July 2008

How Long Can Some Countries Continue Suppressing Gasoline Prices?

Lynne Kiesling Randall Parker has a post noting that in May 2008, vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. fell 3.7% relative to May 2007. Not surprising, given that prices have risen by about, say 37% (giving us an estimated price elasticity of demand of -0.1, which is higher than normally seen, so yes, we have …

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Do Retail Gasoline Prices Go Up Faster Than They Come Down?

Michael Giberson Usually, retail gasoline prices do go up faster than they fall. Martha White, in Slate’s Explainer column, explains: Analyses of gasoline economics show that when the price of oil rises, it takes up to four weeks for gas station prices to catch up, with most of the increase taking place within the first …

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New Nanotech Material Uses Waste Heat to Generate Electricity

Lynne Kiesling OK, here’s another one for the “how cool is this?” file: a new material than can generate electricity from engine waste heat in hot environments, such as automobile engines: The new material is called thallium-doped lead telluride. The development could have a direct application for converting car engine exhaust heat into electricity, according …

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New York Times on In-home Energy Monitoring Technologies

Lynne Kiesling Boy, the New York Times is on a roll! First they have a great article on British home electricity technologies and retail price signals last week, which I mentioned in my post that critiqued Rebecca Smith’s recent Wall Street Journal article on Texas electricity markets. Now they have a really good article on …

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Severin Borenstein on Real-time Retail Electricity Pricing

Lynne Kiesling Here’s a video of Severin Borenstein discussing real-time pricing in retail electricity markets, from a presentation at CITRIS in April 2007: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdD4sYvDa08&hl=en&fs=1] It’s a good overview of some of the applied economic and policy issues in retail electricity pricing. Recommended to all. One specific thing I would add, though, is that he characterizes …

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Green Tech Media

If you like what we discuss here at KP and you have not been reading Green Tech Media, you should be. There’s lots of good stuff there on renewables, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and other energy technology topics.

Tom Friedman from Aspen on Energy and His New Book

Lynne Kiesling Earlier this month Tom Friedman gave a talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival about his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. I recommend all three of the video outtakes to all of you, regardless of your position on climate change, carbon policy, etc. In particular, the third clip where he discusses smart grid …

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Electricity Markets and Price Signals: Customer Technology in Britain, and a Misleading Wsj Article About Texas

Lynne Kiesling Two recent news articles highlight the relevance of electricity price signals and intelligent end-use technology during a period of increasing fuel prices, and the juxtaposition of the two articles highlights consumers changing their behavior in the face of high energy prices. In short, the institutional change required to achieve thriving, healthy retail electricity …

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