Category Archives: Energy

by Judith Curry

A few articles that I’ve collected on energy policy.

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by John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

Ever since the global recession began in 2008, suggestions of an imminent trade war erupting between China and its trading partners have been increasingly rising.

Now the first shot in trade disputes has been fired.  By China.

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by Judith Curry

In pondering what might happen in 2012 in terms of energy and climate policy, oilprice.com suggests that stove-piped analysis of individual strategic sectors (e.g. energy) is inadequate, and we need to consider the broad global strategic environment.

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by Judith Curry

Producing energy uses water, and providing freshwater uses energy. Both these processes face growing limits and problems. In most power plants, water cools the steam that spins the electricity-generating turbines. Refining transportation fuels requires water, as does producing fuels—for example, mining coal, extracting petroleum, or growing crops for biofuels. Using water in our homes and businesses requires getting it there, treating it, heating it, and more.

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by Jonathan Huddleston

Current attempts by national governments worldwide to control industrial CO₂ emissions following the recommendations of the IPCC could be viewed within the scientific paradigm as the projection of a large scale experiment on the earth’s climate system to validate the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO₂ emissions through the burning of fossil fuels and land use changes (inter alia) are a major factor driving climate change. If such policies are to be effective,  it is hypothesized here that periodic global economic and industrial fluctuations in activity of sufficient magnitude should be capable of producing a signal detectable by atmospheric CO₂ monitoring programmes.

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by Allen Green

What options do consumers have for choosing renewable energy?

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by Roger Caiazza

The lead statement to the IPCC press release announcing their renewables report stated “Close to 80 percent of the world’s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling policies a new report shows.” I believe that the only way this could happen is if there were multiple miracles but don’t take my word for it.  Do you your own analysis.

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by Judith Curry

David Roberts at Grist has a really interesting post entitled “The gobsmackingly gargantuan challenge of shifting to clean energy.”  The post is based upon an excellent presentation by Saul Griffith.   Griffith considers a target  of 450 ppm.  The punchline of his analysis:

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