Renewable energy generates a larger portion of the world’s electricity each year. But in relative terms, solar power generation is hardly a blip on the energy screen despite its long history of technological development. Solar-generated electricity has one major advantage over it’s more ubiquitous cousin wind power: electricity is generated during typical peak demand hours making this option attractive to utilities that value solar electricity for peak shaving. However, the capital cost of all the solar technologies are about $5,000/kW and higher and projects are moving forward only in particular regions within the U.S. with tough RPS requirements and subsidies from states and the federal government.

In Part I, we reviewed the enormous scale and capital cost considerations of photovoltaic projects and then introduced the standard taxonomy of central solar power generating plants.…

Editor’s note:  This article is the second of two on shale gas production.  The first dealt with the U.S. situation; this one looks at the potential impacts of shale gas production in Europe and China.

Natural gas production in Europe, currently just over 11 Tcf, has been falling rapidly over the past decade.   About three fourths of Europe’s gas is produced in just three countries: the UK, Norway and the Netherlands.  Production peaked in 2003 at 13.5 tcf.

Consumption, on the other hand, continues to rise.  Gas use in Europe stood at 20.5 tcf in 2008 and is likely to increase further as coal-fired power plants retire or are phased out of service for environmental reasons.  Most of Europe’s imported gas comes from Russia (about 80%), with the remainder mostly as LNG.…

“Vice President [Al] Gore is wrong to call for the elimination of the internal combustion engine, and wrong again to call ‘absurd’ our current reliance on cars and trucks. Mobility is an essential and inseparable part of almost all that we value—from close-knit families to rewarding careers, quality educations, and fulfilling recreation. Mobility truly is what makes our autonomy possible. And cars, trucks, and the internal combustion engine are worth keeping because they make automobility itself increasingly sustainable.”

– Joseph Bast and Jay Lehr, “The Increasing Sustainability of Cars, Trucks, and the Internal Combustion Engine,” Heartland Institute Policy Study No. 95, June 2000, p. 54.

Part I of this two-part series described the primitive, messy, inefficient  prehistory of the mechanized transportation.  Today’s post provides quotations form different scholars that describe the great advances provided by carbon-based energy transportation.…

Should the U.S. join OPEC? After all,  the U.S., home of the never-ending calls for “energy independence,” is an oil exporter. A big one.

Through the first six months of 2009, America’s daily exports were averaging 1.9 million barrels per day.[i] At that level, U.S. oil exports are on a par with countries like Angola and Venezuela.[ii] Of course, the vast majority of those exports are refined products, not crude. And those exports are also largely a function of America’s position as the world’s largest oil importer, which means that OPEC membership is rather unlikely.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the U.S. is an integral player in the oil market. And there has never been a bigger, more global, more integrated, more transparent market than the modern crude oil and oil products market.…