Research Brief
Energy
Environment
Exploring market-based solutions to the most pressing environmental issues facing North Carolina.
Energy
Biden’s EV Dictates Face Two Big Problems: Buyers and Sellers
Gov. Roy Cooper wants 50 percent of new car sales in North Carolina to be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030, and amid his Covid-fueled mania of releasing executive orders, he had…
Research Brief
Energy
Three Dead Whales in Three Days
From Corolla, North Carolina, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, three dead whales washed ashore in three days in early March. Investigations and studies from environmentalists, whale conservationists, and concerned citizens argued…
Agriculture
The Heavy Toll of Government Environmental Policies on American Farmers
A new report from the Buckeye Institute finds that environmental policies harm farm workers. In the push for environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality, governments around the world have implemented various…
Energy
Bombshell: Electricity Customers and Taxpayers Are the Same People
My recent piece in Washington Examiner looks at the issue of massive subsidization of certain energy sources and then pretending they’re not expensive. It also criticizes the central planning behind…
Research Brief
Agriculture
To Save North Carolina’s Endangered Farmland, Stop Overbuilding Solar Facilities
A recent report placed North Carolina second in the nation for threatened farmland from residential development. Meanwhile, the amount of new solar facilities sought by Duke Energy could endanger as…
Research Brief
Energy
Report Finds Vast Disparity Between Computer Models’ Predictions of Climate Change and Actual Observations
Pres. Joe Biden, Gov. Roy Cooper, and other leaders and bureaucrats would force wrenching changes to how people power their homes, drive, eat, and more in order to stave off…
Research Brief
Budget, Taxation & Economy
How a Budget Provision Keeps the Cooper Administration from Creating a Tax out of Thin Air
The Biden administration seeks to fund extreme environmentalist initiatives at the state level, including cap and trade programs. Such programs amount to “an energy-rationing scheme that acts as an energy…
Energy
Duke’s Worrisome Text
Late afternoon on Thursday, January 4, customers of Duke Energy received a text message alerting them to expected high energy demand the next day and requesting they “take steps to…
Energy
How Cooper and Clean Energy Cronies Use Blackouts to Argue for More Blackouts
Amy O. Cooke, retired Locke CEO, wrote a piece yesterday in Carolina Journal discussing the strange take in response to the Christmas Eve 2022 blackouts offered by Gov. Roy Cooper…
Research Brief
Energy
More on the Costs of North Carolina’s Different Electricity Generating Sources
Since 2016, the federal government has massively subsidized renewable sources of electricity — with wind receiving nearly 20 times more subsidies per unit of power generated than nuclear, and solar…
Research Brief
Energy
Discussing the Costs of North Carolina’s Different Electricity Generating Sources
Electricity from existing power plants is cheapest, and state law lets the cost of building new power plants fall on electricity consumers through increases in their power bills. New solar…
Energy
Report Argues Offshore Wind Development Activities Are Killing Whales and Dolphins
On November 2, Save Long Beach Island released a report arguing that offshore wind energy vessel surveys were responsible for the recent spike in whale and dolphin deaths off the…