The Oil Price Lever
Steve LeVine at Foreign Policy has a fascinating post that is best described by his tweet: Could we be headed back to $55-a-barrel #oil? If you believe that#stimulus money saved the economy, the answer is yes.
Posts Tagged ‘Energy’
The Zero Sum Nuclear Debate
Michael Levi on why we don’t have a rational discussion: Most advocates can’t admit that there are any downsides to nuclear power. Most opponents can’t accept that nuclear power has anything going for it. But a commenter at his site, who is a Stanford law professor and energy policy expert, makes a good point about…Continue Reading…
When Ignorance is Invincible
This is painful to rehash, but I want to draw your attention to a streak of foreign policy ignorance that persisted in the 2000s. On a related (and more recent) note, four days after President Obama authorized a military campaign against Libya, I found this headline disconcerting: Who are the Libyan Rebels? U.S. tries to…Continue Reading…
Facing up to "Environmental Change"
Cleo Paskal, whose book I reviewed last year, has a smart piece on what’s being left out in risk assessments for energy installations: First, due to changing environmental conditions (sea level rise, subsidence, changing storm activity, etc.), historical records may no longer be reliable predictors for future risks. For example, the summer of 2003 was…Continue Reading…
China's Coal Dependency
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.
A Conversation in the Making?
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…
The "Rebound" Ricochet
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…
The Looming Energy Squeeze
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…
Hydrocarbon Man
The sequel. It’s coming.
China Is Not Eating Our Lunch
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…