Tag Archives: EU

Back from Germany

 A field of dead sunflowers  in Farsleben, Germany I have described Germany’s energy transition in earlier blogs (December 9 – 30, 2014, and October 1 – 8, 2019). As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I followed my trip to … Continue reading

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Can we Advance the Transition to a More Sustainable Future?

Where are we now and how can we advance or accelerate the energy transition to a more sustainable future? I am now in Europe, and this is the last blog that I wrote before I left. In fact, I started … Continue reading

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Analyzing Global Energy Inflation

In almost every news broadcast, fuel inflation holds the top spot. This is not surprising. With an energy inflation growth of around 30% per year (see Figure 1) and the average price of gasoline at around $5/gallon (occasionally up to … Continue reading

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Confusions: From Ukraine to Oil Companies

Last week’s blog focused on globalization. Per definition, we are part of the global picture and from this perspective, we have a direct interest in whatever global conflict emerges. Two of our present global conflicts can serve as guides: the … Continue reading

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“Peak” Oil:  Self-Limiting or Open-Ended?

The Age of Oil started around 1800, when drilling techniques started to become available to extract oil from the ground. Figure 1 shows the oil price changes normalized to a constant US$ (2014) from the American Civil War until 2015. … Continue reading

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Russia: The Large Gas Station With Nuclear Weapons

The current situation between Russia and Ukraine started in November 2021, when the Russian army began encircling Ukraine. It was about two months before the Winter Olympics were scheduled to start, and President Putin had promised President Xi that he … Continue reading

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Universal Hydrogen Economy: Part 2

This week, we’re back to our discussion about the hydrogen economy. The Economist published a great summary of the related challenges we’re facing right now: Today’s hydrogen business is, in global terms, reasonably small, very dirty and completely vital. Some 90m … Continue reading

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Breaking With Business as Usual

My last three blogs focused on our collective attempts to limit anthropogenic global warming to an increase of 1.5oC in global temperature or, failing that, no more than 2oC. The series of blogs started with a detailed road map recently … Continue reading

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Winners and Losers: COVID and Coal

President Biden signed 17 executive orders immediately after his inauguration on January 20th (January 26th blog). Many of them nullified President Trump’s policies which had deliberately ignored climate change and thwarted mitigation efforts. Foremost of these new policies was the … Continue reading

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School Energy Use: Smart Grids & the Long Term

Last week I outlined my school’s effort to measure its energy use during the COVID-19 lockdown. As I mentioned there, I got the data following my (approved) visit to the campus. While I was there, I realized that even without … Continue reading

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