Modeling results in the MIT Future of Natural Gas Study released in June of last year suggested that the US could make major progress in the next two decades towards achieving a 50% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2050 – a real reduction, no offsets or other creative and questionable mechanisms –largely through two actions: reduced energy consumption, and switching from coal to natural gas in power generation.

The study also concluded that simply by utilizing surplus Natural Gas Combined Cycle capacity from existing units in lieu of coal generation, the US could achieve a 20% reduction in CO₂… [read more]

In the State of the Union President Obama renewed his commitment to the widespread adoption of renewable power as a critical piece of America’s energy and economic future.  In last year’s speech he included a proposal to have 80 percent of US electricity come from renewables by 2035.

Even making incremental steps towards these goals requires better access to financing for these renewable energy projects.  Energy projects, and particularly renewable energy projects, require a lot of money to build.

There appear to be 3 key challenges for a renewable energy company to access capital in today’s market.

(1)… [read more]

Please, no more talk of green jobs. Or climate change. Let’s discuss our economic and environmental policies without euphemism, describing current and potential calamity in plain English, like Joe Romm, who prefers “hell and high water.”

The recent and starkly revised projections by MIT and NOAA, among others, indicate a catastrophically warming planet which will have clear and devastating impacts on prosperity, health, transportation, food systems, etc. It may also change the nature of work and the skills required to advance in the labor market (more on this in a later post).

Energy efficiency and renewables are a key part… [read more]

Last Wednesday, the Obama administration officially denied approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. A rider included by the GOP in the payroll tax plan President Obama signed last month required the Administration to decide on the pipeline within a 60-day window.

In rejecting the pipeline, the White House said “imposing an arbitrary 60-day deadline on this process would make it virtually impossible for an adequate review [of the pipeline] to take place.”

House Speaker John Boehner criticized the decision saying “President Obama is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the… [read more]

A number of studies have shown that high oil prices have been a major factor in causing recessions in the United States. The cause of previous high oil prices has often been tied to events such as strikes in oil producing nations (e.g. Venezuela), wars (Iraq invading Kuwait, the Iran/Iraq war, the Gulf war), oil embargoes (Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations cutting off oil supplies to countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war), and revolutions like the Iranian revolution. In one form or another all of these events could be grouped together as political events that caused high… [read more]