Reason Foundation

Recent Research and Commentary

Charging Ahead

To speed along the success of the electric car, improvements in battery chemistry will matter as much as the price of oil.

May 23, 2011

Ronald Bailey

In an essay that originally appeared The Wall Street Journal, Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey reviews Seth Fletcher's Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy. As Bailey reports, Bottled Lightning tells the history of batteries over the past 100 years, which is essentially the story of man trying - and failing - to power automobiles, with a recent fruitful detour in electronic gear. As Bailey observes, when it comes to speeding calong the success of the electric car, improvements in battery chemistry will matter as much as the price of oil.

The Future of American Energy Policy

Finding middle ground in the battle between drillers and renewers

May 13, 2011

A. Barton Hinkle

Given the red-team/blue-team dynamic of American politics, it was probably inevitable that discussion of energy policy would degenerate into a debate between drillers and renewers - between those who want more domestic oil exploration to the exclusion of other power sources, and those who want the U.S. to kick its petroleum habit entirely. But as A. Barton Hinkle argues, both sides are being unrealistic.

Obama's Green-Jobs Fantasy

Don't buy the president's environmental snake oil

March 10, 2011

John Stossel

Anyone who understands basic economics already knows that President Obama's $2.3 billion green-jobs initiative was snake oil. Now, thanks to Kenneth P. Green, we have statistics as well as theory to prove it.

Revving Up Electric Cars With Government Cash

We'll never know if the electric car industry would have been viable without subsidies.

September 28, 2010

Ronald Bailey

President Obama is devoting $2.4 billion in stimulus funding to jumpstart the electric car industry. The president also wants to see 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015. This would amount to less than one half of one percent of America's 246 million vehicle fleet. Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey follows the money into a federally subsidized lithium ion battery factory in Indiana, the would-be "capital of the electric vehicle industry."

New Mitsubishi Plug-In Hybrid Beats New York Transit on Green House Gas Emissions

June 22, 2009, 9:02pm

Samuel Staley

The new MIEV plug-in electrict car by Mitsubishi Motors will produce about half the green house gas emissions currently generated by New York mass transit.

More Thoughts on "Stimulus" Tax Cuts and the States

April 9, 2009, 2:47pm

Adrian Moore

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