As U.S. retail gasoline prices once again near $4.00 a gallon, does this pose a threat to the economy and President Obama’s prospects for re-election? My answer is no. The graph below […]
Thresholds in the Economic Effects of Oil Prices
U.S. ethanol waiver would roil grains market: traders
The U.S. government is unlikely to bow to pressure for a waiver on quotas requiring a proportion of corn is used to make ethanol before November, at the earliest, traders said, despite […]
Projected retirements of coal-fired power plants
Current trends in the electric power market put many coal-fired generators in the United States at risk for retirement. In the Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (AEO2012) Reference case, 49 gigawatts of coal-fired […]
Shale Gas And The Overhyping Of Its CO2 Reductions
Between 2006 and 2011 the US cut its CO2 emissions by nearly half a billion metric tons—more than any other country in the world. This remarkable decline overlaps with the boom in […]
Low U.S. injections reflect already high natural gas storage inventories
The increase in U.S. working natural gas inventories nearly half way through the 2012 injection season—the period from April through October when most natural gas is stored underground to help meet heating […]
Nissan Leaf Range Issues
A group of Nissan Leaf owners recently conducted a test in Arizona to see if high ambient summer temperatures in Arizona have permanently reduced the capacity of their batteries to hold a […]
Petroleum Demand in Developing Countries
Access to affordable, stable energy supplies is critical for economies throughout the world. For developing countries, affordable energy can offer a pathway to a better quality of life. But between 2000 and […]
Microgrids: So Much More than Backup Energy
Most Americans don’t have to think much about energy reliability. We plug in a computer and it powers up; we flip a switch and the lights come on. While very reliable today, […]
Can a “Value of Solar Tariff” Replace Net Energy Metering?
Ten U.S. utilities currently account for 70 percent of all net energy metering (NEM) — but most solar companies and utilities are thinking about it. Innovative financing, unprecedentedly low panel costs and […]
Trendspotting: US States Warming up to Renewable Energy Heating and Cooling
Of the fifty U.S. states, four territories and one District of Colombia, almost forty of them have some kind of renewable energy requirement on the books and of those forty, only about […]
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