The brewing conflict around the South China Sea, with its large oil and gas resources, could easily turn into a catastrophic war between the US and China, writes Rajan Menon, international relations specialist at City College New York and Columbia University. Menon explains what is behind the territorial claims on the South China Sea and why it will be extremely risky for the US to try to confront China there. Courtesy of TomDispatch. … [Read more...]
Energy Union: Delivery pending
Electricity market design, renewable energies, energy efficiency – the EU Commission’s recent “Winter Package” touches upon some of the core themes of the envisioned “Energy Union”. But finding agreement on all these dossiers will be difficult in this politically turbulent year, writes Severin Fischer of the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. According to Fischer, five aspects deserve closer attention. Courtesy Policy Perspectives. … [Read more...]
Can UK power market reform replace the capacity market?
The UK has just completed another auction for a large amount of backup power capacity. The country’s capacity market scheme will cost ratepayers many billions of pounds. Independent consultant Gerard Wynn wonders if they are really necessary. … [Read more...]
China’s renewable energy revolution continues on its long march
In one year China added almost as much generation from renewable power as Germany’s total renewable energy generation, according to the end of January statistics for 2016 by the National Energy Administration of China and the China Electricity Council. Yet the country’s electricity supply still relies strongly on coal, notes Simon Göß of Berlin-based consultancy Energy Brainpool. … [Read more...]
New President, new electric grid?
As the new Trump administration considers measures to enhance roads and bridges, they should also focus on America’s ageing electricity infrastructure, writes Dick Munson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The U.S. electricity system is shockingly unreliable compared to every other developed nation, notes Munson, and the regulation of the industry is “byzantine”. By focusing on investment, efficiency, and markets, the U.S. could have a … [Read more...]
Separating fact from fiction in newest U.S. federal ethanol study
The latest ethanol study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture mixes facts with fictions, writes John DeCicco of the University of Michigan. The study contains fundamental errors that undermine its claims that the use of corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions. … [Read more...]
MEPs will fight Brexit deal that lets the UK become an offshore pollution haven
The European Parliament has indicated it will not accept a Brexit deal that will let the UK have lower environmental standards than the EU, writes Charlotte Burns (@EUrefEnv), Senior Lecturer Environmental Policy at the University of York. If only because this would put EU manufacturers and farmers at a competitive disadvantage. Courtesy of The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Hamburg considers innovative heat storage scheme
Institutions in Hamburg are proposing to build a large underground thermal heat storage system that could supply roughly a quarter of the city’s heating needs with waste heat from industrial and power plants. If successful, it would make Vattenfall’s plans to realise a CO2-neutral district heating network superfluous. It could also serve as an example for other cities. … [Read more...]
Wake-up call: production of Dutch small gas fields headed for collapse
Partly as a result of policy neglect, production from small gas fields in the Netherlands has dramatically declined in recent years, a fact that so far seems to have escaped public notice, writes Jilles van den Beukel. Dutch gas is effectively being replaced by Russian gas, he notes. According to Van den Beukel, this is not in the best interest of the Netherlands or of the EU, neither from a financial nor from an environmental point of view. He … [Read more...]
Green power revolution grinds forward, an unstoppable glacier
Webster’s defines revolution as “a sudden, radical or complete change.” The ongoing revolution in the United States electric utility industry fits that definition to a T, writes Washington-based energy reporter Dennis Wamsted. The changes have been unbelievably quick (at least by company standards, if not by activists’ desires), and the long-term impacts are going to be both radical and complete. Importantly, in today’s political climate, the … [Read more...]
Can emissions trading produce adequate carbon prices? That’s the question
Prices under emissions trading schemes have been low, unlike some carbon taxes. This undermines confidence in this key climate instrument, writes energy and climate change economist Adam Whitmore. The EU should take the lead in demonstrating that emissions trading can work, or climate change efforts will suffer. … [Read more...]
Carbon Tracker: no growth for oil and coal from 2020, gas can flip-flop
Falling costs of electric vehicle and solar technology could halt growth in global demand for oil and coal from 2020, finds a new report co-authored by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative launched on Thursday. The future of natural gas is highly uncertain in this new scenario analysis. … [Read more...]
The next EV revolution: think trucks and buses
Most of the talk around electric vehicles centres round Tesla’s, Chevy Bolts and other passenger cars. But the financial and environmental case for the electrification of big vehicles, such as buses and garbage trucks, is actually much more compelling than for small cars, writes Chris Denny Brown. According to Brown, founder of job site Cleantekker, this is where the electric transport revolution should have begun. … [Read more...]
Trump administration needs to be watched closely
The first actions of the new Trump administration raise grave concerns, both with regard to their energy policies and their policies in general, writes Allan R. Hoffman, author of the blog Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist and formerly with the U.S. Department of Energy. We need to be vigilant to safeguard our democratic system. … [Read more...]
Emissions trading: Time to make it work
There is broad consensus that carbon pricing should be one of the key measures to deal with global warming, yet there has been no effective emission trading scheme anywhere in the world, writes Stig Schjolset, who this week is leaving his job as head of carbon analysis at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon to become special advisor on climate policy and green growth to the Norwegian government. According to Schjolset this is not because there is … [Read more...]
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