Energy Literacy Advocates Newsroom

November 19, 2008 - The London Financial Times reports that Europe’s first auction of allowance emission permits for carbon dioxide brought the UK government roughly £54m. These permits fall under the European Union’s emissions trading scheme. The auction was heavily oversubscribed, with electricity producers expected to be the main buyers.

While European Union member nations are required to participate in emissions trading, other nations are eyeing the allowance system. Japan and Australia have announced plans for experimental carbon emission trading, and President-elect Barack Obama has promised to introduce a similar cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions in the US.

Labels: climate change, economy, energy policy, u.s. energy policy

It looks as though the inelasticity of gasoline prices is finally giving way to increased conservation by the American public, as evidenced by the article below:


Americans ditching the car

By Kenneth Musante and Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writers

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May compared with a year earlier, according to a report Monday from the Federal Highway Administration.
"We have seen the longest decline in vehicular miles traveled since we started collecting this data," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters in a conference call with reporters.
Peters said that in the first four months of this year, Americans traveled 40.5 billion miles less compared with the same period in 2007. She said the decline in usage means less tax revenue for highway system.
Many of these commuters are flocking to trains, buses and bikes, or telecommuting from home.
Rising gas prices are to blame for the driving decline, and the use of public transportation is soaring, said Virginia Miller, spokeswoman for the American Public Transit Association, a private trade group.
"It does seem that we are on track to beat last year's record [public transportation] ridership," she said, noting that the 2007 tally of 10.3 billion public transit trips was a 50-year high.
"That can really only be explained by the large increase in gas prices," said Miller.
Gasoline prices soared in May, rising for 24 consecutive days in the month, and breaking the psychologically significant $4-a-gallon barrier in many states, according to data from motorist group AAA.
The FHA said that driving in May experienced the third-largest monthly drop since the agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation that manages the nation's highways and bridges, began collecting data 66 years ago. It was the largest drop for any May, a month that usually sees driving increase due to the Memorial Day holiday, the agency said. Three of those largest monthly declines have occurred since December, as unusually high fuel prices take a toll on drivers.
Trains, buses, bikes, telecommuting
Many of these drivers switched to public transportation. Usage jumped in the first three months of the year by 88 million trips from a year ago, for a total of 2.6 billion, according to the most recent figures available from the APTA.
Some of the most dramatic increases occurred in the light rail systems in Baltimore, Minneapolis and St. Louis, the commuter rails of Seattle and Harrisburg, Penn., the buses of San Antonio and Denver, and the subways and elevated rails of and Boston.
The Boston Globe reported Monday that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority broke a ridership record of 375 million passengers in fiscal year 2008, which is 21 million more than the prior year.
Other commuters, like Eric Creese, a senior database administrator in Eagan, Minn., switched to muscle power for commuting. Creese, a former triathloner, said that high gas prices inspired him to "get back" into biking.
"I asked myself, 'Why drive 150 miles a week when I can save my car, my money and do something good for my body and environment,?'" said Creese, who said he has biked 1,000 miles to work since May and saved about $250 in gas.
Now Creese runs a Web site - GasFreeCommute.com - for bike commuters, with calculators to estimate calories burned and gasoline saved. His co-workers have logged their miles on his site, totaling 5,400 so far.
And if commuters really want to save money, they'll stay at home, said Chuck Wilsker, president and co-founder of The Telework Coalition. Wilsker estimates the nationwide tally of telecommuters to increase by 4 or 5 million workers this year, from an estimated 28 million at the start of 2008.
"If you want to quickly reduce your commuting costs by 20%, leave your car at home one day a week; if you want to reduce your costs by 40%, leave your car at home two days," said Wilsker, who telecommutes from his suburban Maryland home to Washington, D.C.
Not only does Wilsker save on gas, but he said he saves on automotive wear and tear, lunch and dry cleaning.
"You know what I'm wearing?" said Wilsker. "I'm wearing shorts, sandals and a tank top. I'm sitting here working from home. My dry cleaning bill is none."
Feds get squeezed on taxes
As high fuel costs led many to rely on other forms of transportation, such as mass transit, and to cut back their miles on the road this year, the reduced driving also sliced tax revenue that would normally go toward highway maintenance, the FHA said.
The federal tax on gas generates 18.4 cents per gallon of regular gas sold and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel, which gets pumped in to the federal Highway Trust Fund. Some states also add a tax of their own to fund various projects.
The FHA budget totaled $42.18 billion in fiscal year 2008. The Bush Administration has requested $40.14 billion for fiscal year 2009.
As Americans drive less, new ways are needed to fund the national road system, the highway agency said. Even though fewer drivers are using the highways, funding is still critical, party because of a backlog in highway projects.
Peters said she would unveil a new plan on Tuesday to "fundamentally reform our nation's transportation." She said much of the plan will focus on calculating a better cost-benefit analysis for maintaining the national highway system, as well as "weaning ourselves from the gas tax over time."
First Published: July 28, 2008: 9:45 AM EDT



