll all soon be powered by nothing but wind and solar is, of course, utter nonsense. And, as Francis Menton details, big talk about big energy storage systems is just that.

Report On The Status Of The U.S. Energy Storage Project
Manhattan Contrarian
Francis Menton
7 April 2022

As you likely know, on April 22, 2021 the “United States” “set a goal” of reaching “100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.” You know that because on that date (Earth Day!) President Biden issued a press release so announcing, although the document does not inform us how Biden was able to commit the “United States” to such an ambitious goal by the device of…