Category: Energy

Climate change is one of the most complicated subjects I have ever taken on. It involves intricate scientific topics and will likely have broad economic impact.

And clearly many Americans are having a tough time making up their mind on this topic. A recent poll by the Pew Center shows the number of people who think climate change is caused by human activity is falling. This alarms many scientists who consider the evidence to be clear cut.

Rather than opine on this, I thought I'd point readers to some of the sources I have found useful on this topic.

I'm not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV, but when I hear of technology that sounds promising, I like to see it. Converting plastic into oil fit that bill. Last week I spent a couple of hours at Envion's demonstration plastic-to-oil plant at the trash sorting station in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Good thing it's not Smell-O-Vision -- the dump has a sweet/sour smell that at times was quite strong. I didn't notice any smell from the Envion generator, and the system is mostly contained.

Everyone in Saudi Arabia is talking about KAUST. And it's Saudi Arabia's hope that soon the rest of the world will also be raving about KAUST. That's the acronym for King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, a new, multi-billion dollar graduate-level university on a sprawling campus outside Jeddah. I was invited to the gala ceremony--along with 3,500 other guests including heads of state, business leaders and Nobel laureates--to celebrate this week's opening of the university.

The event was done in grand style fit for a king and flashier than the product launches for a new Apple gadget. The ceremony was held in a tent bigger than an airplane hangar; and the Saudis dazzled the crowd with fireworks, an extravagant water fountain show and a dinner feast straight out of "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights."

So why all this hoopla for a university?

It's hard for me to believe that oil prices have shot up so quickly on optimism about the economy. I don't see what's changed over the past few weeks to make speculators so much more confident a recovery is underway. I concede the economy has probably bottomed. But that doesn't necessarily mean things are rapidly improving. There's still weakness in the housing market, in the real estate market, and a credit crunch, all of which will constrain growth for quite a while. I think fiscal and monetary stimulus efforts will pay off, but not soon.

In my piece Tuesday night, economist Dean Maki argued the price per gallon of gasoline doesn't really matter to consumers. It's the rate of the increases that counts.

About six months after I started at NBR, the president signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law. Among other things, the bill created a renewable fuels standard that would require a certain amount of ethanol be produced each year, peaking at 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels in 2012. Bush then upped the ante in 2007, raising the peak to 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 (15 billion of that being corn-based fuel).

That's a lot of ethanol.

There was boom in companies willing to produce it. But as it turns out, producing corn-based ethanol isn't the problem. Being able to use it is.

The "American Clean Energy and Security Act" is a complex proposal. Lawmakers who weren't crazy about the "cap and trade" idea to begin with today complained about seeing the 932 page proposal first time late Friday, ahead of this afternoon's mark-up. The big change is that utilities and other large emitters of carbon will no longer pay for their initial pollution permits, but be given them for free.

Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum says it's a "huge mistake to make radical, major revisions to the bill behind closed doors." Both Congressman Ed Markey and Henry Waxman hailed the compromise. The key reason for the change was to build industry support for the bill.

A Bush-ism was used by people with opposing views on climate change to describe today's determination by the EPA.

Game-changer. The Bush administration refused to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. In April 2007, the Supreme Court over-ruled that.

Today the Obama administration made good on a campaign promise and changed the game. Now that the EPA has determined greenhouse gases are a pollutant that endangers public health, the question becomes - what should be done about it? The EPA can regulate, Congress can pass legislation, or the EPA can take delay regulation until the technology is cost effective.

Have you checked out the light bulbs you are using? Helping the environment also helps your pockets.

According to the federal government's Energy Star website, you can save $30 on each bulb's lifetime by using energy efficient light bulbs. Look for bulbs marked Energy Star. You might also want to check out the tips for "choosing the right compact fluorescent light bulbs" offered by About.com. You'll also want to watch for discounts Home Depot and other home repair chains often offer for the bulbs.

Back in December, as I sat in the airport waiting to board a long-haul flight, I had a sudden realization: I forgot to turn down the thermostat in my apartment. Drat! Aside from dreading what my utility bill would look like, I also felt guilty. I was using a lot of energy to heat an apartment that would be vacant for two whole weeks!

When I recounted this story to Steve Hauser at GridPoint, the company mentioned in my story tonight, he replied, “Ah, see, with our smart grid software, you could have logged in from the airport and turned your thermostat down remotely.” When you think about it, in today’s world that idea isn’t entirely novel. After all, we pay our bills online, invest online and manage our bank accounts online. Why shouldn’t we be able to control our energy usage online?

It's worth noting that the United States is not the only country doing what it can to boost its economy.

As International Strategy and Investment points out, countries from Germany to Vietnam are slashing interest rates and boosting fiscal stimulus.

That's a hopeful sign, thought it is also a signal of how dramatic this global slowdown has become.

For some insight into the fiscal stimulus, check out the IMF's report on the topic: