Energy

Three Ways of Dodging Responsibility

After disaster strikes, there are some tried-and-true ways of avoiding responsibility.

In the wake of the Texas blackouts, we’re seeing a number of familiar moves to deflect blame by the usual suspects–politicians, regulators, and CEOs. These evasive tactics all begin with a core truth: Eliminating all risk is impossible and would be too expensive even if it weren’t. But then they spin that truth in various …

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Getting Down to the Nitty Griddy

United States at Night

The Texas Blackout and the Politics of Price Making

As has been widely reported over the past week, some Texas electricity customers are now facing astronomically high electricity bills as a result of the recent power grid crisis. Under the Texas system, which is as close to a fully deregulated system of electricity provisioning as we have in the U.S., retail customers are allowed …

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New Report: Improving Access to Energy Data

Policy solutions to support the data needed for resilient decarbonization

Today, the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law and the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law are releasing a new report, Data Access for a Decarbonized Grid, which highlights key policy solutions to expand access to the energy data needed to operate a fully decarbonized …

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How Much Should Texas Invest in Grid Resilience?

The Texas blackouts provide a case study in how to think through resilience issues.

As we begin to think through the long-term response to the Texas blackout, there’s a lot we don’t yet know.  The ultimate issues are how much resilience we need against events like this  and how we should obtain it. It’s helpful to lay out the kinds of questions we need to be asking as we …

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A Tale of Two Blackouts

NASA Earth Observatory, Feb. 19, 2021

Learning from the Texas and California Power Grid Failures

The Texas blackouts earlier this week have reminded us once again of the vital importance of electricity as part of the basic infrastructure of everyday life and the terrible consequences that ensue when the grid fails.  Recent reports indicate that dozens of people have died as a result of the extreme weather and blackouts and …

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The Big Chill

What went wrong in Texas and what can we learn from it?

The rolling blackouts in Texas were national news. Texas calls itself the energy capital of the United States, yet it couldn’t keep the lights on. Conservatives were quick to blame reliance on wind power, just as they did last summer when California faced power interruptions due to a heat wave.  What really happened? It’s true …

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Peer Production of Climate Action

Wikipedia and climate actions by cities and states have more in common than you might think.

Wikipedia is celebrating its twentieth birthday. When it was launched, this effort to create an encyclopedia seemed like a joke compared with Microsoft’s big-money effort, which was called Encarta.  Encarta is long gone but Wikipedia has thrived beyond anyone’s expectations.  Today, Wikipedia has fifty-five million entries, with 270,000 active editors a month.  While imperfect, the …

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Hydrogen — Fuel of the Future?

Using this tiny molecule for energy may be key to decarbonization.

As it has more than once in the past, hydrogen has become a hot topic in climate policy circles.  Although widespread use of hydrogen is probably a decade away, there’s a lot of excitement about the prospect. The fundamental appeal of hydrogen as an energy source is that it produces water rather than carbon dioxide …

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Renewable Energy in the Midwest

Under Trump, it’s been a mixed picture, with progress except in two states. What were Midwestern states doing during the four years Trump was busy promoting fossil fuels? States with Democratic governors are making progress.  Of the three states under unified Republican control, two are trying to prop up coal. Ohio has decreased support for …

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Three of Yesterday’s Stories of Climate Progress

There was Biden’s Executive Order, of course. And two other things. Or maybe three.

Yesterday, I read three encouraging stories about the U.S. and climate change.  One was about action by the federal government, one about action by the states, and one about action by the private sector.  The biggest news was from the federal government, in the form of Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at …

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