“Not one dime,” said President Obama in his address to Congress, referring to how much extra tax people earning under $250,000 a year will have to pay in his budget. Unfortunately, even if you don’t have to pay extra tax, you will have to pay extra fees for your energy, which are passed on to the government via energy companies. That’s the effect of the President’s cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions, an important part of his new budget. Energy companies…

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The President might make various remarks relating to energy tonight. These are likely to center around grandiloquent claims as to the effectiveness of “green jobs” and alternative energy in saving the economy, not to mention the planet. Here are a few notes on the reality of these claims.

Green Jobs: The President will probably claim to be creating millions of “green jobs” to save the economy, fight global warming and end dependence on foreign oil together. In fact, “green jobs” have…

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In his speech on the stimulus package Thursday, President (Elect) Obama promised to double alternative energy use in three years. How likely is this?

Well, for a start we don’t use much alternative energy to begin with - slightly less than 7 quadrillion BTU of the 101 quads we use as a nation annually. Of those 7, 2 quads are related to the use of wood as fuel, something which is not normally viewed as environmentally friendly, and 2.5 are hydropower, an energy…

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