Tag Archives: Oil

Learning from COVID-19 to mitigate the energy transition

Two years ago, I wrote a blog, “Cherry-Picking Data in an Energy Transition: Renewables & Polar Bears” (September 17, 2019) that took stock of where we stood in the ongoing energy transition. I am repeating the photos from that blog … Continue reading

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The End of Oil?

The UN COP26 is almost here: The latest round of global climate talks will take place from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Thousands of government delegates and people from civil society, business and the media … Continue reading

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The Price of the Green Shift

I started this series of blogs about energy companies and their shift toward greener power sources with a citation from an earlier blog (July 17, 2013), quoting then-CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, who opined, “What good is it to save … Continue reading

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Energy Companies Shifting Greener

What does it mean for oil companies to shift toward being “greener”? How can we measure that change? More than 8 years ago, I talked about how we can use the amount of unextracted fuels as a marker for this … Continue reading

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External Pressures on Oil Companies May Prompt Change. We’ll See.

I posted my first blog here on Earth Day, April 22, 2012. I’m now approaching 500 (498) blog posts. Almost all of them, directly or indirectly, have focused on climate change and the energy transition that we are necessarily going … Continue reading

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Utilities: Calculating our Carbon Footprints

I have used Table 1 in the last few blogs (starting on May 11th) to show the carbon intensities for the various sources of energy that we use in large buildings (greater than 25,000ft2) in NYC. From there, I’ve shown … Continue reading

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Electricity Generation: Carbon Intensity and Composition

Two years ago (June 18, 2019), I discussed higher-education carbon emissions. This included the lists that organizations such as the Sierra Club made to rank campuses across the country by their emissions. We split emissions into three categories: Scope 1 … Continue reading

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The American Jobs Plan & Power Generation by Source

Last week, when I discussed the new $2.3 trillion “American Jobs Plan,” I listed the costs of items that directly address climate change mitigation. The second most expensive item was the $174 billion program for electric vehicle incentive. A few … 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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COVID and Climate: Learning From One to Use On the Other

I have mentioned the concept of “constructive destruction” in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic before (June 16, 2020). By necessity, our status quo is being disrupted, but that also means we are beginning to grow in unexpected ways. At … Continue reading

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