Energy Outlook

• Unrealistic Goals

  A couple of stories over the long weekend highlighted growing disconnects between major elements of energy and environmental policy and what is actually possible in the real world. The first concerns China's gambit that committing to a carbon-intensity target that could be met with initiatives already under way might be [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 1:15pm EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Counting Our Energy Blessings

  Thanksgiving is a perfect time to reflect on the many energy blessings the US enjoys. While we tend to focus on our problems, which seem numerous and overwhelming at times, there are a number of positives we should also recognize. Here's a short list of them to contemplate over tomorrow's' [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 11:08am EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Do Leaked Emails Undermine the Scientific Consensus?

  For the last couple of days I've been ruminating about what to say concerning the emails and other data apparently leaked by hackers who penetrated the computer systems at the University of East Anglia's Hadley Centre Climate Research Unit, one of the major global sources of climate' [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 1:53pm EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Energy Principles

  My critique of a proposal for expanded tax credits to promote the electrification of transportation prompted some interesting comments. It also got me thinking again about an underlying problem that leads to the kind of scramble for government favor and largess that is exemplified by such efforts and by [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:43am EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Paying the Bill for Electric Vehicles

  Perhaps it's merely a sign of the times, when a billion is the new million and firms in many industries have found it easier to get capital from the government than from bankers, bondholders and shareholders, but the price tag implicit in the recommendations of a new cross-industry group formed [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 11:57am EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Indexing Crude Prices

  Although oil trading hasn't been my primary focus for many years, the recent announcement by Saudi Aramco that it is switching its price mechanism for oil delivered to the US caught my attention. Instead of basing its formula for deliveries here on the price of West Texas Intermediate crude' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 1:30pm EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Green Power or Green Jobs

  Until now I've avoided the debate over a proposed wind project in Texas involving Chinese investors, federal renewable energy stimulus grants and wind turbines from China, mainly because I didn't think I had anything salient to add to the unpleasant mix of protectionism and second-guessing that was unfolding. This [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 2:01pm EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• The Way We Drive Now

  My posting of October 29th examined two of the ways we risk under-counting the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from favored energy technologies such as biofuels and electric vehicles, with potentially serious consequences. Well, it turns out that the same joint proposal by the EPA and Department of Transportation establishing [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 11:33am EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• Cheap Oil

  When the US invaded Ba'athist Iraq, many ascribed that action to a desire to seize the country's vast oil reserves and develop them on terms favorable to us, presumably to keep the days of cheap oil rolling on. After six years of oil prices far above their pre-war level, [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 11:43am EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• "Carbon Debt"

  A new term has entered our lexicon without much fanfare, but that is about to change. When the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meets next month in Copenhagen, we will hear a lot more about "carbon debt" and the obligation [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 1:17pm EST
  by Geoffrey Styles

• A Clunkers Look-back

  Somehow I missed last week's minor tempest concerning this summer's Cash for Clunkers program (CFC.) It apparently started when auto industry publisher Edmunds, Inc. issued a report indicating that the effective cost to the government of the incremental sales stimulated by the program averaged roughly $24,000, rather than the [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 2:19pm EST
  by Geoffrey Styles