Tag Archives: fossil fuel

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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Production Gap: Actual Emissions vs. Paris Promises

Figure 1 – Relative country contributions to total global carbon emissions and percentages of emissions over time, 2017 The new administration and the accompanying new leadership of many federal offices have strongly signaled a renewed and strengthened dedication to confront … Continue reading

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Energy Resilience: Winter in Texas

 I have written often about resilience and its importance in our energy transition. You can put the word into the search box and see a plethora of posts. Most of them focus on California and Australia, where climate change has … 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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Two Contradictory Versions of “Too Expensive”

I’m still in lockdown but I have the resources to communicate with the world. I have the opportunity to expose myself to different kinds of information while avoiding exposure to the pandemic. The piece below came from Forbes magazine, which, … Continue reading

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Big Oil’s in Trouble: What’s Next?

The political fight over mitigation of climate change now spans more than two generations. The fossil fuel industry has long seen mitigation as a direct threat to its business model. It has, whether directly or indirectly, used institutions such as … Continue reading

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Energy Saving on Specific Campuses

There are two branches to making campuses more sustainable: reducing carbon emissions (with the objective of zero carbon by mid-century) and increasing resiliency in the energy supply. We have dealt with both objectives throughout this blog. One campus’ conversion to … Continue reading

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Negative Energy Pricing

Last week, I outlined some markers of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the global energy transition and how that ties in with climate change in the long run. For instance, the global decrease in GDP and the resulting drop … Continue reading

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