Jim Pierobon is Founder and principal writer of The Energy Fix. He is a policy, marketing and social media strategist who has reported on, testified and consulted about smarter grids, cyber-security as it affects the power grid, fossil fuel shortages, price spikes, energy efficiency and the rise and fall -- and the rise again of nuclear and renewable energy sources.Risks loom from closure of 25 gigawatts of U.S. coal power plants by 2015 = 8% of capacity
Is there enough natural gas that is findable and deliverable to plug most of the gap created by the projected closure of 25.5 gigawatts (GW) of U.S. generating capacity from coal between now and year-end 2015? That is an increasingly urgent question facing U.S. utilities, power marketers and regulators. The risks of brownouts and perhaps [...]
10 reasons to create a carbon tax
The possible revival of serious talks about a U.S. carbon tax should take thought-leaders to the most recent credible analysis in a book finished earlier this year by Shi-Ling Hsu, a professor at the University of British Columbia: The Case for a Carbon Tax. Here I cut to the chase to spotlight the 10 reasons [...]
FAST FIX: Protests to Arctic Drilling Getting More Creative — and More Viral
Leave it to Greenpeace to find more satirical ways to protest drilling in Arctic regions. In one of its latest ploys, Greenpeace took over a billboard to reach motorists heading into downtown Houston near Shell’s U.S. headquarters, not exactly a fertile environment for anti-drilling activists. But that billboard (left) and others like throughout the U.S. [...]
U.S. carbon tax talk on the rebound: enough for both parties to dislike . . . and pass?
It might only apply to industry emissions and nary a Republican would dare admit to seriously considering it, but talk of a possible carbon tax is making the rounds in political Washington and elsewhere. Think about it. A carbon tax does not lack for support among mainstream energy and fiscal policy experts; it has drawn [...]