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Efficiency: California's Oldtime Energy Religion Updated: 2008-10-23 04:40:00 Description: October has not been a particularly uplifting month on the climate front of the Green Energy War. The worldwide financial freeze-up has sent summer soldiers across the globe scurrying for the presumed security of retreat. Even the nominal...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Feed-In May Ease Southern California Squeeze Updated: 2008-10-14 21:42:00 Description: A surprise announcement last week by Southern California Edison that it plans to adapt its 2009 Renewable Procurement Plan to include feed-in tariff provisions for projects under 20 MW in size could be a game changer. READ MORE...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Enhanced Geothermal: Drill Here, Drill Now, Pt. 2 Updated: 2008-09-17 04:19:00 Description: As Albert Einstein famously observed, "politics is more difficult than physics." The US congressional energy debate end-game these next two weeks seems destined to prove this out. At its core is bipartisan recognition of an inchoate,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Enhanced Geothermal: Drill Here, Drill Now? Updated: 2008-09-16 05:27:00 Description: A surefire indicator of hubris in American business is the misbegotten belief that success in one enterprise is a predictor of likely success in another, unrelated one. Established companies periodically flirt with this conceit -- whether for e...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD So, How Expensive Is US Gasoline Anyway? Updated: 2008-08-26 04:31:00 Description: Strategists attempting to gauge the likely scale and scope of Green Energy War initiatives after the clamor of the current election cycle is past may gravitate to the lodestar of gasoline prices. Posted outside every service station in statutorily pr...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Discount Rates, Pt. 2: Why They Matter So Much Updated: 2008-08-25 23:46:00 Description: Pragmatists in the Green Energy War tend to consider natural gas a necessary transition fuel for electric generation. They are cognizant of the role quick start, fast ramp gas generation will play in integrating intermittent wind and solar generation...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Discount Rates: The Divine Right of Economists Updated: 2008-08-25 22:10:00 Description: Strategists in the Green Energy War are forced to make do with the analytic tools the early years of the 21st Century have made available to them. How to properly value future costs and future benefits has long been a conundrum for decisionmakers in ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Will the UK Require New Coal Plants to Use CCS? Updated: 2008-08-07 01:29:00 Description: With thousands of demonstrators expected to converge this weekend on Kingsnorth, a powerplant site in Kent where the German utility E.On hopes to build the first new coal units in Britain since 1974, a much larger battle is emerging in Parliament tha...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD UK Renewables, Pt. 2: Churchill or Friedman? Updated: 2008-07-12 00:59:00 Description: The bipolar personality of the electricity chapters in the UK's renewable energy consultation document is more than simply the kind of literary tic often associated with government reports written by multiple authors. It vividly illustrates a deep co...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD UK Renewables Policy: No 'Rule, Brittania' Just Yet Updated: 2008-07-06 06:17:00 Description: Because the Green Energy War has to date been driven by a proverbial coalition of the willing -- only the growing number of climate jihadis and the somewhat smaller sect of renewables zealouts see the subject as determinative of mankind's fate -- gov...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD California's Climate Plan Snowball Starts Its Roll Updated: 2008-07-06 00:51:00 Description: Wading into one of the most self-regarding political cultures on the planet, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, last week injected a small bit of perspective into California's celebration of the rel...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD EIA Fudges Update to Longterm Oil Price Forecast Updated: 2008-06-29 02:51:00 Description: In the ocean liner turning process that characterizes a great nation's change in view of strategic inputs, nimbleness and agility are more applauded in speeches than observed in practice. Media coverage of yesterday's release by the US Energy Informa...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Policymaker's Cookbook for Feed-In Tariffs Updated: 2008-06-28 01:29:00 Description: The nature of the Green Energy War varies considerably around the world, but support for feed-in tariffs is an increasingly common litmus employed by renewables advocates globally to evaluate the efficacy of government efforts. Remarkably successful ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Stage Set for New Renewables Strategy in UK Updated: 2008-06-26 03:32:00 Description: This morning's press briefing by the Prime Minister's Spokesman confirms that the long-awaited UK Renewable Energy Strategy will be published in two days. The report, underway for some time, is being rushed forward after a blistering criticism of the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD German Cabinet Bolsters Merkel's Hokkaido Stance Updated: 2008-06-25 02:21:00 Description: Combatants on the climate front of the Green Energy War have long looked to Germany for inspiration. Despite deepening rifts in Angela Merkel's "grand coalition" government, and some obvious soft spots in the package, the CO2 reduction mea...