With its choice for Hinkley Point C - a ÂŁ100 billion boondoggle â its enthusiastic support for expensive and environmentally harmful fracking, and its relentless attack on renewable energy, the UK governmentâs energy policy is both morally and economically bankrupt, write Peter Strachan, Professor of Energy Policy at the Robert Gordon University, and Alex Russell, Professor and Chair of the Oil Industry Finance Committee. Westminster must … [Read more...]
Chinese national oil companies: giants built on shaky foundations
Chinese state-owned enterprises, Chinaâs national oil companies foremost among them, have incurred phenomenal debts â higher than the countryâs total GDP. So far they have been bailed out by the government, but this just shifts the problem one level up,  to China Inc as a whole, writes geophysicist  (ex-Shell) Jilles van den Beukel. Van den Beukel explains how Chinaâs national oil companies Sinopec, CNPC and CNOOC got into this fix and why the … [Read more...]
Will Trumpism, Brexit, and geopolitical exceptionalism sink the planet?Â
The future pace of climate change will be determined as much by geopolitical factors as by technological developments in the energy sector, writes energy expert and author Michael T. Klare. While immense progress is being made in bringing down the price of wind and solar power, the political will to turn such developments into meaningful global change may be diminishing. Article courtesy of Tomdispatch.com. … [Read more...]
South Africaâs rapid energy transition derails its giant nuclear and coal projects
South Africa shows how quick an energy transition can be. In four years, the countryâs renewable energy program has mushroomed, while the building of coal power stations and the planning of a $50-$100 billion nuclear power project have come to a grinding halt. Recent events, however, have raised some uncertainty for renewables, writes South African based science writer Leonie Joubert. Article courtesy of the Energy Transition blog. … [Read more...]
How Paris will change global emissions accounting
The Paris Agreement will lead to important changes in the way greenhouse gas emissions are accounted for and how they could be traded internationally. David Hone, Chief Climate Change Advisor with Royal Dutch Shell, looks at the implications of the Paris Agreement and concludes that it will probably lead to a more robust and enduring carbon market. … [Read more...]
Tesla Gigafactory 1 – will it succeed or fail?
The success or failure of the Tesla Gigafactory, which opened in July in Nevada could have far-reaching consequences for the transition to renewables and electric cars. Stephen J. Veneruso attended the opening and took a good hard look at the people involved in this huge project. He concludes that they donât regard it as an ordinary job. Article courtesy of Cleantechnica.com. … [Read more...]
Energy policies of the U.S. presidential candidates
âThere is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of âclimate changeââ, says one. âWhen it comes to climate change, the science is crystal clearâ, says the other. âSave the coal industryâ, says one. âQuickly move to make a bridge from coal to natural gas to clean energy,â states the other. Allan Hoffman, author of the blog Thougts of a Lapsed Physicist, investigates the positions of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on climate and … [Read more...]
Energy prices, not capacity mechanisms, are key to ensuring reliability at the lowest cost
Electricity generators often claim that prices cannot fully reflect the value of the reliability they offer the market. Hence they insist they need separate capacity payments to justify investments. But according to Mike Hogan of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), the current energy market design is fully able to reflect the value of reliability, even if it doesnât always do so in practice. In a new report, he describes a smarter approach, … [Read more...]
UK government approves Hinkley Point C
The UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced this morning that the government goes ahead with the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project. This is a very important decision for the nuclear energy sector in Europe, especially EDF, and energy policy in general. … [Read more...]
IEA sees âmajor shiftâ â but not major enough
âA major shift in investment towards low-carbon sources of power generation is underwayâ, according to a first-ever detailed analysis of investment across the global energy system from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Yet, in non-OECD countries, âinvestment in conventional generation remains strongâ, with over 75 GW of coal-fired power plants starting operation in 2015 in âdeveloping Asiaâ â âas much as all renewable capacity additions in … [Read more...]
Success of EU foreign policy hinges on climate and energy security
Europe's global strategic interests have become inseparable from managing climate risk and the global energy transition, write Luca Bergamaschi, Nick Mabey, Jonathan Gaventa and Camilla Born of the independent climate and energy think tank E3G. In a new report, EU foreign policy in a changing climate, they set out how Europe can make these themes a central thread in its foreign policy. "The new energy economy is now at the heart of Europeâs … [Read more...]
China’s continuing renewable energy revolution – can it save the world?
China has made strategic choices favouring renewables over fossil fuels that are still not widely understood or appreciated, writes John A. Mathews, Professor of Management, Macquarie University, Australia. In this article he gives an overview of the latest trends in Chinese eletric power generation, which shows that the system is still "greening" faster than it is becoming black. But whether it is changing fast enough to save the world, is still … [Read more...]
Nuclear power deserves a level playing field
Today we offer two expert perspectives on subsidizing nuclear power. Hereâs the argument for ongoing support by Arthur T. Motta, Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Compete or suckle: should troubled nuclear reactors be subsidized?
Today we offer two expert perspectives on subsidizing nuclear power. Hereâs the argument against providing economic support by Peter Bradford, Adjunct Professor Vermont Law School. Â Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]
How millennials could bring the oil industry to its knees
There is a growing disconnect between the world of Big Oil and the world of the âmillennialsâ, writes Julianne Geiger of Oilprice.com. Ignoring this generation, could be a costly mistake, she warns. What do the millennials want anyway? New ways of doing things, that is for sure. … [Read more...]
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