Energy

By Amy Myers Jaffe | – One option the U.S. and other nations have for ratcheting up pressure on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine is reducing their Russian energy purchases. U.K. Foreign Minister Liz Truss has proposed that the G7 nations – the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – […]

Climate Crisis

Scorching the Earth: When Big Oil and Gas Flare, the Methane traps 80x as Much Heat as C02

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Nicole Sadek, Zoha Tunio and Sarah Hunt | Howard Center for Investigative Journalism< When companies flare, they do more than burn natural gas. They burn money ( Cronkite News ) – Every year, U.S. oil and gas companies set fire to billions of cubic feet of natural gas and directly vent an additional unknown […]

China

China is Rising as a Superpower by vastly Expanding Planet-Wrecking Fossil Fuels

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Consider us at the edge of the sort of epochal change not seen for centuries, even millennia. By the middle of this century, we will be living under such radically altered circumstances that the present decade, the 2020s, will undoubtedly seem like another era entirely, akin perhaps to the Middle Ages. […]

Batteries

By Blocking Green Energy, Manchin and Republicans are Siding with Russia and Endangering US National Security

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Vladimir Putin just made you poorer. Your retirement funds invested in the stock market just tanked. The cost of getting to work just spiked. US energy security is imperiled even though we don’t import petroleum or methane gas from Russia. High prices affect everyone in the world, and US allies […]

Batteries

Will Germany’s Pause of Russian Gas Pipeline over Ukraine Galvanize its Green Energy Switch?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, Germany’s socialist Chancellor, Olaf Scholtz, suspended the permitting process for the Nord Stream 2 methane gas pipeline that had been built to bring Siberian gas to Germany, over Russia’s declaration that two Ukrainian provinces were independent states. The $11 billion pipeline has already been constructed, but was awaiting […]

Climate Crisis

First solar canal project is a win for water, energy, air and climate in California

The Conversation

By Roger Bales | – Mounting evidence suggests the western United States is now in its worst megadrought in at least 1,200 years. Groundwater supplies are being overpumped in many places, and the dryness, wildfires and shrinking water supplies are making climate change personal for millions of people. As an engineer, I have been working […]

Australia

Replaced by Mega-battery: Massive 3 GW Coal Plant in Australia forced to Close by Cheaper Wind and Solar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Australian firm Orion Energy in New South Wales is closing its massive, nearly 3 gigawatt Eraring coal plant eight years early. The largest coal plant in the country will be gone by 2025 instead of 2032. This development is good news for the earth, since coal is the single […]

Climate Crisis

Why we must not allow Climate change to create a dangerous state of “collective helplessness” in Liberal Society

Benjamin Wehrmann

( Clean Energy Wire ) – The “increasingly tangible” threat of climate change and other risks at a global scale, such as the coronavirus pandemic or geopolitical tensions in many regions, are spurring a sense of “collective helplessness” in societies around the world, the Munich Security Conference’s (MSC) 2022 report has found. “Liberal democracies appear […]

Climate Crisis

Conflict with Russia is Raising your Gasoline Bill; an Electric Car is the Answer

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Reporters pressed White House spokesperson Jen Psaki on Wednesday about the likelihood that any Russian military engagement in Ukraine will raise petroleum prices further. Ensuing US sanctions on Russia would keep some of its petroleum off the market, as has already happened to Iran, at a time when demand is […]