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD IEA Report, Pt. 4: Five Weak Links Updated: 2008-06-23 20:31:00 Description: Depending upon the outcome of next month's Hokkaido G8 summit, especially its "major economies" side event, the IEA's recent climate report could establish the framework by which the world struggles to develop the successor agreement to the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD IEA Report, Pt. 3: Transport Sector Most Difficult Updated: 2008-06-21 03:49:00 Description: The agenda-setting function of last week's IEA climate report was reinforced by two developments yesterday. First, German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed US President George Bush's plans for a "major economies" climate summit held in con...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD IEA Report, Pt. 2: Decarbonising Generation Updated: 2008-06-15 05:28:00 Description: The climate strategy published last week by the International Energy Agency, an analytic response to the commitment made by G8 leaders in 2007 to "seriously consider" GHG emission reduction targets of 50%, is emphatic about the need to &quo...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD IEA Climate Report: The Relentless Logic of War Updated: 2008-06-12 05:06:00 Description: Two days after the derailment of the long-awaited climate debate in the US Senate, the International Energy Agency last week issued its how-to-do-it report on achieving a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The self-regarding greatest...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD General Motors: The Consequences of Strategy Updated: 2008-06-05 17:53:00 Description: For many analysts, the Green Energy War is characterized by the same unpredictable chaos associated with all military conflicts. Intelligence is limited. Unanticipated conditions rapidly appear. Developments cascade with unenvisioned quickness. Even ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Where, Oh Where, Have the CCS Projects Gone? Updated: 2008-06-04 20:05:00 Description: Two dispatches from the carbon capture theater of the Green Energy War's climate front make clear that to describe current efforts as being at a standstill might be wildly optimistic. READ MORE ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD CBO Nuclear Report, Pt. 4: EPAct's Limited Role Updated: 2008-05-30 22:44:00 Description: There may be no aspect of the Green Energy War more in need of an honest scorekeeper than the question of what to expect from nuclear power. This month's appraisal from the Congressional Budget Office provides significant insight into how the legisla...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD CBO Nuclear Report, Pt. 3: Mitigating Factors? Updated: 2008-05-29 00:26:00 Description: Although it contains a remarkable blind spot regarding financial risks stemming from construction schedule slippages, this month's major nuclear assessment from the Congressional Budget Office is appropriately sober about the magnitude of risks attri...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD CBO Nuclear Report, Pt. 2: Construction Cost Peril Updated: 2008-05-26 17:08:00 Description: The notable assessment of the future role of nuclear power, published this month by the Congressional Budget Office, derives significance less from its breadth or depth than from the insight it provides into the thinking of Congress' official fiscal ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD How Big a Nuclear Renaissance Did We Buy? Updated: 2008-05-26 17:02:00 Description: As the debate over the future role of nuclear power in the Green Energy War continues to sharpen, the US Congressional Budget Office released a seminal text this month. The report succinctly describes the financial incentives in the Energy Policy Act...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD New EIA Oil Price Forecast: Oops, We Did It Again Updated: 2008-05-22 21:21:00 Description: In the rear view mirror that seems to guide the US federal government's energy price forecasting, this week's revision to the Energy Information Administration's official "Short-Term Energy Outlook" looks unavoidable. The bigger question, e...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Will Edison's Solar Play Trigger a Feed-In Tariff? Updated: 2008-05-22 21:18:00 Description: Ask any Green Energy Warrior what it will take to win the war, and the answer is likely to be "technological transformation." The feed-in tariffs in Europe and the renewable portfolio standards in the US focus on independent generators to p...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Biofuels: Low Carbon Fuel Standard to the Rescue? Updated: 2008-05-22 21:11:00 Description: Simultaneous with the intense food vs. fuel debate presently underway, biofuels advocates on the environmental front of the Green Energy War have faced forceful arguments over the greenhouse gas impact of current policies promoting ethanol and biodie...