The Obama administration will soon announce its five-year plan for managing offshore oil and gas (OCS oil + gas leasing) from 2017 to 2022. Because of potential impacts on tourism and the environment, in its March draft version of the plan the President already scrapped an auction of Atlantic drilling rights in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
The Before the Flood website recently had a great article about why nuclear power is now a dead end. It was based on solid research and a deep + broad understanding of the fast-changing energy industry.
The International Energy Agency published its annual World Energy Outlook report this week at the United Nations COP22 climate change talks being held in Marrakech, and hailed renewable energy and natural gas as the biggest winners in the race to meet energy demand growth through to 2040.
This is not a foreign policy blog, but it’s worth noting that cleantech is indeed the critical solution to two of the largest foreign policy issues in the history of the United States — oil dependency and climate change.
One of the key differences between Clinton and Trump was their stances on climate change. Clinton had a strong plan to continue the USA’s leadership position, and Trump disputes its existence. However, a Trump presidency isn’t a disaster for climate action globally or in the US. In fact, he might actually reduce US emissions, however unintentionally.
The levelized cost of renewable electricity in the United Kingdom has continued to fall, and recent figures published by the UK Government show that they are lower than ever.
The US presidential election is over. I know many of you are waiting for my initial comments on what this means for cleantech. Donald Trump’s candidacy has been so devoid of specific policy proposals, he has flip-flopped so many times on a large variety of issues, and he has so little (er … no) experience in government, that this question is more up in the air than not. Nonetheless, I will present several documented facts, some probabilities, and some pure speculation in the article below.
The United States has an election tomorrow. Unfortunately, ~50% of the voting public won’t vote.
Reuters is reporting that seven leading oil and gas companies will be joining forces to create a renewable energy investment fund for the development and promotion of renewable energy.
Clearly, the political focus of the year is a certain mind-boggling presidential candidate who hardly touches policy matters — and when he does, tends to push absurd ideas and proposals that would tank our economy, lead to world war, destroy our climate and environment, and piss off our allies. However, as I wrote the other day, Donald Trump’s success in politics wasn’t magic — far from it. Donald Trump’s success in politics was built on the back of decades worth of conspiracy theories and anti-science rhetoric and extremism from the Republican Party. (Come on, people, there’s a reason he won the GOP nomination.)
