In a departure from the large-scale infrastructure proposals that dominate international development politics, a thinktank, Fuel Freedom Foundation, funded by tech entrepreneurs Joseph Hollander and Eyal Aronoff proposes smaller scale investments to leverage local fuel availability, although early models rely on numbers from developed economies. The UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All campaign and… Keep reading →
Policy matters. Whether in one of the world’s richest countries or one of its poorest, access to clean and secure energy supplies relies on clear and reliable policy and regulatory signals, the results of a recent ranking of 129 nations by the World Energy Council and Oliver Wyman indicate. But given room to comment in… Keep reading →
On September 30, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a major challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s implementation of greenhouse gas regulations under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act, a hearing that could affect President Obama’s timetable for existing power plants and state implementation plans. The EPA will likely face ongoing litigation on most… Keep reading →
Ryan Lizza has written a very balanced, comprehensive article for the New Yorker about the politics behind the Keystone XL pipeline debate. It suggests that one driving force behind a loss of certainty about the pipeline’s approval has more to do with an ineffective Congress than with actual environmental concerns. The piece offers at least… Keep reading →
Efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants outlined in President Obama’s Climate Action Plan have been widely denounced by opponents as tantamount to a War on Coal. Curbing power plant emissions will have an outsized impact on coal-fired plants for the simple reason that coal emits more carbon dioxide when burned than other… Keep reading →
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz gave a speech at Columbia University yesterday, in which he highlighted the multiple facets of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. And he stressed the progress on one of the plan’s main priorities – lowering the cost of alternative forms of energy – has made tremendous strides in the past few years.… Keep reading →
Carbon dioxide emissions costs have been possibly the great ‘unpriced externality’ for the energy business for more than a decade. Companies have resisted complex and cumbersome government plans only to end up with regional patchworks and failed private pricing mechanisms for the greenhouse gas that scientists have held most directly responsible for the lion’s share of human-contributed… Keep reading →
Last week we published a piece on what are likely to be Congress’ top 6 energy policy priorities after the August recess, according to Frank Maisano, Senior Principal at law firm Bracewell Giuliani. Elias Hinckley, also a Washington, DC-based attorney specializing in energy, has offered a slightly different take on what we might see in energy policy… Keep reading →
The damage already done will take its toll US Department of Energy (DOE), like energy bureaucracies elsewhere, prefers to avoid unpleasant subjects whenever possible. But occasionally, the bad news cannot be avoided. A report released by the DOE in July 2013 warns that the nation’s entire energy system is vulnerable to increasingly severe and costly… Keep reading →
US President Barack Obama said in a July 27 interview with the New York Times that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would create around 2,000 jobs during construction – which he estimated would last one to two years – after which that number would fall off to 50-100. Oil and gas trade group API, unsurprisingly,… Keep reading →
