Energy Information Administration

I Suppose We Can Just Hope That EIA Is Wrong

The federal estimate of energy-related carbon emissions in 2050 should get our attention.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) issues projections for future energy use across all sectors of society. They aren’t really predictions of our energy future — they are more like conversation starters. In fact, some researchers suggest that EIA shows a consistent bias by forecasting more energy use than actually occurs. Yet, …

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The Current U.S. Energy Pathway is Paved with Coal, Oil and Natural Gas

How well are we doing, in our efforts to strip fossil fuels from our energy mix? If you want to believe the most recent estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the answer is: not so well. As EIA prepares its 2013 report on the impact of various proposed policy changes, it asks itself: …

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Energy Forecasts, Accuracy and Climate Change

The U.S.  Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides very important forecasts of energy prices, consumption, efficiency and so forth.  The EIA produces short, long term and annual outlooks that are widely regarded as among the best and most independent forecasts of the state of the nation’s energy use.  The agency even has statutory authority to operate …

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Another victim of the budget deal: key US greenhouse gas data?

It was my wonderful law school professor Gary Blasi who first introduced me to the idea that “what gets measured, gets done.”  I’m thinking of him and reading this news in some mixture of awe (at our seeming collective ability to ignore problems) and anger (at same): The final fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget provides $95.4 …

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Good news and bad news on climate change

First the bad news, which is not exactly new but is getting new attention. In the absence of strong policy interventions, warming may be much worse than the IPCC’s projections.  MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change issued a report in January projecting median surface warming in a “business as usual” …

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