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Unlimited Power?
This weekend I spoke on a panel at the International Space Development Conference in Washington, D.C. The subject of the panel was the business case for Space Solar Power, and while that might sound like a contradiction in terms to most people, it...
The Right Nudge
I've covered the idea of a government-set floor price for petroleum several times in the last couple of years, so I didn't immediately feel obliged to address the latest such proposal from Tom Friedman in yesterday's New York Times. Enough readers...
Ending Oil's Monopoly
In yesterday's Financial Times (subscription required for full text) Daniel Yergin suggested that the current oil price spike is creating a historical "break point" for petroleum that will result in the loss of oil's dominance in the global...
Paying the Bill
The price of oil and gasoline was a popular topic at the neighborhood Memorial Day barbecue. One of my neighbors, a retired executive, was especially concerned about a number he had heard in an interview with T. Boone Pickens, to the effect that...
Oil Panic Attack
After having mostly yawned our way through the first half of oil's amazing six-year ride, we now watch its movements as intently as any futures trader, and our level of concern seems to be building towards a national anxiety attack. Since 2002 we'...
Clean Green Wheels
Yesterday I attended the awards ceremony honoring the winners of the Challenge X competition sponsored by the Department of Energy and GM, in which teams from 17 US and Canadian universities vied to produce the highest energy and emissions savings...
Sunshine in Germany
I'm still catching up on the news, after a long weekend in a remote location. Among the articles I missed was one in Friday's New York Times on Germany's subsidies for solar power. Although the country's system of "feed-in tariffs" and the rapid...
Crossing the Rubicon?
Although I haven't made any great study of the history of shareholder revolts, I suspect that it is fairly unusual for one to occur when a company is enjoying record earnings, not only relative to its own past performance, but when compared against...
Counting Electrons and Molecules
The electric vehicles are coming. Whether they are to be plug-in versions of hybrid cars, along the lines of the eagerly-awaited Chevrolet Volt or plug-in Prius, or the pure EVs recently promised by the CEO of Renault and Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, we...
$4 In Sight
As of yesterday's market close, the price of light sweet crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) was up 29% since December 31, 2007. In this environment, prognostications about the market become obsolete almost as fast as they're...
How Much Wind?
Yesterday the Department of Energy released a major study on the potential of wind power in the US, suggesting that by 2030 it could supply 20% of our electricity needs, at little incremental investment over and above what would be necessary anyway...
Half Full
Senator McCain's remarks on climate change yesterday are drawing predictable responses from both sides of the issue. While environmentalists may see it as a collection of half-measures, climate skeptics, including the editors of the Wall Street...