Find this article at: http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/28/news/economy/driving/index.htm?cnn=yes

Labels: economy, oil price, oil supply/demand

After another day of record-setting oil on Wall Street, Alexei Miller, chief executive officer of OAO Gazprom, the world's biggest natural- gas company, predicted crude oil will climb to $250 a barrel in the "foreseeable future.'' If the "foreseeable future" includes $250 a barrel for crude oil, food prices double, plunging the U.S., Japan and Europe into deep recession. Companies go bankrupt. Airlines are nationalized. Sport-utility vehicle sales dry up as gasoline tops $7 a gallon.

Yet as these remarks touched off a storm of investing and options contract negotiations for fuel, criticism over Miller's prediction also grew. Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, New Jersey, is skeptical about Miller's prediction because it may benefit Gazprom. "It's silly to take people with incredibly vested interests as having an unfettered, unbiased opinion,'' Kloza says. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, says the firm's economic models break down if the price of oil goes over $200 a barrel. "The U.S. goes into deep recession, as does most of Europe and Japan, and that takes much of the developing economies with it,'' he says. "I don't see how we get to $250 because the economy is broken long before that, and demand falls and that causes prices to fall.''

To read more of this article, click here.

Labels: economy, oil prices, oil supply/demand

Is sheer market economics dictating the recent surge in hybrid and compact flourescent light bulb purchases? The U.S. is at a "tipping point," with people beginning to factor energy use into everyday decisions, says Lee Schipper in The Wall Street Journal. Schipper, who has studied energy consumption for decades, declares the driver isn't ecology, bur rather "Sadly, it's economics. No pain, no gain."

Columnist Jeffrey Ball attributes Europe's energy consumption patterns - where the average resident consumes less than half as much oil each year as the average American - to high energy taxes, rather than environmental awareness. These economic penalties make conservation rational and not just virtuous.

For the full text of this article, click here.

Labels: economy, energy sources, environment, oil price, oil supply/demand

Wednesday, May 28 - There are two sides to every coin. While consumers struggle to assimilate $4 per gallon for gasoline, the oil industry itself faces a maelstrom of hurdles in supply-side economics. Not only have costs more than doubled for developing a new oil or gas field, the backbone of the oil industry is within 10 years of retirement. Competition over equipment and personnel have effectively delayed new projects while driving up operating costs.

Daniel Yergin highlights the woes facing the oil industry - points typically neglected in media coverage - while uncovering supply-side factors forcing oil to its breaking point. For the full text of this article, click here.

Labels: economy, oil companies, oil supply, oil supply/demand

Tuesday, May 20 - On Wall Street the price of oil hit $130 per barrel amidst market fears of inflation and supply concerns.

Amidst these concerns, Goldman Sachs issued a forecast that crude will reach $135 a barrel in the third quarter of 2008 and rise to $145 in the fourth quarter. While Saudi Arabia announced that they would increase production by 300,000 barrels a day (b/d) to 9.45 million b/d during June in order meet demand from US customers and President Bush, under pressure from a vote in Congress, halted additions to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, these measures are widely dismissed as too little to affect prices.

For the full article, click here.

Labels: economy, oil price, oil supply/demand

The United States' trade deficit, which totaled $815 billion in 2007, continues at nearly double the levels of 2001. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, petroleum currently accounts for 36% of the share in the deficit, or $293 billion, while automotive vehicles and related parts account for 16.9%.

The trade deficit is calculated by measuring the annual amount spent by U.S. individuals, companies, and government agencies on foreign-made products, minus the amount spent by foreign entities on U.S.-made products. The heavy and costly reliance of the U.S. on imported oil is easily seen in these deficit calculations.

For further information, click here.

Labels: economy, energy policy, u.s. energy policy

The following op-ed piece from the NY Times offers an interesting perspective on the subject of carbon taxation. It uses Denmark as an example of how a carbon tax can work, but with a twist - all tax revenues were returned to the industrial companies paying them as subsidies for the adoption of clean technologies or energy sources.

Read the article.

Labels: economy, energy policy

There are at least some signs that consumers are beginning to change their car buying habits based on the higher cost of gasoline. While the tipping point may yet be to come, at least attitudes are acknowledging the higher cost of fuel.

Read the article.

Labels: economy, oil price

Here is an interesting article about why economic incentives are needed for both consumers and producers.

Read the article here.

Labels: economy, efficiency

In this New York Times article, a new trend in corporate branding is revealed - companies rushing to provide their names and funds to wind farms. Businesses from John Deere to Steelcase furniture are investing both in construction and energy credits from these farms, hoping to reap the profits both from alternative energy and a responsible corporate image.

For the full article on this green corporate trend, click here.

Labels: economy, energy sources, environment

Finally we are beginning to see the answer to a long asked question - when will American's gasoline consumption start to decrease due to higher prices? While years ago many ecomonists thought prices above $2 per gallon would do the trick, our growth in consumption has slowed, but not halted - until now.

Read the article.

Labels: economy, oil price

ELA readers will note there are two distinct arguments going on right now about oil supplies. One is about the geological oil supplies remaining, the other is about effective affordable oil supplies remaining.

This article discusses geologic oil supplies and the future, but note it does not address the affordability of these supplies (remember we stopped burning wood for heating needs long before all of the world's forests were chopped down - why?, because coal came along as a cheap solution - we need a similar transition to sustainable energy sources now).

This article discusses the effects of increased oil prices on the economy - perhaps a more relevant consideration than when geological supplies will peak.

Labels: economy, oil supply/demand

Countless economists have noted that an increase in the federal gasoline tax will have the effect of decreasing gasoline use, thus lowering demand for oil and at the least stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions.

This article proposes such an increase, the funds of which are to be used for infrastructure enhancements. Others have argued for a gas tax increase with the funds going towards oil conservation efforts directly.

Labels: economy, energy policy

This article, recently published in the MIT Technology Review magazine, provides a balanced perspective on the biofuels boom. It includes possibilities for future development and is fairly accurate - containing and commenting only on credible information.

Access the article here (you will need to register for free to view this article - but its worth it!)

Labels: biofuels, economy, energy policy

This article about the potential of oil shale brings the reader up to speed on the latest technology advances in the difficult field of oil shale recovery. Oil shale may play an important role as a fossil fuel source in the future, with reserves located in the US that are three times that of Saudi Arabia. However there are limitations and drawbacks, including an extraction process that is far more intensive than conventional oil, leading to environmental concerns. A more intensive process also means fewer barrels can be easily extracted per day (witness the Canadian tar sands, who have worked for 30 years to reach the current level of production). In short oil shale, as with all other energy sources, is by no means a silver bullet.

Read the article here...

Labels: economy, energy policy, energy sources

In this recent Fortune magazine article the author sites several individuals who believe the American economy can withstand $100/barrel oil. We have certainly become less energy intensive per unit of GDP (a gauge of economic activity) and have been able to weather the storm of rising oil prices so far. However this article does not address the fact that the increase in oil price was both gradual and demand (rather than supply) driven - two factors we have no historical precendent with.

Read the article...

Labels: economy, oil price

This article highlights the historically high price of oil reached today, and attempts to identify some of the causes, noting that higher prices may be here to stay...


