Robert Bryce (writer)

Robert Bryce
Robert Bryce at the 2010 Texas Book Festival.
Residence	Austin, Texas
Nationality	American
Education	B.F.A.
Alma mater	University of Texas
Occupation	Writer and Journalist
Employer	Manhattan Institute
Organization	Manhattan Institute
Known for	Writing
Notable work(s)	Power Hungry (2010) Gusher of Lies
Website
RobertBryce.com

Robert Bryce is an American author and journalist who lives in Austin, Texas. His articles on energy, politics, and other topics have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Counterpunch, and Atlantic Monthly.

Career

Bryce has been writing about the energy business for more than two decades. He spent 12 years writing for The Austin Chronicle. In 2006, he began working as the managing editor of the online magazine, Energy Tribune. From October 2007 to February 2008 he was a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, and is now a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. He regularly appears on TV and radio shows ranging from the BBC to PBS and CNBC to Fox Business.

Writing on the energy industry

Bryce has written frequently about the infeasibility of the United States becoming energy independent.

In March 2009, he testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to discuss the limits inherent in renewable energy, saying "no matter how you do the calculations, renewable energy by itself, can not, will not, be able to replace hydrocarbons over the next two to three decades, and that’s a conservative estimate".

Bryce writes regularly about energy and power systems. In 2007, he criticized the dangers of cheap oil.

In an opinion piece (op-ed) in the Wall Street Journal in March 2009 he denounced the energy polices of former United States President George W. Bush and the current president Barack Obama, claiming their rush for renewable energy will not be sufficient to cover the country's future energy needs.

He took issue with James Hansen — who wrote in The Guardian that "coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet" and that trains carrying coal were "Death Trains" — responding (also in The Guardian), "Hansen doesn't offer a single idea as to what the world will use to replace the coal that he abhors. Coal currently provides about 28% of the world's total energy use. And it is the cheapest source of fuel for electric power production. That's why developing countries – China and India in particular – are using so much of it."

Bryce is critical of the double standard being applied to bird kills by industrial facilities. Oil producers and electric utilities have repeatedly been charged and fined under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for killing birds. But Bryce points out that wind-power companies are not being prosecuted even though they routinely violate the MBTA, which is one of America's oldest environmental laws. In the Wall Street Journal, he wrote, "Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year. A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass California, estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont". He also wrote about the health problems caused by low-frequency noise emitted from wind turbines.

In May 2010, he published an op-ed in the New York Times that underscored the difficulties associated with large-scale carbon capture and sequestration. In June 2010, in an article for Slate he expressed his dismay at the corn ethanol industry's attempts to use the blowout of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico as an excuse to gain more subsidies.

Bryce is an advocate for increased shale gas consumption in the US. In a June 13, 2011 piece published in the Wall Street Journal he wrote that the "shale revolution now underway is the best news for North American energy since the discovery of the East Texas Field in 1930."

Bryce opposes federal corn subsidies for ethanol, citing high costs. He has argued that American farmland should be used to grow food rather than fuel. In addition he has opposed the EPA’s considerations to raise the volume of ethanol mixed in gasoline, arguing that vehicles could be damaged by higher ethanol blends, and warranties would be voided.

He has criticized the Obama administration for “attempting to pick winners in the car business” with electric vehicles subsidies. He has also argued that electric vehicles have failed due to the lack of energy density in batteries, safety concerns, and relatively few sales.

Writing on climate change

Bryce describes himself as an agnostic about global warming and climate change. He frequently points out that the climate "alarmists" have no credible plans to replace the hydrocarbons that now provide the overwhelming majority of the world's energy. In chapter 15 of 'Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, Bryce writes: "There’s no question that carbon dioxide plays a significant role in the atmosphere. Just how significant, we don’t know...For me, in many ways, the science no longer matters because discussions about the science have become so vituperative and politicized. Thus, my position about the science of global climate change is one of resolute agnosticism. When it comes to climate change, the key issues are no longer about forcings, albedo, or the ideal concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Instead, the key question is about policy, namely: if we are going to agree that carbon dioxide is bad, what are we supposed to do? And that question – as the Duke of Bilgewater memorably put it in Huckleberry Finn – 'is the bare bodkin.'”

In an October 6, 2011 op-ed published in the "Wall Street Journal" and entitled "Five truths about climate change" he wrote: "The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein's theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth's atmosphere".

Bryce has written about "N2N" that is, natural gas to nuclear, as being the logical way forward.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy

In October 2011 a petition was addressed to The New York Times complaining about Bryce. It asked the paper's public editor, Arthur Brisbane, to address the issue of how op-ed writers are identified and asked that the paper be more transparent with regard to any financial support the op-ed writers may get from various industries. On October 29, 2011, Brisbane responding to the petition, writing "I don’t think Mr. Bryce is masquerading as anything: experts generally have a point of view". Regarding the issue of funding from energy-related interests, Brisbane wrote that "the Manhattan Institute’s dependence on this category of funding is slight — about 2.5 percent of its budget over the past 10 years."

Published books

• Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, published April 2010 by PublicAffairs, ISBN 978-1586487898. Bryce argues that the practical potential of green energy using the currently employed technology is greatly exaggerated and that natural gas and nuclear power are the only realistic alternatives to coal and oil. A review published by the Wall Street Journal called the book "unsentimental, unsparing, and impassioned; and if you'll excuse the pun, it is precisely the kind of journalism we need to hold truth to power".
• Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence, published by PublicAffairs in March 2008, ISBN 978-1586483210. In this book, Bryce focuses on the desire for energy independence. The New York Times describes it as "a savage attack on the concept of energy independence and the most popular technologies currently being promoted to achieve it". Kirkus Reviews' review states, "In a voice ardent and beseeching, Bryce urges Americans to educate themselves about the world’s biggest enterprise, to have at least a modest grasp of thermodynamics, to rationally assess the costs and potential benefits of available resources.
• Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the rise of Texas, America's Superstate, published by PublicAffairs in 2004, ISBN 978-1586481889.
• Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron published by PublicAffairs in 2002, ISBN 978-1586482015.

External links

• Robert Bryce on Sourcewatch
• Robert Bryce web site
• Robert Bryce: Senior fellow with the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute
• List of articles published by Robert Bryce in Energy Tribune