Europe taxes gasoline at $3-4 a gallon, imposes the world’s most stringent fuel economy standards, and mandates the blending of biofuels into the region’s motor fuel supply. Yet European Union (EU) transport-sector greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 26 percent from 1990 to 2006, according to “Beyond Transport Policy,” a recent European Environment Agency (EEA) report. Why have these policies failed to reduce GHG transport-sector emissions?…
Continue ReadingRep. Edward Markey (D-MA) spoke here in Houston today at a conference sponsored by the Cambridge Energy Research Associates (hosted by CERA chairman Daniel Yergin). Trying to defuse controversy (he is addressing an industry that he dislikes), Markey told the Houston Chronicle: “The headline should be: ‘I agree with T. Boone Pickens’.”…
Continue ReadingMuch attention was garnered last year by those, like T. Boone Pickens, who predicted oil prices rising to $200-300 per barrel with a year or two, but less attention has been paid to the recently revised forecast of the US Department of Energy, published in preview of its Annual Energy Outlook. The Outlook appeared in January, when prices had already plummeted, but was presumably written earlier, when prices were higher. It included the seemingly moderate forecast of prices rising to $70 by 2010 and $110 by 2015, as the figure shows.…
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