Oil kicks off year by hitting $100
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
January 2 2008: 4:23 PM EST
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices kicked off 2008 by hitting $100 a barrel for the first time Wednesday, with violence in oil-rich Nigeria, the prospect of more interest rate cuts, a halt in Mexican imports and talk of yet another drop in U.S. crude supplies contributing to the milestone.
U.S. crude for February delivery hit $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange just after noon ET. It slipped to settle up $3.64 at $99.62, a new end-of-day record. The previous trading record was $99.29, set Nov. 20, while the previous settlement record was $98.18, set Nov. 23.
Oil prices ended 2007 by gaining nearly 60 percent for the year, the largest jump this decade.
"This market is really gonna fly," Ira Eckstein, president of Area International Trading Corp, said from the NYMEX floor.
The White House ruled out opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to temporarily relieve prices, and instead called for more domestic production.
In Nigeria, bands of armed men on Tuesday invaded Port Harcourt, the center of the oil industry, attacking two police stations and raiding the lobby of a major hotel, The Associated Press reported. Four policemen, three civilians and six attackers were killed. The Niger Delta Vigilante Movement claimed responsibility for the attack.
At 2.1 million barrels per day, Nigeria was the world's eighth-largest oil exporter in 2006, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
A surprise fall in manufacturing activity sparked fears of yet another interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Interest rate cuts generally cause the dollar to fall - and oil prices to rise - as investors bail out of U.S. stocks and bonds and into commodities.
"The perception is that as the U.S. economy continues to weaken, the Fed will cut interest rates one more time," said Nauman Barakat, an energy trader at Macquarie Futures, the trading arm of Macquarie investment bank.
The Associated Press reported that several Mexican ports were closed due to rough weather.
PEMEX, the Mexican state oil company, could not be immediately reached for comment, but reports indicated the ports should be open by Thursday with minimal disruption to crude shipments.
At 1.7 million barrels per day, Mexico is the world's 10th largest exporter of crude and the second largest exporter to the United States behind Canada.
Analysts are expecting the latest government inventory report - set for release Thursday, to show a 1.8 million barrel decline in crude supplies, according to a Dow Jones poll. It would mark the seventh straight week U.S. crude stocks have dropped.
Oil has been on a tear over the last few months - rising from under $70 in August - as OPEC cuts from earlier this year began to eat into inventories in developed counties.
A falling dollar and reports pointing to tightening supplies as strong demand from developing countries swallows up new production gains have also pushed prices higher, as well as attracted a slew of investment money.
Crude has risen over five-fold since the start of 2002, largely for the same reasons.
Adjusted for inflation, oil is at or near the prices of the early 1980s. At that time, following the Iranian revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, oil traded in the high $30-a-barrel range, the equivalent of between $92 and around $103 a barrel in current prices, depending on the contract cited and the inflation calculation used.
Retail gasoline prices have not risen as fast as oil prices over the last few months, largely due to weak demand.
But with oil prices so high, gasoline is beginning to catch up. The national average price for a gallon of regular Wednesday was about $3.05 a gallon, a penny less than last month but about 30 percent higher than the same time last year, according to the motorist organization AAA.
"Unfortunately, we also continue to believe that new record high prices will be paid by consumers for gasoline in the year ahead," AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said in a statement.

Original Article Link

Labels: economy, oil price

The article below, from the Economist, highlights why our economy is more resilient to oil price increases presently while still pointing out the serious danger of energy complacency.


SHOCK TREATMENT
Nov 15th 2007

Why the economy has absorbed high oil prices fairly easily, and why it may no longer
OIL prices have a special place in economic folklore. The two nastiest global recessions of recent decades were preceded by huge and sudden rises in the price of oil, first in 1973 and then in 1979. These twin spikes, both engineered by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries limiting its oil shipments, are still the textbook example of an economic "shock"--a sudden change in business conditions. Abrupt increases in the oil price have prompted anxiety about stunted growth ever since.
Higher oil prices hurt the economy because they act like a tax increase. Firms that use oil face higher costs which, if they cannot be passed on in higher prices, might mean that some production becomes unprofitable. Consumers paying more for their petrol and heating oil have less to spend on other things. If they look for higher wages to compensate for a drop in purchasing power, that will only lead to job losses.

