Tag Archives: Adaptation

Conclusions From COP26

This semester, I am teaching two courses directly related to climate change. I start both with an exploration of the basic science involved. It’s a multidisciplinary topic that requires using first principles to address the overlap of the physical, natural, … Continue reading

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Managing the Energy Transition: Specifics

Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, may have asked, “what good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?” (September 21, 2021) but this week, in the context of COP26, the current CEO of Exxon expressed a different … Continue reading

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Managing the Energy Transition on a Global Scale

Figure 1 Figure 2 I have been (starting on September 21st) focusing on energy companies’ transitions away from fossil fuels; many are finally realizing that such global shifts are necessary if we cannot implement an acceptable way to capture the … 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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Universal Hydrogen Economy

My last 5 blogs have looked at global energy companies’ apparent green shift, questioning their objectives: where are they shifting? Last week, I promised that I’d address both this and the timing needed for the transition. To address the first … Continue reading

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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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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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Infrastructure Timing

They did it! Today, after a long slog of debate, the US Senate has finally passed a bipartisan version of the infrastructure bill that came out of the American Jobs Plan the Biden administration proposed in April. For more information … Continue reading

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Heath Death Indicators

I have been spending most of my evenings watching the Tokyo Olympics.  One of the most frequent questions directed to athletes who have performed outdoors is how they handle the heat. Right now, Tokyo is having highs of 90oF, with … Continue reading

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