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Biofuels: Confusion, Conflict Among Allies Updated: 2008-05-22 21:07:00 Description: Worldwide, there are three principal motivators -- or fronts -- in the accelerated move away from current methods of consuming fossil fuels that is known as the Green Energy War. As with most large scale endeavors attracting so many participants, com...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Biofuels: Wouldn't We Miss 500,000 Barrels a Day? Updated: 2008-05-22 21:03:00 Description: As debate continues to rage over the role which biofuels policies have played in the extraordinary inflation in world food prices, a sobering awareness may spread. Crop-based fuels like ethanol and biodiesel may have already become an indispensable e...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Biofuels Smackdown: When Words Fail Updated: 2008-05-22 20:58:00 Description: The Green Energy War, like every military campaign since the beginning of history, is fraught with unintended consequences. But strategy, once committed to, often takes on an irreversible momentum of its own. And secondary concerns, in the memorable ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Misunderestimating Bush, Part 4: Contempt of Court Updated: 2008-05-22 20:45:00 Description: Based on the historic US Supreme Court decision that brought him to the White House, George W. Bush probably ranks first among all US presidents in his acute appreciation of the co-equal role which the American Constitution affords the judicial branc...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Misunderestimating Bush, Part 3: Thumb on the Scale Updated: 2008-05-22 20:41:00 Description: Parsing last week's Bush climate speech has intelligence value in the Green Energy War irrespective of the esteem in which its deliverer is held. The dimensions of the defensive perimeter thrown up by the Republican Message Command and its business a...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Misunderestimating Bush, Part 2: Clean Coal Katrina Updated: 2008-05-22 20:36:00 Description: President Bush's "new national goal" announced yesterday, to stop the growth in economy-wide GHG emissions by 2025 and to make power sector emissions peak "within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter" rests heavily on technology...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Misunderestimating Bush's Climate Prattle Updated: 2008-05-22 20:31:00 Description: Green Energy Warriors habitually identify George W. Bush as the culprit in the "who thwarted progress?" lineup of suspects which has substituted for US action on climate policy these past seven years. His putative mastermind, Dick Cheney, i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Feed-In Tariffs Pull AES Solar Strategy Away from US Updated: 2008-05-22 20:27:00 Description: Honest military historians have never known what significance to attach to battlefield precedent. Their views range from the dour George Santayana ("those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it") to the more celebratory Yog...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD EIA Oil Price Forecasts: The Limits of Intelligence Updated: 2008-05-22 20:22:00 Description: Like it or not, by the terms of some unwritten protocol governing the Green Energy War, no single piece of intelligence is deemed to hold more value than the expected long-term price of energy. It not only informs strategy, it defines the outer bound...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD LBNL: Reading the Utility Planning Tea Leaves Updated: 2008-05-22 20:17:00 Description: The thankless job of the electric utility supply planner is designed to attract the quantitative, the analytic, and the prudent -- not those with an ideological bent or propensity for heroics. Yes, politics constrains choices. The industry being what...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD 10 Candles for the California ISO Updated: 2008-05-22 19:42:00 Description: The following open letter to Yakout Mansour, CEO of the California transmission grid manager, was written for the April 7, 2008 edition of California Energy Markets. Hey, Yakout -- As a rule, former public officials should be denied access...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD McKinsey, Pt. 3: Seizing the Gold Updated: 2008-05-22 19:38:00 Description: The extraordinary findings on energy productivity published recently by McKinsey & Company is a wartime anomaly. Not so much for its basic conclusion -- Green Energy Warriors have long recited an energy efficiency catechism. But the magnitude (ro...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD McKinsey, Pt. 2: Where the Gold Is Hidden Updated: 2008-05-22 19:33:00 Description: As Americans have been painfully reminded several times over recent decades, the possession of and respect for sound intelligence are prerequisites of successful military campaigns. The Green Energy War is no exception, which makes a clear understand...