Recently, a working paper by economist and nonresident senior fellow Dr. Charles R. Frank Jr. of the Brookings Institute claimed that solar and wind were far more expensive than previously thought.  This article was further discussed in The Economist, which took the findings at face value….

Cue firestorm of criticism, 3…. 2….

Many commentators in the energy industry have strongly criticized the paper’s finding.  

What struck me was not whether the working paper’s findings where correct, but the difficulty of the general public to distinguish between competent and flawed analyses of energy issues.  Looking at the working paper and Amory Lovins criticism, I can’t determine on face value which arguments are good and bad.  But that’s expected, because I am not an experienced researcher in energy like Amory Loves or Dr. Frank Jr.

That does not mean I am completely illiterate when it comes to energy issues.  I can see bad analysis.  For instance, Konrad Yakabuski recently wrote a partisan, poorly argued, weasel word diatribe on Ontario’s renewables.  The article complains that Solar and Wind are expensively subsidized and then goes on to present Nuclear energy as a superior alternative, failing to discuss the expensive subsidies of Nuclear and other drawbacks (such as nuclear waste).  Quite embarrassing.

Yet my friend, who has no experience in energy, could not even see this issue with the Yakabuski article not realizing the high subsidies nuclear needs.

How is the public to make intelligent informed decisions on our energy mix when most of us don’t even have the sophistication to understand the issues?