Michael Giberson The Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at the jobs numbers that have been cited in news stories about the Keystone XL pipeline and traces them back to their shaky foundations. It is a detailed and useful reminder of the slim link to reality that these claims have. (I use an easier method: …
Keystone Xl Jobs: Estimates Range from a Few Thousand to About 1.47 Bazillion Read More »
Michael Giberson In the State of the Union address, President Obama invoked a little federal government research history and then jumped to the kind of logical non sequitur so common to those who see the world through politically-colored glasses: The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner …
Was Federal Government Support Critical to the Shale Gas Breakthrough? Read More »
Michael Giberson For your convenience, the energy policy parts from last night’s State of the Union address. Be aware that I’ve dropped some non-energy words, phrases or even short sentences without indicating where such edits happened in order to make this extract relatively clean. In some cases I kept non-energy bits that seemed useful as …
Michael Giberson Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is taking bets on which cliché President Obama will utter first in tonight’s State of the Union Address. The favorite is “We have more work to do,” at 8-to-1, but I like “Don’t get me wrong” at 20-to-1. (HT to MR.) Given that energy issues are reported to be a main …
Michael Giberson Robert Rapier posts this chart: Rapier noted that last week Obama observed the energy production trends: “Under my administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down,” Obama added in his statement. “In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with …
Michael Giberson Yesterday the Energy Information Administration released the results of its analysis of possible price effects from increased natural gas exports, and the Wall Street Journal finds the drama (“Gas Prices Could Rise With Exports”): Increased exports of U.S. natural gas could drive up domestic gas prices as much as 54% in 2018, federal officials …
Wsj Says Eia Says Natural Gas Prices Could Jump 54 Percent with Exports Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I found some things striking in yesterday’s SOPA/PIPA protests. One was Jim Harper’s clear and cogent statement that the Internet is not a thing, it’s a set of protocols stipulating how computers communicate with each other. That set of protocols is a platform, and those protocols are not the government’s to regulate. Jim’s …
Sopa/Pipa Protests and the Economics of Content Market Power Read More »
Michael Giberson Michael Graetz’s The End of Energy is a fascinating run through 40 years of U.S. energy policy making. Engaging and at times even entertaining if you are at all interested in energy issues. In Graetz’s telling it is mostly a story of 40 years of failure, though he notes a few successes along …
Michael Giberson If you read Jonathan Adler’s post at the Volokh Conspiracy (and reposted at PERC’s Percolator blog), it makes the EPA seem a little silly for insisting on fining companies when it would be impossible for companies to comply with the law. But don’t blame the EPA, which is just implementing a law that Congress passed and …
Epa Fines Companies for Not Doing the Impossible Read More »
Michael Giberson The basic math is pretty simple: most gasoline in the U.S. has about 10 percent ethanol, so the the 45 cents/gallon VEETC subsidy reduced the price of gasoline about 4.5 cents. The subsidy expired at the end of 2011, so one reason gasoline prices have gone up a few cents since New Year’s …
Loss of Ethanol Subsidy Boosts Gasoline Prices a Little, E85 Prices a Lot Read More »
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