FREE hosted several conferences this summer with participants from all over America. Several, indeed many, asked me to explain the signs “Shame on NorthWestern Energy.” Here’s my answer. The NorthWestern experience and subsequent public reactions follow the usual pattern. To illustrate I’ll begin with a bit of history and follow with the account of a […]
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What will our energy future look like? Of course, I have no special insights, but I see two interesting trends. Here’s the first. In large, complex economies, meaningful energy transitions occur gradually across many decades. Vaclav Smil, from the University of Manitoba, offers these compelling observations. In most of the world’s developed economies it took […]
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I find the smell of roasting pork a great and powerful magnet. A neighbor and his family were recently roasting half a hog for a graduation party, and I was pulled forcefully toward it. The hog was cooking on a remarkable machine, surely the finest barbeque I’ve seen. It was made one winter by the […]
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Over millennia, plants and animals have adapted to changing climates by migrating to more favorable locales. If the climate continues to change in a manner consistent with current expectations, most warming will occur in the high latitudes. In order for plants and animals to adapt, large areas of habitat, especially those along north-south gradients, must […]
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What accounts for Detroit’s failure to produce a commercially viable electric car? When I discuss this question with students, I sometimes get conspiracy theories. They cite the 2006 documentary film “Who killed the electric car.” The film attributes the demise of GM’s all-electric car, the EV-1, to collusion among the carmakers, the government, and oil […]
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As Montana legislators begin another session, they’ll no doubt consider energy policy. Rather than trying to pick an energy winner, e.g., wind power, they should focus on a far simpler task: crafting policies that promote energy conservation. This will be easy—but only if consumers know the true cost of their energy use. Today’s energy regulations […]
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I have a hockey-playing buddy who is converting an old Honda Civic into an electric car. His goals are modest; he’d like it to be able to make the round trip from Bozeman to Bridger Bowl. I wish him well with this fun and constructive project, but I expect it will be some time before […]
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Coal is a ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive resource. Montana holds one-third of all U.S. coal deposits, representing about 8 percent of the world’s total. The International Energy Agency reports that between 2000 and 2007, global coal use increased by 4.8 percent. That’s three times the growth of oil consumption and nearly twice the rate of […]
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The Department of Energy estimates year-end domestic oil consumption will fall 5.4 percent. This is the steepest decline since 1980. Only a few months ago, seemingly relentless growth in China and India, combined with tight supplies, and a weak U.S. dollar, pushed oil to nearly $150 a barrel. Now concerns over a global recession have […]
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Recently I spent several hours discussing environmental issues with an honors class at MSU. One of the points I emphasized was the importance of thinking beyond slogans. When seeking to craft effective environmental policies, good intentions are simply not enough. I left the class with a handout that included this quote from Mark Twain: “It […]
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