Oil-producing countries benefit from higher crude prices so the impact on global demand depends how their extra income is spent. But even if oil windfalls are spent largely on goods produced by oil importers, the abrupt shift in the distribution of global income will still be destabilising.
Given the gloomy history, the lingering unease about higher oil prices is understandable. A demonstration of this came on November 13th when, after a rough few days, stockmarkets rose on news that the oil price had fallen below $93. After all the talk of breaking the three-figure barrier, a drop towards a mere $90 spurred a relief rally.
Yet for all that, something has changed. Today's oil prices would have been unthinkable until very recently. Six years ago, when a barrel of crude could be bought for as little as $20, oil prices at today's levels would have raised fears of deep recession. Notwithstanding the spectre of past oil shocks, crude prices have risen to ever-dizzier heights without derailing a five-year period of strong global growth.
But why has the oil bogeyman become less scary? Two new papers*[1] by three well-known economists set out to explain. They come to similar
conclusions: oil shocks do not hurt as much because oil is used less intensively than before, because the economy is more flexible and because central banks are better at controlling inflation.
What makes oil special is that it is a uniquely dense and portable form of energy. It is not easy to switch to alternatives very quickly, so disruptions to supply are damaging. Yet improvements in energy efficiency mean dependence on oil is not what it once was. Rich countries use less than half as much oil as they did in 1970 for each inflation-adjusted dollar of GDP. So although prices in real terms have returned to levels last seen in the 1970s, their impact is not as powerful when set against the diminished economic importance of oil (see charts).
The blow from dearer oil is less powerful than it was and compared with their rigid state in the 1970s, today's more flexible economies are better able to take a punch. Higher oil prices have some unavoidable direct consequences on companies' production costs and on prices paid by consumers for oil-derived products. Wider damage to jobs and output depends on how well these increased costs are absorbed. If workers insist on higher cash wages to maintain their spending power, firms'
costs will take an additional hit, resulting in lay-offs, higher unemployment and depressed demand. To the extent that workers take it on the chin, accepting higher oil prices as a temporary tax increase that lowers their real take-home pay, the collateral damage will be smaller. The rigidity of the 1970s economies, where union power and indexed contracts meant wages were unyielding, only magnified the adverse effects of oil shocks. Today's flexible jobs markets allow oil shocks to be absorbed less harmfully.
If consumers are more forgiving of oil shocks, it is partly because they have become more accustomed to volatile prices and partly because they have greater trust in policymakers to keep inflation under control. Dearer oil has pushed up consumer prices, but expectations of future price increases have remained remarkably stable. That in turn reflects a belief that central banks will act where necessary to keep a lid on inflation. There is a self-fulfilling aspect to that faith.
Employees are less pushy in seeking inflationary wage deals and firms think twice about raising their own prices. As a result, central banks do not need to respond as aggressively as in the past to the inflation caused by higher oil prices. A less jerky monetary policy makes for greater stability.
PUMP-ACTION PROBLEMS
Both papers help tell us why oil shocks hurt much less than they used to. But that is not to say that oil prices no longer matter at all.
Neither analysis takes the run-up in oil prices over the last year into account. The rise in crude prices since the summer has been rapid even by the standards of the 1970s shocks and comes at a particularly bad time for America, the world's largest oil user. Consumers are now having to absorb a flurry of punches. Falling house prices, tighter credit conditions, rising unemployment, as well as higher prices at the petrol pump, all cloud the outlook for consumer spending.
Moreover, part of the cost of absorbing past oil-price hikes has been higher consumer debt and a huge trade deficit, both of which make America's economy more vulnerable. And though the Federal Reserve's credibility has allowed it to cut interest rates in anticipation of a downturn, the persistence of oil-led inflation may yet shift expectations of future price pressures, forcing the central bank to keep monetary policy on a tighter chain. America's economy no longer has the glass chin that it had in the 1970s. But a combination of powerful blows could still have a shattering impact.

*"The Macroeconomic Effects of Oil Price Shocks: Why are the 2000s So Different From the 1970s?", by Olivier Blanchard and Jordi Gali.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Working Paper 07-21 (August 2007).
"Who's Afraid of a Big Bad Oil Shock", by William Nordhaus. Preliminary draft (September 2007) prepared for Brookings Panel on Economic Activity.