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD McKinsey: 17% IRR from Productivity Investments Updated: 2008-05-22 19:28:00 Description: The private sector routinely outsources its most perplexing analytic challenges to management consultants. In that extremely competitive profession, the global blue chip standard is widely considered to be McKinsey & Company. Policymakers caught ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD CARB's ZEV Retreat: Dunkirk or Dien Bien Phu? Updated: 2008-05-22 19:21:00 Description: The California Air Resources Board, widely regarded as the most aggressive technology-forcing regulatory agency in the world, has made a shambles of its "zero emissions vehicle" program since first mandating in 1990 that 10 percent of all n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD NRG: Candor on What Holds Back Nuclear Energy Updated: 2008-05-22 19:17:00 Description: The rhetorical fight over nuclear power continues to rage. It will retain a certain shadowboxing feel, at least in the US and EU, until markets or governments begin making the massive financial commitments necessary to construct new units.READ MOR...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD EVs in Israel: Energy Security on Wheels? Updated: 2008-05-22 19:13:00 Description: The energy security front in the Green Energy War is broad and deep. Countries all over the world profess a desire to move away from oil -- some out of concern for the environment and climate change, many from a desire to sidestep the debilitating ec...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Motivating the Generals Updated: 2008-05-22 19:09:00 Description: The past several years have seen considerable, and wishful, attention paid to the role of so-called "enlightened" corporate leaders in pushing the U.S. federal government into a more activist stance on climate issues. Some of this has been ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Feed-In Tariffs: A Redistribution of Power? Updated: 2008-05-22 19:02:00 Description: The zeal of the renewable energy movement is one of the wild cards in the Green Energy War. Opinion surveys show exceptionally broad "do-it-now" support in many countries. The depth and commitment of such support, and its ability to knock d...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Border Carbon Charges: A Whiff of Mustard Gas Updated: 2008-05-22 19:00:00 Description: World War I saw an escalating, though not particularly effective, use of poison gas by the combatants. Because of the horrific effect on victims, more often wounded than killed, the Geneva Convention of 1925 banned the use of such weapons. Considerab...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD UK Renewables: Beating Your Head Against a ROC Updated: 2008-05-22 18:53:00 Description: In the Green Energy War, renewable energy is generally considered to be the ultimate weapon against whatever adversary is identified: energy security, climate change, escalating fossil fuel prices, etc. Significant disagreement exists about time fram...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Entergy's Nuclear Spinoff: No New Construction Updated: 2008-05-22 18:49:00 Description: The second largest operator of nuclear power plants in the US, the New Orleans based company known as Entergy, is trying to secure regulatory approval to spin off five of its 10 nuclear plants into a separate, publicly traded company initially called...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD UK Embraces New Nuclear, Coy About Subsidies Updated: 2008-05-22 18:43:00 Description: Perhaps the most controversial question among climate activists worldwide is what role to assign nuclear power in the Green Energy War. The answer from the Labour Party government in the UK, with full support from the Tory opposition in Parliament: a...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD DOE Efficiency Standards: Historic Weak Link Updated: 2008-05-22 18:39:00 Description: By almost universal consensus, improvements in energy efficiency represent a core strategy in the Green Energy War. Because price signals alone have not prompted efficiency improvements to a level policymakers consider economically rational, there al...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Lightbulbs: Home Front in the Green Energy War Updated: 2008-05-22 18:18:00 Description: Nothing in the Green Energy War has stirred the hyenas of talk radio more than Big Government's move to override the marketplace's judgment about lightbulbs. The energy legislation signed into law by President Bush last December sets efficiency stand...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Carbon Capture and Sequestration in Europe Updated: 2008-05-22 18:03:00 Description: Carbon capture and sequestration, the waste disposal technology underpinning the "clean coal" vision, is perceived by many as a strategic weapon in the Green Energy War's climate front -- if for no other reason than to accommodate the seemi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Does CCS Establish a Wartime Cost Frontier? Updated: 2008-05-22 17:47:00 Description: The presence of abundant deposits of coal in China, India, the United States -- and its general lower cost as a feedstock compared to other energy sources -- creates a presumption that, one way or another, this resource is likely to be used over time...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD IPCC Report Sets Climate Front Time Line Updated: 2008-05-22 17:37:00 Description: The most active front in the Green Energy War this past decade has been the international crescendo of alarm about climate change. The "Fourth Assessment Report" published by the IPCC in November, 2007 defines the time frame by which gover...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD |
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