^{Energy was the topic at a talk given by Robert Bradley at a Houston Property Rights luncheon in May. Bradley is the chief executive officer and founder of the Institute for Energy Research. He has written numerous books including Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy and Energy: The Master Resource. He spent 16 years in the energy business working for Transwestern Pipeline and Enron.}

^{“Coal is the sun’s work over the ages,” Bradley says. “You can store it, you can transport it and it gives you energy every second of the day.” He says coal is a biomass in the form of plant life, and according to the Institute is the most abundant fossil fuel produced in the U.S. Over 90% is used to generate electricity. “It meets 23% of the U.S. total energy demand and generates about half of all its electricity. The U.S. has coal reserves to last at least another 200-250 years.”}

^{Oil, another fossil fuel, has the most far-reaching effect on modern society, according to the Energy Institute. It is the transportation fuel that moves people and goods around the world. Once crude oil began to be refined, it turned an agrarian society into an industrial one in just a few decades.}

^{Bradley believes that the U.S. is taking a step backward by turning to what he considers more primitive forms of energy. “We hear the renewables are the new energy of the future. For most of mankind’s history the market share of renewables was 100% – boiling water, blowing wind, using the sun, but mainly primitive biomass: burning plants and wood. So this ‘renewable energy future’ has it backwards,” he says.}

^{Bradley does not see oil depletion as a major issue. “I think we are running into oil, gas and coal, not running out of it. Oil shale is a good example of that.” Oil shale is a rock which is converted into liquid to be used as jet fuel, diesel fuel, kerosene and other products. Oil shale resources in the western U.S. could yield 800 billion barrels of oil or more, according to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey.}

^{As for the environment, Bradley says that “BP has certainly turned the tables here.” But he says the spill is a “short run problem, long term gain. Let’s see what oil spill stats look like in 5, 10, 20, 50 years. Air pollution has gone significantly down because of measured regulation, not alarmist type of regulation like you hear with climate change. CO2 emissions may actually go up with ‘cap and trade’ as U.S. businesses relocate in other countries that do not have CO2 controls.”}

^{Wind power has its own environmental impact, Bradley points out. Wind turbines are noisy, unsightly, use a lot of the land or sea, and can injure or kill birds and bats. Wind power only provides one half of 1% of all energy consumed in the U.S.}

^{“Take another look at wind and solar and all their expense and environmental damage. Overall, oil and gas is much better for the environment than wind and solar. There are too many negative effects of wind turbines. We have hundreds of years of fossil fuels.”}

^{For more information visit instituteforenergyresearch.org and masterresource.org.}

^{Note: Oil shale is a type of rock containing significant amounts of organic compounds from which hydrocarbons can be extracted. This requires more processing than crude oil, increasing costs and carrying its own environmental concerns in the areas of land and water use, air pollution, waste-water management and waste disposal.}

^{China, Estonia, Brazil, Germany, Israel and Russia are the main countries currently using oil shale.}