News & Articles on Fossil Fuels
Fossil Fuels ares not renewable, obviously. They are listed here for organizational reasons. I don’t write about fossil fuels–as a rule. However, fossil fuels and those who promote them are not going away quietly. Thus, I felt it necessary to include the topic to distinguish articles that are not about nuclear power or renewable energy.
A knife-edge quest: Lord of the Rings resonates at Cop28 climate summit
By
Larry Elliott
The past 30 years have increasingly seen the environment hard-wired into policymaking. Net zero targets, the commitments to phase out of fossil fuels, investment in renewables, electric cars, official measures of economic wellbeing that look beyond growth: all of these are signs of progress. The only intellectual developments of any real note in economics since the end of the cold war have been green ones: de-growth and the circular economy, for example.
Hydrogen Is Just Another Hole for Natural Gas to Fill
By
External Source
As the grand ambitions for that last endeavor have begun to show signs of waning, the industry has once again pivoted, this time to embrace its potential as part of America’s climate future. When the Biden administration announced this year that its build-out of facilities for hydrogen—a fuel that could help reduce emissions from heavy industry—would have a starring role for natural gas, it was hardly a surprise: The industry appears to have worked hard to ensure its place.
A treasure beneath our feet’: How the Dutch went down the toilet looking for heat
By
External Source
“The warmth comes from showers, the toilet, wastewater from washing, from the dishwasher, from the washing machine,” says Postuma. “Together it all gives, throughout the year, a temperature between 15 and 18 degrees. And we are going to make a bypass around the main sewer, put a heat exchanger around it and bring it to the houses in insulated pipes. We place it in an electric heat pump, and the water is heated up to 60 or 70C – medium temperature.”
Canada’s Carbon Price Working, So Of Course It’s Being Attacked
By
Michael Barnard
Canada’s carbon price, which is mostly invisible to most people, most of the time, is back in headlines. For fiscal and political reasons, the Liberal government exempted homes heating with oil from the tax for three years. Naturally, the Conservatives have used this to raise populist grievances that mostly don’t hold any water. I’ve been avoiding writing about this as it’s a bit sigh-worthy, much tempest in a teapot without much Earl Gray coming out of the spout. But a long-term acquaintance, the executive who gave me great career opportunities in Canada and Latin America a little over a decade ago, reached out recently with a good question.
Another Month & Another Delay & Cost Overrun For Canada’s Black Elephant
By
Michael Barnard
Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project never had a business case that made the slightest sense. Perhaps that’s why its construction project is such a train wreck. In the latest installment of the tragicomedy, TMX — the Crown corporation that owns the dead asset — has requested a route deviation that will delay completion by at least nine months and add costs to the effort.
The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind
By
Jérôme Guillet
Oscar Wilde famously wrote that people “know the price of everything and the value of nothing” suggesting there is a difference between the two concepts of price and value. In the power market, due to some of its structural features, it is even more confusing as you also need to deal with the cost of power, which may again be different. The below, derived from an article I wrote almost 15 years ago, tries to make sense of the differences between the 3, and how these are ultimately decided by political choices.
