“The environmental battles over energy infrastructure expansions will continue to ramp up…. The bottom line from these examples is that the risk of energy projects is creeping higher and that will filter into energy company spending – hurting both the nation’s future energy supply and its profitability for the companies.”
Energy availability is often ignored until it isn’t available. Whether that is a grid power outage, such as those in 1965 and 2003 that blacked out the Northeast region of the country, or the loss of power at your home or work, the issue of insuring adequate energy availability isn’t a high priority for most people until you don’t have it. Ask the residents of south Australia who suffered a blackout last week.
Two interesting examples – one on each coast of the U.S.…
Continue Reading“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”
– James Hansen, “The Threat to the Planet.” The New York Times Review of Books (2006).
“Contrary to the impression favored by governments, the corner has not been turned toward declining emissions and GHG amounts…. Negative CO2 emissions, i. e., extraction of CO2 from the air, is now required.”
– James Hansen, “Young People’s Burden.” October 4, 2016.
Ten years ago, James Hansen predicted doom if mankind did not “fundamentally” reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in ten years. This ultimatum to the world came due this summer.
But far from raising the white flag, the father of the modern climate alarm now demands via legal action that CO2 and other GHG emissions go negative “if climate is to be stabilized on the century time scale, as a result of past failure to reduce emissions.”…
Continue Reading“Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages. Do you want a surplus? Have the government legislate a minimum price that is above the price that would otherwise prevail…. Do you want a shortage? Have the government legislate a maximum price that is below the price that would otherwise prevail.”
– Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (1979), p. 219.
Tomorrow (October 5, 2016), a book seminar will be held at Resources for the Future [register here] to revisit the lessons from the 1970s energy crisis. Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s by Meg Jacobs will receive comments from three RFF scholars.
The Princeton historian and author usefully provides a good deal of archival documentation surrounding the ill-fated attempt by federal authorities to regulate the price and allocation of crude oil and oil products in the 1971–1981 era. …
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