Labels: economy, energy policy, oil supply/demand

This article by Thomas Friedman is one of the best I've read recently on the subject of the great divide between the present level of energy/global warming rhetoric we're hearing these days vs. actual policy options being developed and implemented. There is way too much at stake for this generation and the next one for us to waste the narrow window of oportunity we have on fiddling around while Rome burns. We simply cannot allow energy and global warming to become co-opted by those who benefit from a lot of talk and gesture about energy and global warming when swift and decisive action is needed!

June 3, 2007Op-Ed Columnist, nytimes.comOur Green Bubble By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Surely the most glaring contrast in American political life today is the amount of words, speeches and magazine covers devoted to the necessity of “going green,” “combating climate change” and gaining “energy security,” and the actual solutions being offered by our leaders to do any of these things. You could very comfortably drive a Hummer through the gap between our words and deeds.

We are playing pretend — which, when you think about it, is really troubling. Here are the facts: Our worst enemies, like Iran, have been emboldened by all their petrodollars. The vast majority of scientists tell us that global warming caused by our burning of fossil fuels is a real danger. And with three billion new consumers from India, Russia and China joining the world economy, it is inevitable that manufacturing clean, green power systems, appliances, homes and cars will be the next great global industry. It has to be, or we will not survive as a species.

And yet ... and yet our president and our Congress still won’t give us an energy bill that would create the legal and economic framework to address these issues at the speed and scale required.

If you were President Bush, wouldn’t you want to leave behind something big, bold and important on energy, just in case — you know, just in case — Iraq doesn’t turn out so well? I sure would. But the president still has not challenged Congress or the country to undertake a radical departure on energy. So we still have only “energy politics,” not “energy policy.” Like previous energy bills, the packages working through the House and Senate today represent more “the sum of all lobbies,” as the energy expert Gal Luft, co-chairman of the Set America Free Coalition, puts it, not the sum of our best ideas.

Some lawmakers are pushing corn ethanol from Iowa, either because they hail from that area and are looking to give more welfare to farmers by wasting money on an alternative fuel that will never reach the scale of what is needed, or because they plan to run in the Iowa caucuses. Others are pushing huge subsidies to turn coal into gasoline, because they come from coal states. Those who don’t come from Michigan want higher mileage standards imposed on Detroit, while those who come from Michigan prefer to continue their assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by blocking tougher mileage requirements.

“The only green that they are serious about in Congress right now is the one with Ben Franklin’s picture on it,” Mr. Luft said.

Yes, it is helpful that Mr. Bush expressed a desire last week to work with other nations to limit greenhouse gases. His bully pulpit matters. But no one will — or should — take him seriously unless his government first leads by example. What would that look like? It has to start with a clear, long-term price signal. That is, a carbon tax or gasoline tax — or a cap and trade system with a binding national ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions — which would set a price for dumping carbon into the atmosphere or driving a gas-guzzling car.

Get Washington to signal that gasoline is never going to retreat from a level of $3.50 or $4 a gallon — and that wind and solar subsidies will be there for a decade, not stop and start as they always have before; get Washington to commit to buying a fixed volume of solar and wind power for government buildings and Army bases for 10 years, with only U.S.-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts; get Washington to set a new fleet average of 35 miles per gallon for Detroit within 10 years — with no loopholes; establish government loan guarantees for any company that wants to build a nuclear power plant; and, finally, build a national transmission grid — a green power superhighway — so that solar energy from Arizona or wind from Wyoming can power homes in Chicago. Do all that and our private sector will take America from green laggard to green leader.

Unfortunately, Congress is brewing instead a hodgepodge of incrementalism. This is particularly disappointing when America’s corporate icons — G.M., G.E., A.I.G., DuPont, PepsiCo — “have all come out in favor of a national mandatory limit on carbon emissions,” notes Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. “But Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have not risen to their challenge.” We have a multigenerational problem that requires a systemic, multigenerational response, and that can happen only if we get our energy prices right.

Only that will guarantee green innovation and commercialization at scale. Anything less is wasted breath and wasted money — and any candidate who says otherwise is only contributing to global warming by adding hot air.

Labels: economy, energy, global warming, u.s. energy policy