A China analyst advises that dethroning coal from its dominant position in China’s energy hierarchy will be exceptionally difficult, even assuming optimistic scenarios of deploying other energy sources. What does this realistic outlook imply? Therefore, it is imperative to simultaneously focus on developing clean coal and carbon technologies.
That’s essentially what Michael Levi is saying in this smart post. His lament is that energy and related environmental issues are not viewed through a wider lens: Until we can think about security, economics, and environmental risk at the same time, we’re going to have a lot of trouble developing an energy policy that makes sense….Continue Reading…
Over at Foreign Policy, Steve LeVine puts the Japanese cataclysms in a larger context and concludes that what we’re seeing is a global energy system under severe stress. Over the last several months, we’ve learned the hard way in incredibly coincidental events that we are in firm control of almost none of our major sources…Continue Reading…
As I noted yesterday, the recent fiery debate over the merits of energy efficiency is becoming increasingly acrimonious. The latest public skirmish was triggered earlier this week when Jon Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford University, wrote on his blog: Over the past few weeks I’ve been engaged in an email conversation with about 30…Continue Reading…
Steve LeVine at Foreign Policy discusses a near-term scenario that Big Oil deems all too plausible: Royal Dutch/Shell says that in 2020, energy supplies will be so tight that they will tip the world into a full-blown crisis in which governments will force their populations to reduce driving, use less electricity, and pay an extremely…Continue Reading…
The sequel. It’s coming.
On green tech, asserts Michael Levi: China is not crushing the United States in a clean energy race. And this myth isn’t merely wrong — it is also dangerous. Unwarranted fears of a clean energy competition threaten to spur a protectionist wave in the United States while squelching cooperation between the two countries — all…Continue Reading…
Bishop Hill latches on to this post, which catches up with a two-month old wet kiss to China from James Hansen, all which leads a Bish commenter to sarcastically (and rightly) note: The way China has become the “˜love-bunny’ of the greens is indeed funny, its human rights records is still awful, its building coal…Continue Reading…
It’s on: …the giants of the world’s energy armies are preparing.
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute advance their argument for a “third pathway” in the energy/climate debate. The two dominant sides, they assert, have constructed increasingly baroque fantasies of the other. To partisan greens, skeptics are fossil fuel-funded and brainwashed planet killers too stingy to spend a postage stamp a day to…Continue Reading…