Tag Archives: energy

Fear of Fracking: The Problem with the Precautionary Principle

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An amazing thing has happened over the last five years.   Against all expectations, American emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, since peaking in 2007, have fallen by 12%, back to 1995 levels.  (As of 2012. US Energy Information Agency).   How can this be?   The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions of greenhouse gases below 1997 levels by 2012, as Europe did.  

Was the achievement a side-effect of reduced economic activity?   It is true that the US economy peaked in late 2007, the same time as emissions.   But the US recession ended in June 2009 and GDP growth since then, though inadequate, has been substantially higher than Europe’s.  Yet US emissions continued to fall, while EU emissions began to rise again after 2009 (EU).  Something else is going on.  read more

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Gulfs in our Energy Security, and the Louisiana Oil Blowout

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In the wake of the April oil well blowout off the coast of Louisiana, policy-makers are rethinking the issue of off-shore drilling.    Clearly the last decade’s neglect of safety rules by federal regulators needs to come to an end.   But what larger implications should we draw for domestic oil drilling? 

The tension has long been between those who give primacy to the environment, on the one hand, and those who give primacy to business on the other.    Probably some of the first group oppose all oil drilling and some of the latter support all oil drilling (even when the government unconscionably offers oil leases on federal lands at below-market rates, as it often has historically).    As so often, the right answer lies in between. read more

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Advice for the New Administration: Spend Green Today, Tax Green in the Future

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Politicians are often tempted to think that a policy to help one goal, say air quality, must also help lots of other goals, say economic growth.  Economists are more likely to presume tradeoffs, and to use the principle of targets and instruments.  That principle says that you cannot expect to hit more than one bird with one stone, except by coincidence.

At the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco, January 3, I was on a panel titled “Energy and the Environment: Policy Advice for the New Administration” (along with some real energy experts; I am a relative latecomer to the area).  Within the framework of targets and instruments, I proposed a matrix such as the one that appears below. read more

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